I am hearing that Guildford is going very badly for the Tories, from somebody who lives there, albeit it's just one source ofc
The Tories are in big trouble in Eastbourne and Lewes. Similar type blue wall seats .
Not really blue wall at all - the Yellow Peril have long been strong in both, in both local and general elections.
A bit further north is proper blue wall at the GE level, of course, but there are smatterings of Greens and indies, and it's not that long since the LibDems did really well there at the local level.
Yes I know these have been long-standing Tory Lib Dem marginals . Labour and the Lib Dems need to work together for the greater good .
I said as much today to the two tellers , one Labour and one Lib Dem . They need to come to some agreement . Number one priority is to rid the country of the Tories .
Both Eastbourne and Lewes are LibDem/Tory contests, with Labour nowhere. Are you perhaps thinking of Hastings, where Labour are strong?
A confounding factor, in the locals at least, is likely to be the Greens, who have been making progress in this area for some time.
They could help the Tories by splitting the votes . I do understand though that the local elections does give them the best chance for representation.
At a GE though it’s unforgivable IMO to facilitate the Tories . A progressive alliance is needed , I understand parties want to avoid looking like making deals but simply put up paper candidates . Tactical voting needs to be front and centre aswell.
Seems like Tories are just not turning out. This probably means a real shellacking in terms of seats, councils and percentages but also renders direct projection onto a GE result less valid, because swing back.
Its now looking like its going to be towards the high end of predictions of Tory losses while the Lib Dems will do better than +200, since they seem set to outperform in the face of Tory voter strike, especially in the Home Counties. Labour will clean up their former heartlands and red wall firmly back under control.
I'm more than usually excited about these Locals because they're so close to the General. Also because there's genuine uncertainty about how well Labour are doing. Polls are one thing, real votes in real ballot boxes (from those able to present ID in one of the prescribed forms) are quite another. Soon we'll know how big the Labour lead really is. I desperately hope it's double digits. The difference between 12 and 7 is massive. Not so much numerically (5) but emotionally for the next 18 months. I'd much prefer to spend this time being smug and complacent rather than in a constant state of high anxiety. So c'mon you Labour! ✊️
I don't know if this has already been noted, but this substack post is really good on how the notional votes shares in these locals might point to what is likely to happen in the GE:
Tl:dr (and it is quite a long article): Labour need a lead in the national equivalent vote of around 10% to be on track for a small majority at the GE, 12% to 14% for a comfortable majority, or 15%+ to be in landslide territory.
The Survation and Omnisis polls both suggest a 7-10 point Labour lead in overall votes cast but there are large and significant areas not voting (London, Wales, Scotland and Cornwall to name but four) so a bucket of salt required for the extrapolation.
Local elections are often just that - Independents and smaller parties (including the LDs) do disproportionately well in the 30-40% turnout but General Elections are nearer 70% and that becomes a very different story.
Labour should be looking to gain at least 500 councillors. 1000 gains is landslide territory. Any lead under 5% would be very poor. A lead of 10% and they would be well on the way to a healthy majority at the GE.
Cons need to be gaining hundreds of Councillors if they are on course to retain power. Recall that 2015 was fought on the day the Cons won a small majority and they lost over 1300 Councillors four years later. It cost PM May her job. Any further losses would be an awful performance and indicative of looming and almost inevitable GE defeat. They should aim to be within 10% of Lab and if they can get within 5% they would have a GE chance. Maybe not a good one but at least a chance.
The LDs and Greens are defending good results last time (record ones in the case of the Greens). So holding their own would be OK. However, they really need to make gains to maintain their momentum. At the GE they are likely to be squeezed - especially if the Con position has notably recovered.
I would note that local BEs have shown the Cons over-performing any polling. It will be interesting to see if that holds true tonight and tomorrow. Note the headline figures and the percentage vote but also take note of any regional patterns. Will the Con vote hold up in the West Midlands and Tees Valley? Could they pull off a surprise in Leicester? Will the LDs continue their progress in Surrey, Herts and Oxfordshire? Can the Greens win a council in Brighton or Suffolk? Can Lab continue their gains on the South coast and in places like Swindon as well as reclaiming traditional Northern and East Midlands strongholds. Can Reform UK show any evidence of their polling performance? Can the Socialists win a Councillor?
FWIW I doubt the voter ID nonsense will have much impact on the results. Those that vote in LEs are far more likely to be engaged enough to know what they need and act accordingly.
NB. This far out from a GE only once under Con Govts since 1979 have Lab won this LE by more than 3%. That once was of course in the run-up to 1997. We are not headed for another 1997 but tonight may give us a better idea of what will happen.
I'm more than usually excited about these Locals because they're so close to the General. Also because there's genuine uncertainty about how well Labour are doing. Polls are one thing, real votes in real ballot boxes (from those able to present ID in one of the prescribed forms) are quite another. Soon we'll know how big the Labour lead really is. I desperately hope it's double digits. The difference between 12 and 7 is massive. Not so much numerically (5) but emotionally for the next 18 months. I'd much prefer to spend this time being smug and complacent rather than in a constant state of high anxiety. So c'mon you Labour! ✊️
What if the lead is 'only' 5%?
Doesn't it rather depend how other votes are distributed?
If the Greens and Lib Dems do well then, in reality, that's pretty good for Labour even if it doesn't feel it on the night. The Green vote will almost all "come home" to Labour in a General Election, and the Lib Dem vote will probably do so in significant numbers where it matters.
If RefUK (although they have limited candidate numbers) and independents are doing well, that's less clear - it feels to a fair extent like these are people who'd "come home" to the Tories in a General Election (not uniformly but to a fair degree). UKIP got 4.5% and assorted indies and residents associations 11.5% in the equivalent 2019 elections (and Greens over 9%) so this is all quite significant in assessing good night/bad night.
Also note the difference between share on the night and projected national equivalent. Under May, the Tories "won" by about 5% on raw votes in 2019 but PNE was level with Labour (and indeed the Tory "win" on one measure was deemed pretty disastrous for May, albeit also quite poor for Corbyn).
Seattle Times ($) - Culprit revealed in Bainbridge Island ferry grounding
Contaminated fuel is the culprit behind last month’s dramatic grounding of the ferry Walla Walla on Bainbridge Island.
The source of the bad fuel, and whether it came from an outside vendor or was dirtied onboard, is still under investigation, said Ian Sterling, spokesperson for the Washington State Ferries. No other ships were affected.
