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Post by marksenior on Jan 30, 2015 1:21:42 GMT
Well it seems the Green's first and second choice approach has worked here, almost 300 votes separating Mills and Robinson, compared to only 1 vote between say the two UKIP candidates. Surely one of those Green figures must be wrong? Edit: If they're not wrong have they ever had such a disparity before in voting figures where they've used the 1st choice, etc option? Yes it has happened frequently before in Brighton and Hove multi elections where it has long been standard practice for Greens to have on he ballot paper 1st/2nd/3rd choice |
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Post by middleenglander on Jan 30, 2015 1:47:37 GMT
West Berkshire, Purley-on-Thames - Conservative hold | Party | 2015 votes | 2015 share | since 2011 "top" | since 2011 "average" | since 2007 "top" | since 2007 "average" | | Conservative | 936 | 68.1% | +1.0% | -2.2% | +6.8% | +6.3% | | Labour | 172 | 12.5% | -8.7% | -6.0% | -0.1% | -0.2% | | UKIP | 163 | 11.9% | from nowhere | from nowhere | from nowhere | from nowhere | | Liberal Democrat | 104 | 7.6% | -4.1% | -3.7% | -5.8% | -5.0% | | Green | |
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| -12.7% | -12.9% | | Total votes | 1,375 |
| 57% | 61% | 66% | 67% |
Swing Labour to Conservative ~5% (top) / ~2% (average) since 2011 and ~3½% since 2007 - similarly Liberal Democrat to Conservative ~2½% since 2011 and ~6% since 2007 St Albans, Marshalswick South - Conservative hold 2 seats | Party | 2015 votes
- top candidate | 2015 votes
- 2nd candidate | 2015 votes
- average | 2015 share
- average | since 2014 | since 2012 | since 2011 | since 2010 | | Conservative | 667 | 647 | 657 | 33.5% | -5.1% | -6.4% | -13.2% | -6.2% | | Liberal Democrats | 495 | 488 | 492 | 25.0% | +5.8% | -2.9% | -0.2% | -15.3% | | Labour | 406 | 312 | 359 | 18.3% | -4.4% | -0.6% | +0.1% | +4.2% | | Green | 450 | 166 | 308 | 15.7% | +5.5% | +7.6% | +5.8% | +9.8% | | UKIP | 148 | 147 | 147 | 7.5% | -1.7% | +2.2% | from nowhere | from nowhere | | Total votes | 2,166 | 1,760 | 1,963 |
| 78% | 84% | 64% | 46% |
Swing Conservative to Liberal Democrat 5½% since 2014, 1¾% since 2012, 6½% since 2011 but Liberal Democrat to Conservative 4½% since 2010 - Liberal Democrats regained second place having narrowly lost it to Labour in 2014
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Pimpernal
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Post by Pimpernal on Jan 30, 2015 5:54:14 GMT
It was a tactic used in some London boroughs last May. Not really I'm much in favour of and not sure that there's any evidence that its really helpful in a multi-member FPTP situation. In an STV election, i could see the argument for it, but as a stubborn headed voter who doesn't like being told what to do, I may just be tempted to vote the other way round anyway. I agree with Tony, in that if anyone *tells* me which way to vote, I'm likely to do the opposite, as I'm sure many others are. Having said that, it looks like a ward where the Lib Dem vote is collapsing from first place some years ago to a point where we could get one candidate well above them, which may then put us in a position to challenge at a later election. So possibly a reasonable tactic. A better tactic imho would have been to stand a single candidate for that very reason... when presenting the party % on the next election you'd have placed better... |
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Pimpernal
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Post by Pimpernal on Jan 30, 2015 6:34:08 GMT
Well it seems the Green's first and second choice approach has worked here, almost 300 votes separating Mills and Robinson, compared to only 1 vote between say the two UKIP candidates. Has it worked? Just under 300 people who were fully prepared to vote for a Green Party candidate, were not prepared to go the whole hog and use all their votes for the Green Party. Maybe there were only 130 people prepared to go the whole hog, but 350 people willing to give them 1 vote and keep 1 vote for their usual party... What is also noticeable is the partial breakdown of the alphabetical advantage rule |
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Post by No Offence Alan on Jan 30, 2015 8:08:15 GMT
I agree with Tony, in that if anyone *tells* me which way to vote, I'm likely to do the opposite, as I'm sure many others are. Having said that, it looks like a ward where the Lib Dem vote is collapsing from first place some years ago to a point where we could get one candidate well above them, which may then put us in a position to challenge at a later election. So possibly a reasonable tactic. A better tactic imho would have been to stand a single candidate for that very reason... when presenting the party % on the next election you'd have placed better... No they would have just given free 2nd votes to the other parties. I appreciate that UKIP could never adopt the Greens' approach due to conflicting egos within their party. |
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Pimpernal
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Post by Pimpernal on Jan 30, 2015 8:28:28 GMT
