The Independent’s leading article: This historic opportunity must not be missed
May 5th, 2010 by Martin
Even if you have no electoral power, vote on Thursday
May 4th, 2010 by Martin
Looking at the comments that people have made on this site, the Tweets that have been posted and the number of fans we have on Facebook, it’s obvious that people are extremely angry about their lack of voting power. I’m pleased to say that most say they will vote anyway – either tactically to keep a particular party out, or with their hearts, even if they know their vote doesn’t have a high chance of helping to decide the winner.
However, a significant minority indicate that they have decided not to vote after learning the truth about their voter power. Indeed this site has been criticised for encouraging voter apathy and encouraging a low turnout.
To those who criticise all I can say is don’t shoot the messenger. If people are put off voting elections I’m not surprised. This system is broken and serves only a minority. It’s no wonder that people are not politically engaged. This website exists to try to make as many people aware of the injustice built into the system.
To those who see this site and think there is no point in casting a vote, I urge you to reconsider. This election is too important for you to waste your vote. There is a chance, a slim chance, that we will have an opportunity to reform the system in the new parliament. The only way that will happen is if people vote for reform.
In these last two days, please have a look at the manifestos, question your local candidates and vote positively for one that is promising to support fair votes for Westminster. Even if your candidate has no chance of winning because you live in a safe seat with no voter power, vote for them anyway. The higher the national share in favour of reform candidates, the stronger our voice will be after the election.
The outcome of this election is still very uncertain, but if we all vote positively for candidates that support fair votes, maybe this will be the last election where the power of our vote will be decided by the postcode we live in.
Mapping the Voter Power Index
April 30th, 2010 by Martin
Many of the requests that I’ve had since launching the Voter Power Index site have been for a map to visualise the power of the constituencies side-by-side. This was something I wanted to do from the start, but it has proved not to be a simple task. This site is built on open source code libraries and APIs, from the underlying PHP framework, CakePHP, to the visualisation tools from Google Chart API. While, there are mapping tools available from Google and Ordnance Survey, there is nothing that enabled me to easily produce a constituency heat map, or choropleth map.
One project that has been instrumental in enabling me to build a map for the site was the Choropleth UK project at Rewired State. In this project the developers have used an SVG image to extract data to build an HTML image map. This is designed to be a more accessible way of displaying data, as many media organisations use Flash based maps to present constituencies, which aren’t viewable by many devices.
Before I get lots of emails saying my map isn’t good, I’ll be up front and say that my implementation of the Choropleth project is still a bit sketchy. The project only had data for the old constituency boundaries and my import of the new boundaries hasn’t produced a very robust clickable image map, particularly on the Scottish coastline. The map currently doesn’t work well on Internet Explorer and in contradiction to what I say above about this method being more viewable on devices, it doesn’t work too well on the mobile version of this site.
So, bearing in mind its limitations, I invite you to take a look at version one of the Voter Power Index heat map.
Whatever happens, our political system is now in crisis
April 22nd, 2010 by Martin
A week is certainly a long time in politics. When I was putting together this website, I could never have imagined what would have happened to the polls and the campaign in such a short space of time. I do not wish to make a party political point, but we can all agree that this election is now a lot more interesting than it was just a week ago.
I have to say my expectations of this campaign were that Labour would lose, we’d have a Conservative government and electoral reform would be off the agenda for the foreseeable future. Even if we do still have a Conservative government after the election, I think no government can ignore what has happened during this campaign.
Whether the polls stay as they are or the Liberal Democrat surge is just a bubble that will deflate before polling day, this last week has highlighted the extreme unfairness of the first past the post electoral system. Over the past few days, poll after poll has shown the three parties within a few percentage points of each other, but seat predictors show the third party still way behind in seats. The most shocking prediction is that Labour could come third in the popular vote and still have the most seats in parliament.
There’s still a long way to go until polling day and two more debates in that time, so who knows how this will all end on 6th May. If, however, we do end up with the Labour party polling less than 30 per cent and still first in terms of seats, the political class is in for a shock. The public won’t stand for it. Our tottering political system will have lost all remaining credibility and supporters of the status quo will be left defending the indefensible.
Politicians and the media like to say that the public aren’t interested in constitutional reform. That it’s just political geeks who get worked up about it. To a certain extent that’s true. However, it’s also true that the British people don’t like being told that they have no choice in politics, that their vote counts for nothing. They will not like it if they wake up on 7th May after having made their choice to find that their decision has been ignored. It will lead to a constitutional earthquake.
It has to be the case that electoral reform is on the agenda whoever wins the general election. The current system is bankrupt and this last week has revealed by just how much. If the Conservatives win the vote but not the parliament then how long before we see their MPs calling for change? How could Labour possibly stay in government if they poll third place? If millions more vote for the Liberal Democrats and find their votes have not translated into increased representation, won’t there be a revolution?
Probably not. Liberal Democrats are usually reasonable people who don’t go in for revolutions, but their anger will be immense. The whole system is discredited and if the people’s voices aren’t heard on May 6th, I’m sure they will shout even louder on May 7th.
“People should not fear the Government, the Government should fear you”
April 21st, 2010 by Martin
Slick video produced by the Independent newspaper.
The Ultimate Postcode Lottery
April 17th, 2010 by Nic Marks
We talk about postcode lotteries for health provision and schooling but never before have we been able to see how much our Electoral system is one too. Martin and I created the Voter Power website to enable individual voters to see how much their vote really counts – the data was based on a report I did after the last General Election called Spoiled Ballot. But I hadn’t really appreciated till I have been talking to journalists this week is just how locally unjust this whole system is. Here’s an example.
You can have near neighbours in slightly different postcodes – say someone in Bootle and nearby Sefton Central – both on Merseyside - and yet they have wildly different potentials to influence the election results. Why is this? Well in Bootle over 70% of votes were for Labour making it one of the safest seats in the UK. Whereas in Sefton Central – a newly drawn constituency for this election – the make up of voters suggest a much closer race between all three of the major parties. The VPI puts figures on these differences and shows that the Sefton voter – who remember lives just down the road from the Bootle one – has over 100x more power. Crazy hey!
To return to the health analogy – this is just like one neighbour getting a hip replacement within a month and the other having to wait over eight years! We wouldn’t accept that would we!
Nic
Nic Marks, nef (the new economics foundation), creator of the Voter Power Index