The fuel seems to have clogged the filters leading into the boat’s generators, answering the question of why the redundancies built into the ferry’s systems didn’t prevent the crash. According to Sterling, when one generator went down, a second also failed almost immediately. A third generator takes more time to fire up, which the crew instead used to ready for impact.
The Walla Walla returned to service in Bremerton on Wednesday, just two weeks after its failure. Engineers removed all fuel onboard and cleaned out the tanks, said Sterling. They also attached remote monitors to the generators so that crews might notice a failure more quickly in the future.
The hull was scratched but not damaged. The propeller needed to be bent back into place, which workers underwater were able to do without lifting the boat onto dry dock.
The generators that failed power the onboard lights as well as the controls, which is why the engine still worked but crews lost steering. They stalled just as the ship was entering Rich Passage from Bremerton, on its way to Seattle, when it should have made a nearly 90-degree right turn. The result was a slow drift into the south end of Bainbridge Island, where the vessel and its passengers sat for more than five hours.
“It happened at the worst possible second,” Sterling said.
No injuries were reported. Passengers, after trying to make the best of their time aboard with photo shoots and food from the galley, were eventually offloaded onto Kitsap Transit fast ferries.
The grounding came just as lawmakers in Olympia were considering a budget for ferry maintenance and preservation. Nearly half of the 21-boat fleet is over 40 years old, and three boats are due for retirement in short order.
Legislators also passed a bill making it easier for the state to solicit out-of-state bids for new ferry construction, a stark change from the in-state work currently conducted. Despite concerns from local builders and unions, lawmakers said it’s a necessary change if the state hopes to bring new boats online in a timely and affordable manner.
Nah, they are miles ahead of Scotland. Their ferries are actually in the water.
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Didn't that happen before with Ruth Davison in 201X? Also with either the EU ref or GE2015?
FPT - In Washington State, "curing" ballots submitted via mail or drop boxes, to make them eligible to count, takes place before and during Election Day, up until one day prior to official certification of the election.
Note that lion's share of returned ballots that are "challenged" by election workers, get flagged for one of two reasons: > missing signature = failure to sign the required voter oath on outside of return ballot envelope. > mismatched signature = sig provided does NOT match one on file with voters registration record.
Don't have exact figures, but county-by-county typical challenge rate is about 1% - 2%. And of ballots challenged, more than half are typically cured by voters submitting required sigs or other info.
For some info, including real-time statistics from April 2023 special election in King County, check out this link
This is true, but in (at least some states of) the US they think it's ok to "certify" the election weeks after polling day. We expect declared results within 24 hours of polls closing, so this wouldn't work.
Wouldn't work because you haven't tried it.
Note that in about 99% of election races, the final winners & losers are known on Election Night, because the margin is too sizeable to be overturned. And in most of the rest, the end result is clear within a few days.
Only the very closest races still hanging fire. Which by definition deserve careful canvassing NOT a hurry-hurry-tell-us-NOW approach.
Lots of American things I am happy for us to import - tech, burgers, box sets, spaceships, good service in restaurants. Voting processes is not one of them, thank you very much for the offer!
No doubt "Punch" was sulfurous in its comments re: the Yankee outrage called "hamburgers" back in the day . . . because publishers, editors & dear readers had never actually TRIED a burger?
Just because we are not allowed to vote, many of us UK pb-ers have sat through American elections and taken plenty of interest in how it all works as we can bet profitably on it and have been freely able to do so for many years.
Reading media reports, whether from next door or a world away, is NOT the equivalent of actually observing the election process, that is how the votes are actually cast and counted.
Via personal face time. Which few journos, politicos, bloggers or PBers ever do.
And quite often those most involved and invested in a process are not the best placed to judge its merits versus alternatives as they tend to prefer what they are used to. Still no interest in importing US electoral processes thank you very much. Lots of other countries I would look at if we wanted international comparison.
I'm more than usually excited about these Locals because they're so close to the General. Also because there's genuine uncertainty about how well Labour are doing. Polls are one thing, real votes in real ballot boxes (from those able to present ID in one of the prescribed forms) are quite another. Soon we'll know how big the Labour lead really is. I desperately hope it's double digits. The difference between 12 and 7 is massive. Not so much numerically (5) but emotionally for the next 18 months. I'd much prefer to spend this time being smug and complacent rather than in a constant state of high anxiety. So c'mon you Labour! ✊️
I don't know if this has already been noted, but this substack post is really good on how the notional votes shares in these locals might point to what is likely to happen in the GE:
Tl:dr (and it is quite a long article): Labour need a lead in the national equivalent vote of around 10% to be on track for a small majority at the GE, 12% to 14% for a comfortable majority, or 15%+ to be in landslide territory.
Where I would disagree is just as CR said, Tories could suffer from stay at home today, but so many of them will be back for the GE. Tories will get a PV in the thirties at the next election, even if only 30 or 32. So a 39-24 15 point win for Labour here definitely does not guarantee landslide next year. It doesn’t even suggest it.
Today is likely to be peak Labour electoral win for many years, if not a couple of decades if they go into government next year - that’s the correct way to measure this result, that next year cannot be as big or bigger vote lead over the Tories. So for me, my psephology, It’s not the gap between Lab Con that matters from this, ignore psephologists selling you that - it’s the Lab % from this election. If it’s not up to around 40% tomorrow, the GE will be hard work for a majority.
As usual there is massive expectation management on all sides but the feeling seems to be if +100 Tories lose 100 + very bad 6-700 losses meh, under 500 a good result. LDs seem unlikely to gaij mofre than 200 so anyhting better would be very good for them.
Im hoping for the meh resuklt at best but would not be surprised if it's much worse for the blues. What it means for the GE who knows.
The Coronation will swiftly kick any news into the long grass apoart from places like this but we should perhaps remind ourselves more frequently how niche we are.
The LibDems had a fantastic 2019, gaining over 700 councillors and being only 9% behind Labour and Conservatives in the popular vote, so it would be surprising if they were to have a big night. I would say that 25-75 gains is a par score for them, and it's entirely possible that they go backwards.
Labour should be the party that has the best night: they are defending half the number the Conservatives are (and barely more than the LibDems), and are at least ten points higher in the polls. A par score for them is +500, any less and it will have been a poor performance.
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
Possibly, although it's actually more likely that it's simply canvass results.
Parties know who the postal voters are (that's published info), know they are pretty likely to vote, know past canvass data for them, and canvass in the campaign to say "I see you're a postal voter, have you returned it and were we lucky enough to secure your support?" So there's plenty to go on there in terms of where you start from on polling day.