A better tactic imho would have been to stand a single candidate for that very reason... when presenting the party % on the next election you'd have placed better... No they would have just given free 2nd votes to the other parties. I appreciate that UKIP could never adopt the Greens' approach due to conflicting egos within their party. About 30% of voters just plump for a single candidate anyway. And no matter how you spin it, a single candidate in this election for the Greens would have resulted in a better bar chart next time, at a minimum showing them 'ahead' of Labour and possibly even the Lib dems. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Jan 30, 2015 8:41:07 GMT
There were hardly any ballot papers where they had voted for a single candidate. The number of split votes and the variety of these was surprising though. Although the votes for the two UKIP candidates are almost identical, there were actually a large number of split votes going for one of the UKIP candidate and all manner of other candidates. It is only coincidental that the final result was the same
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Jan 30, 2015 9:26:34 GMT
I wonder if the Green Party realises that their approach implicitly damns one of their candidates as being second-rate.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2015 10:29:30 GMT
I wonder if the Green Party realises that their approach implicitly damns one of their candidates as being second-rate. There's one for the diary. David mischief-making for another party. Never see that normally. |
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Jan 30, 2015 11:31:51 GMT
I wonder if the Green Party realises that their approach implicitly damns one of their candidates as being second-rate. There's one for the diary. David mischief-making for another party. Never see that normally. Oh, don't be such a twit. You really ought to know better. The point I was making was that the Green approach of trying to draw attention to the multiple votes is more likely to backfire because the uncommitted voter, on seeing a ballot paper where one of the candidates is described as "Green Party First Choice Candidate", and another is "Green Party Second Choice Candidate", is likely to ask why they are so described. It is possible that the voter will say to themselves "Ah, we have two votes, and the Green Party is simply drawing my attention to the fact that they wish me to use both of them." But it is more likely that the voter will say to themselves "Well, if that's supposed to be my first choice, then I am free to put my second vote elsewhere." If there was total freedom in party descriptions then you could get round it by having Jones's description as "Green Party - Vote also for Smith" and Smith's description as "Green Party - Vote also for Jones". But this isn't available because of the limited number of descriptions allowed. I would suggest "Green Party: one of two candidates" or "Green Party: one of three candidates" might alert voters to the fact of a multi-member election and get away from the problem of seeming to give one priority. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2015 11:52:00 GMT
There's one for the diary. David mischief-making for another party. Never see that normally. Oh, don't be such a twit. You really ought to know better. The point I was making was that the Green approach of trying to draw attention to the multiple votes is more likely to backfire because the uncommitted voter, on seeing a ballot paper where one of the candidates is described as "Green Party First Choice Candidate", and another is "Green Party Second Choice Candidate", is likely to ask why they are so described. It is possible that the voter will say to themselves "Ah, we have two votes, and the Green Party is simply drawing my attention to the fact that they wish me to use both of them." But it is more likely that the voter will say to themselves "Well, if that's supposed to be my first choice, then I am free to put my second vote elsewhere." If there was total freedom in party descriptions then you could get round it by having Jones's description as "Green Party - Vote also for Smith" and Smith's description as "Green Party - Vote also for Jones". But this isn't available because of the limited number of descriptions allowed. I would suggest "Green Party: one of two candidates" or "Green Party: one of three candidates" might alert voters to the fact of a multi-member election and get away from the problem of seeming to give one priority. I was just having a gentle laugh, David - I'm sure you knew that. Your original message is of course untrue, and I thought was intended as a bit of fun itself; no one is being 'damned' or is 'second rate', it's a tactic t try and maximise the vote, and as demonstrated here and elsewhere, it works. Yes, voters have the freedom to split their vote as you describe, but they would have that freedom anyway regardless of what a party puts, and they often do split (as Pete has indicated). There's nothing to 'get away from', as what you describe as a'problem' isn't a problem - but part of the intention. |
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Post by marksenior on Jan 30, 2015 13:18:29 GMT
My experience of this Green approach is that both James and David are correct . The effect is usually to increase the vote of the "first choice" candidate and depress the vote of "2nd/3rd" choice candidates from what they would have been with no description difference .