In general, verification is pretty carefully done with ballots upside down now to make it fairly hard to get a better read from that.
So this feels to me a lot like adding two and two to get seven.
I am hearing that Guildford is going very badly for the Tories, from somebody who lives there, albeit it's just one source ofc
Interesting, but I wonder how accurate these predictions usually turn out to be?
Some random resident, best ignore it.
Someone actively involved in the campaign who knows what they are doing, take it seriously (if you are confident it isn't deliberate expectations management)
Even if they know what they are doing I'd be skeptical. It's like when there's leaks about internal party polling and people seem to take it as read that that polling will naturally be more accurate somehow. Campaigns sometimes know what they are doing, sometimes they don't, and even when they do they can still be wrong.
If you know your patch, you usually know. I did the same street for the first night's canvassing in each of my elections, doing every house rather than selectively as everywhere else, and I always had a pretty good feel that first night.
The one time Labour won a by-election in it, from third, I congratulated the Labour candidate on the way in to the count, before any boxes were open, and told the Tories, who always hoped to win their old ward back, that they weren't anywhere near.
Mind you, they both seem surprised how I could be so certain; maybe it is a special knack that only LibDems have?
When I was politically active, I had two "barometer" streets - both dead ends and both with about 50 houses. If I wanted to "take the temperature", I'd do some door knocking down those with a survey of similar and that was usually quite informative.
They would also be my first and last canvass streets to see if the campaign had any impact.
Cunning old Stodger 😏
Nothing cunning, my friend, more self-indulgent.
In my experience, there are lies, damn lies and canvass returns. Unless you have confidence in your canvassers, you simply can't rely on what the voters tell you - they are quite willing to tell you what they think you want to hear to get rid of you.
I spoke to a Conservative activist a few weeks after 1997 - he simply couldn't believe what had happened. He told me the reception on the doorstep had been friendly and he thought the vote was holding up and the polls were all wrong.
You have 90-100 houses - remember churn, people moving in, moving out. You knock and there's no one at home or a different person answers and you have to take all of that into account.
All you can get is a "feel", a sense, the things people say, the comments - are they willing to engage with you? That, for instance, is how I knew the Conservatives were going to win in 1992 - I did one of my barometer streets on the Monday evening before the election, a warm, drizzly evening. Door after door, it was the same - the willingness to engage from a few weeks before had gone, their minds were made up. Nothing rude or unfriendly but quite clear.
FPT - In Washington State, "curing" ballots submitted via mail or drop boxes, to make them eligible to count, takes place before and during Election Day, up until one day prior to official certification of the election.
Note that lion's share of returned ballots that are "challenged" by election workers, get flagged for one of two reasons: > missing signature = failure to sign the required voter oath on outside of return ballot envelope. > mismatched signature = sig provided does NOT match one on file with voters registration record.
Don't have exact figures, but county-by-county typical challenge rate is about 1% - 2%. And of ballots challenged, more than half are typically cured by voters submitting required sigs or other info.
For some info, including real-time statistics from April 2023 special election in King County, check out this link
This is true, but in (at least some states of) the US they think it's ok to "certify" the election weeks after polling day. We expect declared results within 24 hours of polls closing, so this wouldn't work.
Is it more important to make sure every valid vote is counted, or to get the absolutely final number by 7am?
The two goals needn't be mutually exclusive.
Yes. There's no need to take weeks, but counting fast doesn't mean it is rushed or inadequate either. I don't really think it is essential we know by 7am, though I'd prefer it, and there are also good reasons why it takes longer than a day or so in america without weeks being reasonable. It's a fallacy when 'got to get it right' is used as an excuse for being that long, when many many places can get it right, but faster.
One interesting choice is allowing votes which arrive after election day to be counted if postmarked on that day, which will add a couple of days on to finalisation even if you count the rest quickly of course.
"interesting" is certainly one word for it.
I don't think we need to know by 7am. But with voting on a Thursday, there is no reason why we shouldn't have the results in time for the new MPs to start work on Monday morning.
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
Possibly, although it's actually more likely that it's simply canvass results.
Parties know who the postal voters are (that's published info), know they are pretty likely to vote, know past canvass data for them, and canvass in the campaign to say "I see you're a postal voter, have you returned it and were we lucky enough to secure your support?" So there's plenty to go on there in terms of where you start from on polling day.
In general, verification is pretty carefully done with ballots upside down now to make it fairly hard to get a better read from that.
So this feels to me a lot like adding two and two to get seven.
That might apply to the Labour vote - but hardly the ECA, surely, as far as Labour *legitimately* know.
I am hearing that Guildford is going very badly for the Tories, from somebody who lives there, albeit it's just one source ofc
The Tories are in big trouble in Eastbourne and Lewes. Similar type blue wall seats .
Not really blue wall at all - the Yellow Peril have long been strong in both, in both local and general elections.
A bit further north is proper blue wall at the GE level, of course, but there are smatterings of Greens and indies, and it's not that long since the LibDems did really well there at the local level.
Yes I know these have been long-standing Tory Lib Dem marginals . Labour and the Lib Dems need to work together for the greater good .
I said as much today to the two tellers , one Labour and one Lib Dem . They need to come to some agreement . Number one priority is to rid the country of the Tories .
Both Eastbourne and Lewes are LibDem/Tory contests, with Labour nowhere. Are you perhaps thinking of Hastings, where Labour are strong?
A confounding factor, in the locals at least, is likely to be the Greens, who have been making progress in this area for some time.
They could help the Tories by splitting the votes . I do understand though that the local elections does give them the best chance for representation.
At a GE though it’s unforgivable IMO to facilitate the Tories . A progressive alliance is needed , I understand parties want to avoid looking like making deals but simply put up paper candidates . Tactical voting needs to be front and centre aswell.
Why have tactical voting then? Be honest and have a full-on coupon election. Give everyone exactly one of a Labour candidate or a Lib Dem or a Green.
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
That's only the signatures. Shouldn't reveal the actual vote. And in any case the disclosure is illegal. Though at least one noted ScoTory got off scot (so to speak) free after a similar incident in recent years.
And our TSE misses the key point that postal vote verification is (supposed to be) done with the ballot papers face down at all times
I am hearing that Guildford is going very badly for the Tories, from somebody who lives there, albeit it's just one source ofc
The Tories are in big trouble in Eastbourne and Lewes. Similar type blue wall seats .
Not really blue wall at all - the Yellow Peril have long been strong in both, in both local and general elections.
A bit further north is proper blue wall at the GE level, of course, but there are smatterings of Greens and indies, and it's not that long since the LibDems did really well there at the local level.
The "Yellow Peril" - perhaps but what of the "Blue Meanies" ?
One of the things that will be of interest is whether local pacts, agreements or understandings among anti-Conservative parties will enable tactical voting on a scale which augments Conservative losses. Splitting the anti-Conservative vote is more likely to save Conservative Council seats than any "Rishi Bounce".
The last time the anti-Conservative vote fell really efficiently was probably 2001. By 2005, Iraq had kicked in, then there was the massive bustup following the coalition. Brexit sort of brought the old team back together in 2017, but the underlying awfulness of Corbyn came back into play bigtime in 2019.
If the important question voters are asking themselves (apart from "where's my permitted photo ID?") is how best to vote against the Conservatives, then we're back in colourful analogy territory for the government.
Election in Hampshire ward suspended due to death of candidate We're just hearing that the election in a council seat in Hampshire has been suspended because a candidate died after the polls opened.
Conservative councillor Graham Galton, running for election in the Coxford ward in Southampton, died on Thursday.
Residents have been told not to try to vote in the ward, with another election expected to take place within 35 days.
The council said in a statement: "The returning officer has been advised of the death of Coxford ward candidate Mr Graham Galton, who was standing for election to Southampton City Council in today's elections.
Seattle Times ($) - Culprit revealed in Bainbridge Island ferry grounding
Contaminated fuel is the culprit behind last month’s dramatic grounding of the ferry Walla Walla on Bainbridge Island.
The source of the bad fuel, and whether it came from an outside vendor or was dirtied onboard, is still under investigation, said Ian Sterling, spokesperson for the Washington State Ferries. No other ships were affected.
The fuel seems to have clogged the filters leading into the boat’s generators, answering the question of why the redundancies built into the ferry’s systems didn’t prevent the crash. According to Sterling, when one generator went down, a second also failed almost immediately. A third generator takes more time to fire up, which the crew instead used to ready for impact.
The Walla Walla returned to service in Bremerton on Wednesday, just two weeks after its failure. Engineers removed all fuel onboard and cleaned out the tanks, said Sterling. They also attached remote monitors to the generators so that crews might notice a failure more quickly in the future.
The hull was scratched but not damaged. The propeller needed to be bent back into place, which workers underwater were able to do without lifting the boat onto dry dock.
The generators that failed power the onboard lights as well as the controls, which is why the engine still worked but crews lost steering. They stalled just as the ship was entering Rich Passage from Bremerton, on its way to Seattle, when it should have made a nearly 90-degree right turn. The result was a slow drift into the south end of Bainbridge Island, where the vessel and its passengers sat for more than five hours.
“It happened at the worst possible second,” Sterling said.
No injuries were reported. Passengers, after trying to make the best of their time aboard with photo shoots and food from the galley, were eventually offloaded onto Kitsap Transit fast ferries.
The grounding came just as lawmakers in Olympia were considering a budget for ferry maintenance and preservation. Nearly half of the 21-boat fleet is over 40 years old, and three boats are due for retirement in short order.
Legislators also passed a bill making it easier for the state to solicit out-of-state bids for new ferry construction, a stark change from the in-state work currently conducted. Despite concerns from local builders and unions, lawmakers said it’s a necessary change if the state hopes to bring new boats online in a timely and affordable manner.
Nah, they are miles ahead of Scotland. Their ferries are actually in the water.
Not all of 'em. For example, saw a Washington State Ferry propped up in drydock at Anacortes WA last Friday:
Election in Hampshire ward suspended due to death of candidate We're just hearing that the election in a council seat in Hampshire has been suspended because a candidate died after the polls opened.
Conservative councillor Graham Galton, running for election in the Coxford ward in Southampton, died on Thursday.
Residents have been told not to try to vote in the ward, with another election expected to take place within 35 days.
The council said in a statement: "The returning officer has been advised of the death of Coxford ward candidate Mr Graham Galton, who was standing for election to Southampton City Council in today's elections.
Blithering nonsense from you. Facts are against you. More Tories will sit out this one than voters for opposition parties. Many Tories sitting today out will definitely be back for the GE. So how exactly do the Tories end up with a worse result at that one?
In comparison with this election, The Tory line of pebbles will grow next year more than the opposition line of pebbles. Don’t get me wrong, even with this fact it can still be torrid general election result for Tories. But it can’t be worse than this one.
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
Possibly, although it's actually more likely that it's simply canvass results.
Parties know who the postal voters are (that's published info), know they are pretty likely to vote, know past canvass data for them, and canvass in the campaign to say "I see you're a postal voter, have you returned it and were we lucky enough to secure your support?" So there's plenty to go on there in terms of where you start from on polling day.
In general, verification is pretty carefully done with ballots upside down now to make it fairly hard to get a better read from that.
So this feels to me a lot like adding two and two to get seven.
That might apply to the Labour vote - but hardly the ECA, surely, as far as Labour *legitimately* know.
Why? Labour knock on doors and ask how people are voting, and a lot of people say "I've already voted by post for the Edgeley Community Association". That's how elections work.
I don't know @MikeSmithson but it should be interesting.
I guess there's no equivalent of an exit poll or any kind of indication at 10 pm?
Also wondering if the BBC are still going to do their local to national equivalence voting poll?
In 24 hours time we all get to discover whether the reckoning you promised has come or not.
It won’t be any worse at the GE, as you wisely said earlier. Moment of truth in next 19hrs for Heathener. 10 point Labour PNE lead, or bust.
Labour's expectation management has been dreadful. The Conservatives on the other hand have been pretty good in explaining they will do badly, so when they do OK, Labour will appear they have come up ridiculously short.
I'm more than usually excited about these Locals because they're so close to the General. Also because there's genuine uncertainty about how well Labour are doing. Polls are one thing, real votes in real ballot boxes (from those able to present ID in one of the prescribed forms) are quite another. Soon we'll know how big the Labour lead really is. I desperately hope it's double digits. The difference between 12 and 7 is massive. Not so much numerically (5) but emotionally for the next 18 months. I'd much prefer to spend this time being smug and complacent rather than in a constant state of high anxiety. So c'mon you Labour! ✊️
I don't know if this has already been noted, but this substack post is really good on how the notional votes shares in these locals might point to what is likely to happen in the GE:
Tl:dr (and it is quite a long article): Labour need a lead in the national equivalent vote of around 10% to be on track for a small majority at the GE, 12% to 14% for a comfortable majority, or 15%+ to be in landslide territory.