This is of course what you would expect rationally to happen .
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Tony Otim
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Post by Tony Otim on Jan 30, 2015 13:24:20 GMT
To look at it another, do people think in this case, if both candidates had just been labelled Green Party, both would have got over 400 votes, or both would be closer to the average of 300 (with those voting for only 1 Green candidate splitting their votes fairly evenly) - in terms of average vote it makes little impact. In terms of actually getting closer to winning a seat, maybe this has worked better? As far as bar charts go, in true LD fashion, I imagine a bar chart on top vote could be arranged to make it look more favourable  |
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Post by froome on Jan 30, 2015 13:34:46 GMT
JIll Mills is an experienced campaigner and I would assume has some local profile, whereas I've personally not heard of the other Green candidate, so assume his profile is rather less (but Pete can obviously correct me from his local knowledge). So it may be that this accounts for as much of the disparity as the use of first and second choice.
Personally I don't like the use of this for the reasons that David outlined, but as James has noted, it does work for some voters at least.
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Post by marksenior on Jan 30, 2015 14:17:52 GMT
To look at it another, do people think in this case, if both candidates had just been labelled Green Party, both would have got over 400 votes, or both would be closer to the average of 300 (with those voting for only 1 Green candidate splitting their votes fairly evenly) - in terms of average vote it makes little impact. In terms of actually getting closer to winning a seat, maybe this has worked better? As far as bar charts go, in true LD fashion, I imagine a bar chart on top vote could be arranged to make it look more favourable Basically correct , if say 300 voters were prepared to give 1 vote to the Greens then 250 say give it to 1st choice and only 50 to 2nd choice instead of 150 to each or more likely 175 to better known or higher alphabetically and 125 to less well known . |
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Pimpernal
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Post by Pimpernal on Jan 30, 2015 14:48:06 GMT
To look at it another, do people think in this case, if both candidates had just been labelled Green Party, both would have got over 400 votes, or both would be closer to the average of 300 (with those voting for only 1 Green candidate splitting their votes fairly evenly) - in terms of average vote it makes little impact. In terms of actually getting closer to winning a seat, maybe this has worked better? As far as bar charts go, in true LD fashion, I imagine a bar chart on top vote could be arranged to make it look more favourable Sort of what I was suggesting but a different approach I guess.. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2015 19:02:20 GMT
Quite a good result for the Greens and Lib Dems in any case.
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Post by No Offence Alan on Jan 30, 2015 20:15:44 GMT
I wonder if the Green Party realises that their approach implicitly damns one of their candidates as being second-rate. Every party has lists of candidates, in order, for Euro, Holyrood and Cardiff elections. |
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Jan 30, 2015 20:31:36 GMT
I wonder if the Green Party realises that their approach implicitly damns one of their candidates as being second-rate. Every party has lists of candidates, in order, for Euro, Holyrood and Cardiff elections. That's not relevant, though. In all of those the voter gives their vote for the party, or for the entire list, and the parties choose the order of the list. In multi-member FPTP, it's the decision of the voter as to which individual candidates to back. |
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piperdave
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Post by piperdave on Jan 31, 2015 17:28:11 GMT
Voters do the strangest things. About ten years ago, in an all out met ward, I saw someone only use two of their votes to vote for the Green candidate... and the BNP. Anti-establishment was the best reasoned argument I could come up with. Pin the tail on the candidates seemed more likely.
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