Where I would disagree is just as CR said, Tories could suffer from stay at home today, but so many of them will be back for the GE. Tories will get a PV in the thirties at the next election, even if only 30 or 32. So a 39-24 15 point win for Labour here definitely does not guarantee landslide next year. It doesn’t even suggest it.
Today is likely to be peak Labour electoral win for many years, if not a couple of decades if they go into government next year - that’s the correct way to measure this result, that next year cannot be as big or bigger vote lead over the Tories. So for me, my psephology, It’s not the gap between Lab Con that matters from this, ignore psephologists selling you that - it’s the Lab % from this election. If it’s not up to around 40% tomorrow, the GE will be hard work for a majority.
May 2024 could be pretty cheery for the red team as well. I think we're all expecting Rishi to hold on until the autumn for the GE, in case something turns up.
But the baseline will be the elections that should have happened in May 2020 but got postponed to 2021 and Peak Boris. It's hard to see the Conservatives holding on to everything they won then.
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
That's only the signatures. Shouldn't reveal the actual vote. And in any case the disclosure is illegal. Though at least one noted ScoTory got off scot (so to speak) free after a similar incident in recent years.
And our TSE misses the key point that postal vote verification is (supposed to be) done with the ballot papers face down at all times
In WA State, verification of signatures on returned ballot envelopes takes place BEFORE the envelope is opened.
Realize that's a Yankee innovation and thus HIGHLY suspect. But seems to make sense nonetheless.
Election in Hampshire ward suspended due to death of candidate We're just hearing that the election in a council seat in Hampshire has been suspended because a candidate died after the polls opened.
Conservative councillor Graham Galton, running for election in the Coxford ward in Southampton, died on Thursday.
Residents have been told not to try to vote in the ward, with another election expected to take place within 35 days.
The council said in a statement: "The returning officer has been advised of the death of Coxford ward candidate Mr Graham Galton, who was standing for election to Southampton City Council in today's elections.
Under electoral law, surely the contest continues?
After all, why would a minor matter like the candidate being deceased put loyal Tories off voting for the blue rosette?
I believe rules 60 and 63 in Schedule 1 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 apply, "if at a contested election proof is given to the returning officer's satisfaction before the result of the election is declared that one of the persons named or to be named as a candidate in the ballot paper has died... the returning officer must... if polling has begun, direct that the poll be abandoned."
Although I think it only applies to party candidates - if an indy dies, the election goes ahead but no winner is declared if they "win" and the seat remains vacant.
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
That's only the signatures. Shouldn't reveal the actual vote. And in any case the disclosure is illegal. Though at least one noted ScoTory got off scot (so to speak) free after a similar incident in recent years.
And our TSE misses the key point that postal vote verification is (supposed to be) done with the ballot papers face down at all times
In WA State, verification of signatures on returned ballot envelopes takes place BEFORE the envelope is opened.
Realize that's a Yankee innovation and thus HIGHLY suspect. But seems to make sense nonetheless.
Comparing signatures for verification purposes isn’t really a thing in the UK.
I am now forecasting that LAB will win the 'projected national equivalent' (which indeed is the important measure) by around 7% say LAB 38% CON 31%.
That really is the bare minimum that LAB need to feel confident of 'largest party' in the GE. They won't need to be 7% clear for largest party status in the GE due to recovery in Scotland but there will be some firming in the CON vote in the GE compared with today.
Blithering nonsense from you. Facts are against you. More Tories will sit out this one than voters for opposition parties. Many Tories sitting today out will definitely be back for the GE. So how exactly do the Tories end up with a worse result at that one?
In comparison with this election, The Tory line of pebbles will grow next year more than the opposition line of pebbles. Don’t get me wrong, even with this fact it can still be torrid general election result for Tories. But it can’t be worse than this one.
I don't agree. Turnout at LEs is, I'd guess, only around half of what it is at a GE. Who's the half who won't vote today but will at the GE? Yes, some of them will be Tory hand-sitters. But others will be those who can't be arsed to turn out for local elections because they're not interested, or may not even know they're happening. Take the young, for example. Much more likely to vote at a GE than a LE. And much less likely to vote Tory.
Blithering nonsense from you. Facts are against you. More Tories will sit out this one than voters for opposition parties. Many Tories sitting today out will definitely be back for the GE. So how exactly do the Tories end up with a worse result at that one?
In comparison with this election, The Tory line of pebbles will grow next year more than the opposition line of pebbles. Don’t get me wrong, even with this fact it can still be torrid general election result for Tories. But it can’t be worse than this one.
I don't agree. Turnout at LEs is, I'd guess, only around half of what it is at a GE. Who's the half who won't vote today but will at the GE? Yes, some of them will be Tory hand-sitters. But others will be those who can't be arsed to turn out for local elections because they're not interested, or may not even know they're happening. Take the young, for example. Much more likely to vote at a GE than a LE. And much less likely to vote Tory.
Dare I say less likely to have applied for ID for a LE than a GE too........
NOT the best way for WA Attorney General Bob Ferguson to being his campaign for Governor, which he announced earlier this week following Gov. Inslee's decision NOT to seek re-election:
Seattle Times ($) - WA judge fines AG’s office, DSHS in ‘cavalier’ withholding of lawsuit evidence
The state attorney general’s office and Department of Social and Health Services have been fined $200,000 — and face the prospect of forking over hundreds of thousands of dollars more in legal fees — for what a judge called “egregious” and “cavalier” withholding of evidence in an ongoing lawsuit.
King County Superior Court Judge Michael Ryan, in a March 21 ruling, ordered the fine as a “severe sanction” for the state failing to turn over nearly 11,000 pages of records to attorneys suing over the alleged neglect of a developmentally disabled woman at an adult family home in Kent.
“The discovery violations in this case are egregious, severe, without excuse and the result of willful disregard of discovery obligations by both DSHS” and the attorney general’s office, Ryan wrote in his scathing 12-page order.
The $200,000 penalty is just the start of the state’s legal woes — and cost to taxpayers — in the lawsuit.
The attorney general’s office admitted it recently discovered an additional 100,000 pages of records that had been wrongfully withheld, according to court filings.
Ryan’s ruling put the state on the hook to pay the legal fees for the plaintiff’s attorneys.
Attorneys with the Seattle law firm Hagens Berman, in a motion Friday, calculated the state should pay the firm $214,000. A hearing on the fees is set for next week.
The price could grow, as it does not count the time Hagens Berman attorneys will spend reviewing the recently turned over 100,000 pages.
In addition, Ryan on April 11 appointed Seattle attorney Russell Aoki as a “discovery master” in the case, charging him with investigating the discovery violations and determining whether the state has hidden any more documents.
Aoki will be paid $500 an hour, billed to the state. He is authorized to interview employees of the attorney general’s office and DSHS and to hire a forensic computer expert — also at state expense — and will draft a detailed report on his findings.
The increasingly costly legal blunders have come to light as Attorney General Bob Ferguson launches his long-anticipated run for governor, in which the three-term Democrat is touting his experience leading the AG’s office since 2013. The penalties and withholding of documents in the case were first reported by McClatchy. . . .
SSI - Note that similar (albeit way more costly) error by her office when she was WA Attorney General, was an important factor Christine Gregoire's razor-thin election for Governor in 2004.
My immediate guess, is that this will NOT be as negative for Ferguson in 2024. But NOT helpful!
Blithering nonsense from you. Facts are against you. More Tories will sit out this one than voters for opposition parties. Many Tories sitting today out will definitely be back for the GE. So how exactly do the Tories end up with a worse result at that one?
In comparison with this election, The Tory line of pebbles will grow next year more than the opposition line of pebbles. Don’t get me wrong, even with this fact it can still be torrid general election result for Tories. But it can’t be worse than this one.
One counterpoint to this: council elections have low turnout and those who do turnout may well be disproportionately old.
With the Tories so far ahead with the old, and so far behind with the young and middle aged, any age distortion could be much greater than in the past. Add to that a small impact from the voter suppression rules and they could surprise on the upside. As indeed they’ve done in recent council by-elections.
I don't know @MikeSmithson but it should be interesting.
I guess there's no equivalent of an exit poll or any kind of indication at 10 pm?
Also wondering if the BBC are still going to do their local to national equivalence voting poll?
In 24 hours time we all get to discover whether the reckoning you promised has come or not.
It won’t be any worse at the GE, as you wisely said earlier. Moment of truth in next 19hrs for Heathener. 10 point Labour PNE lead, or bust.
Labour's expectation management has been dreadful. The Conservatives on the other hand have been pretty good in explaining they will do badly, so when they do OK, Labour will appear they have come up ridiculously short.
You are right, Mex, It’s true the expectation management here, where it’s come to this evening, helps the Tories. If they don’t lose 1000 seats or if Labour don’t get 40% and a 10 point win, this election is a Tory win. Suggests the expectation.
Blithering nonsense from you. Facts are against you. More Tories will sit out this one than voters for opposition parties. Many Tories sitting today out will definitely be back for the GE. So how exactly do the Tories end up with a worse result at that one?
In comparison with this election, The Tory line of pebbles will grow next year more than the opposition line of pebbles. Don’t get me wrong, even with this fact it can still be torrid general election result for Tories. But it can’t be worse than this one.
I don't agree. Turnout at LEs is, I'd guess, only around half of what it is at a GE. Who's the half who won't vote today but will at the GE? Yes, some of them will be Tory hand-sitters. But others will be those who can't be arsed to turn out for local elections because they're not interested, or may not even know they're happening. Take the young, for example. Much more likely to vote at a GE than a LE. And much less likely to vote Tory.
Same in USA. Higher turnout for presidential general elections than non-presidential. Higher for non-presidential GEs than for primaries. Higher for (most) primaries than for (most) local/special elections.
I'm more than usually excited about these Locals because they're so close to the General. Also because there's genuine uncertainty about how well Labour are doing. Polls are one thing, real votes in real ballot boxes (from those able to present ID in one of the prescribed forms) are quite another. Soon we'll know how big the Labour lead really is. I desperately hope it's double digits. The difference between 12 and 7 is massive. Not so much numerically (5) but emotionally for the next 18 months. I'd much prefer to spend this time being smug and complacent rather than in a constant state of high anxiety. So c'mon you Labour! ✊️
I don't know if this has already been noted, but this substack post is really good on how the notional votes shares in these locals might point to what is likely to happen in the GE:
Tl:dr (and it is quite a long article): Labour need a lead in the national equivalent vote of around 10% to be on track for a small majority at the GE, 12% to 14% for a comfortable majority, or 15%+ to be in landslide territory.
I read it thanks, most informative. The precise benchmark is "Labour win by 9-11 points: Labour probably still on course for a General Election victory, but a landslide looks unlikely". So 9% up in the NEV is taken to be what's needed for a Labour majority without a landslide.
I don't wholly buy the conclusion. It chooses rather too easily to ignore local elections in the Blair/Brown years when Labour were in government, notably in 2004 when the Conservatives were 8% up on the NEV yet Labour won in 2005. By taking as the point of reference only local election results prior to GEs when the Conservatives were in government, by definition it is restricting the sample to just one local election (1996) which was followed by Labour ousting the Conservatives in a landslide, and drawing conclusions almost entirely from local elections under Conservative governments before GEs which Labour lost.
On the calculation of the NEV itself there are also grounds for scepticism. Today's local elections in parts only of England are being extrapolated as far as countries where there are different political parties and used to draw lessons for a general election where you are voting for more than your local councillor. It would stretch credulity a bit less if the methodology used to derive the NEV were transparent, but I've tried and failed to find any proper explanation of the methodology. We just have to wait for Moses to arrive with tablets of stone and have to take what's on them as read.
Election in Hampshire ward suspended due to death of candidate We're just hearing that the election in a council seat in Hampshire has been suspended because a candidate died after the polls opened.
Conservative councillor Graham Galton, running for election in the Coxford ward in Southampton, died on Thursday.
Residents have been told not to try to vote in the ward, with another election expected to take place within 35 days.
The council said in a statement: "The returning officer has been advised of the death of Coxford ward candidate Mr Graham Galton, who was standing for election to Southampton City Council in today's elections.
Under electoral law, surely the contest continues?
After all, why would a minor matter like the candidate being deceased put loyal Tories off voting for the blue rosette?
I believe rules 60 and 63 in Schedule 1 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 apply, "if at a contested election proof is given to the returning officer's satisfaction before the result of the election is declared that one of the persons named or to be named as a candidate in the ballot paper has died... the returning officer must... if polling has begun, direct that the poll be abandoned."
Although I think it only applies to party candidates - if an indy dies, the election goes ahead but no winner is declared if they "win" and the seat remains vacant.
Wasn't that clause of that Act subsequently repealed?
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
That's only the signatures. Shouldn't reveal the actual vote. And in any case the disclosure is illegal. Though at least one noted ScoTory got off scot (so to speak) free after a similar incident in recent years.
And our TSE misses the key point that postal vote verification is (supposed to be) done with the ballot papers face down at all times
In WA State, verification of signatures on returned ballot envelopes takes place BEFORE the envelope is opened.
Realize that's a Yankee innovation and thus HIGHLY suspect. But seems to make sense nonetheless.
Comparing signatures for verification purposes isn’t really a thing in the UK.
Should it be, for postal votes?
One way of improving reliability of postal voting, if that's needed, as various PBers have suggested.
Blithering nonsense from you. Facts are against you. More Tories will sit out this one than voters for opposition parties. Many Tories sitting today out will definitely be back for the GE. So how exactly do the Tories end up with a worse result at that one?
In comparison with this election, The Tory line of pebbles will grow next year more than the opposition line of pebbles. Don’t get me wrong, even with this fact it can still be torrid general election result for Tories. But it can’t be worse than this one.
One counterpoint to this: council elections have low turnout and those who do turnout may well be disproportionately old.
With the Tories so far ahead with the old, and so far behind with the young and middle aged, any age distortion could be much greater than in the past. Add to that a small impact from the voter suppression rules and they could surprise on the upside. As indeed they’ve done in recent council by-elections.
Okay, I buy that consideration. But at best your consideration is only built in to all the other factors at play. And possibly not even that, oldies can be voter depressed too today.
Blithering nonsense from you. Facts are against you. More Tories will sit out this one than voters for opposition parties. Many Tories sitting today out will definitely be back for the GE. So how exactly do the Tories end up with a worse result at that one?
In comparison with this election, The Tory line of pebbles will grow next year more than the opposition line of pebbles. Don’t get me wrong, even with this fact it can still be torrid general election result for Tories. But it can’t be worse than this one.
One counterpoint to this: council elections have low turnout and those who do turnout may well be disproportionately old.
With the Tories so far ahead with the old, and so far behind with the young and middle aged, any age distortion could be much greater than in the past. Add to that a small impact from the voter suppression rules and they could surprise on the upside. As indeed they’ve done in recent council by-elections.
Check out page 6 (age breakdown of returned ballots) on this link for current special election:
Blithering nonsense from you. Facts are against you. More Tories will sit out this one than voters for opposition parties. Many Tories sitting today out will definitely be back for the GE. So how exactly do the Tories end up with a worse result at that one?
In comparison with this election, The Tory line of pebbles will grow next year more than the opposition line of pebbles. Don’t get me wrong, even with this fact it can still be torrid general election result for Tories. But it can’t be worse than this one.
I don't agree. Turnout at LEs is, I'd guess, only around half of what it is at a GE. Who's the half who won't vote today but will at the GE? Yes, some of them will be Tory hand-sitters. But others will be those who can't be arsed to turn out for local elections because they're not interested, or may not even know they're happening. Take the young, for example. Much more likely to vote at a GE than a LE. And much less likely to vote Tory.
There are some people who simply always vote. I haven't missed one either locally or nationally since I came of age.
Reasonably brisk at my Polling Station. Greeted by name by the polling official as she knows me professionally, who diligently checked against my old faded driving licence, which is barely legible.
Full slate of candidates for each of LD, Con, Green and Labour, which wasn't the case last LE, though then we had BNP ot one of their offshoots.
Election in Hampshire ward suspended due to death of candidate We're just hearing that the election in a council seat in Hampshire has been suspended because a candidate died after the polls opened.
Conservative councillor Graham Galton, running for election in the Coxford ward in Southampton, died on Thursday.
Residents have been told not to try to vote in the ward, with another election expected to take place within 35 days.
The council said in a statement: "The returning officer has been advised of the death of Coxford ward candidate Mr Graham Galton, who was standing for election to Southampton City Council in today's elections.
Under electoral law, surely the contest continues?
After all, why would a minor matter like the candidate being deceased put loyal Tories off voting for the blue rosette?
I believe rules 60 and 63 in Schedule 1 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 apply, "if at a contested election proof is given to the returning officer's satisfaction before the result of the election is declared that one of the persons named or to be named as a candidate in the ballot paper has died... the returning officer must... if polling has begun, direct that the poll be abandoned."
Although I think it only applies to party candidates - if an indy dies, the election goes ahead but no winner is declared if they "win" and the seat remains vacant.
I think it happened in 2015/7 when the UKIP candidate died close to voting day and they postponed.
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
That's only the signatures. Shouldn't reveal the actual vote. And in any case the disclosure is illegal. Though at least one noted ScoTory got off scot (so to speak) free after a similar incident in recent years.
And our TSE misses the key point that postal vote verification is (supposed to be) done with the ballot papers face down at all times
In WA State, verification of signatures on returned ballot envelopes takes place BEFORE the envelope is opened.
Realize that's a Yankee innovation and thus HIGHLY suspect. But seems to make sense nonetheless.
Comparing signatures for verification purposes isn’t really a thing in the UK.
Should it be, for postal votes?
One way of improving reliability of postal voting, if that's needed, as various PBers have suggested.
No, because we don't really sign for anything (in a way that requires signature verification).
My "signature" is used once every 5 years or so and looks completely different each time. For most people under 35 years old, it will be the same.
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
That's only the signatures. Shouldn't reveal the actual vote. And in any case the disclosure is illegal. Though at least one noted ScoTory got off scot (so to speak) free after a similar incident in recent years.
And our TSE misses the key point that postal vote verification is (supposed to be) done with the ballot papers face down at all times
In WA State, verification of signatures on returned ballot envelopes takes place BEFORE the envelope is opened.
Realize that's a Yankee innovation and thus HIGHLY suspect. But seems to make sense nonetheless.
Comparing signatures for verification purposes isn’t really a thing in the UK.
Is it not, Mr Gallowgate? I wonder what the returning officer and team have been doing all these years when I have gone to the count.
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
That's only the signatures. Shouldn't reveal the actual vote. And in any case the disclosure is illegal. Though at least one noted ScoTory got off scot (so to speak) free after a similar incident in recent years.
And our TSE misses the key point that postal vote verification is (supposed to be) done with the ballot papers face down at all times
In WA State, verification of signatures on returned ballot envelopes takes place BEFORE the envelope is opened.
Realize that's a Yankee innovation and thus HIGHLY suspect. But seems to make sense nonetheless.
Comparing signatures for verification purposes isn’t really a thing in the UK.
Should it be, for postal votes?
One way of improving reliability of postal voting, if that's needed, as various PBers have suggested.
No, because we don't really sign for anything (in a way that requires signature verification).
My "signature" is used once every 5 years or so and looks completely different each time. For most people under 35 years old, it will be the same.
System I describe requires a voter signature on file, in my state obtained at time of registration OR updated by voter subsequently.
And situation you describe is commonplace here, resolved by allowing voter to submit updated signatures (under oath) IF their ballot sig doesn't match file sig.
From tenor of push back by PBers, amazing that the Ballot Act was ever enacted in UK, seeing has how ballot hadn't been used before AND was very different from old system?
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
That's only the signatures. Shouldn't reveal the actual vote. And in any case the disclosure is illegal. Though at least one noted ScoTory got off scot (so to speak) free after a similar incident in recent years.
And our TSE misses the key point that postal vote verification is (supposed to be) done with the ballot papers face down at all times
In WA State, verification of signatures on returned ballot envelopes takes place BEFORE the envelope is opened.
Realize that's a Yankee innovation and thus HIGHLY suspect. But seems to make sense nonetheless.
Comparing signatures for verification purposes isn’t really a thing in the UK.
Is it not, Mr Gallowgate? I wonder what the returning officer and team have been doing all these years when I have gone to the count.
I always used to get super-paranoid that the sample I had given was out of date and my ballot would not stand because my signature had gained a flourish since I did it or I was trying to be too neat on the sample.
Wife and I been to vote in South Kesteven. In my ward a choice of
Two Independents Two Tory One Green One Labour
For 2 seats
2 votes from me for Independents.
What flavor of independence? And how deep IS it today, in The Deepings?
Just local candidates. No secession moves
There is a verywell organised Lincolnshire Independents (not Independence ) network in the county but in my area they are just independents rather than attached to the wider network.
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
That's only the signatures. Shouldn't reveal the actual vote. And in any case the disclosure is illegal. Though at least one noted ScoTory got off scot (so to speak) free after a similar incident in recent years.
And our TSE misses the key point that postal vote verification is (supposed to be) done with the ballot papers face down at all times
In WA State, verification of signatures on returned ballot envelopes takes place BEFORE the envelope is opened.
Realize that's a Yankee innovation and thus HIGHLY suspect. But seems to make sense nonetheless.
Comparing signatures for verification purposes isn’t really a thing in the UK.
Is it not, Mr Gallowgate? I wonder what the returning officer and team have been doing all these years when I have gone to the count.
You tell me? I have no idea what you're talking about.
Seem to be some anecdotal tweets coming in now reporting quite happy Lib Dem and Labour canvassers in various places. Not so sure about Green.
I would never rely on what a canvasser told me or even my canvass returns as I said before.
There are various formulae (the one I used was called the "Richmond Formula") for trying to extrapolate the result from your canvass returns. Accurate? To a point and perhaps more so outside London - when I worked Polling Days in Cornwall, the Agent seemed to have a pretty good idea of what was happening.
One early indicator I believe some Agents use is to look at one polling district and see if the turnout and those coming out to vote were looking promising.
I remember elections where one Ward was basically abandoned two hours before the close of poll because it was "in the bag" and everyone rushed to another Ward to do last minute knocking up - again, you can do that in urban areas more easily.
Just heard that my mum almost got turned away from the polling station today because all her official documents are in her original family name and the electoral register is in her married name. Eventually they allowed her to vote, after a phone call from the polling station staff to some kind of "supervisor".
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
That's only the signatures. Shouldn't reveal the actual vote. And in any case the disclosure is illegal. Though at least one noted ScoTory got off scot (so to speak) free after a similar incident in recent years.
And our TSE misses the key point that postal vote verification is (supposed to be) done with the ballot papers face down at all times
In WA State, verification of signatures on returned ballot envelopes takes place BEFORE the envelope is opened.
Realize that's a Yankee innovation and thus HIGHLY suspect. But seems to make sense nonetheless.
Comparing signatures for verification purposes isn’t really a thing in the UK.
Is it not, Mr Gallowgate? I wonder what the returning officer and team have been doing all these years when I have gone to the count.
I always used to get super-paranoid that the sample I had given was out of date and my ballot would not stand because my signature had gained a flourish since I did it or I was trying to be too neat on the sample.
In my own humble bailiwick, election workers checking returned ballot signatures, look for 3 points of agreement. They also make some allowance for fact that signatures change over time due to aging.
In my case, am pretty careful when returning my ballot, and so far my sig has always passed muster compared to decades-old file signature.
However, IF in future my sig is "challenged" have no problem returning the paperwork they will send me in that case, in order to "cure" my ballot BEFORE final deadline.
Just heard that my mum almost got turned away from the polling station today because all her official documents are in her original family name and the electoral register is in her married name. Eventually they allowed her to vote, after a phone call from the polling station staff to some kind of "supervisor".
Down here a policeman was turned away because his id badge wasn’t on the official list.
Just heard that my mum almost got turned away from the polling station today because all her official documents are in her original family name and the electoral register is in her married name. Eventually they allowed her to vote, after a phone call from the polling station staff to some kind of "supervisor".
The one positive I can take from all this nonsense is that the polling station staff seem, when called upon, to have exercised a good deal of common sense and a clear bias to letting people vote. Quite right too.
Just heard that my mum almost got turned away from the polling station today because all her official documents are in her original family name and the electoral register is in her married name. Eventually they allowed her to vote, after a phone call from the polling station staff to some kind of "supervisor".
Sad to hear. Unfortunately similar stories will emerge. Good for her that she fought her corner. Others will simply not vote.
Shocking stuff by this government. They need to go.
Just heard that my mum almost got turned away from the polling station today because all her official documents are in her original family name and the electoral register is in her married name. Eventually they allowed her to vote, after a phone call from the polling station staff to some kind of "supervisor".
Sorry your mom had this (not untypical problem for women) and glad she got it resolved.
One advantage to having a canvassing period, is that it gives more time for election workers to investigate such issues.
Another approach is via provisional ballots, where in questionable cases, a prospective voter is allowed to vote, but their ballot is kept aside until their eligibility is established. Counted if it is, not if not.
Just heard that my mum almost got turned away from the polling station today because all her official documents are in her original family name and the electoral register is in her married name. Eventually they allowed her to vote, after a phone call from the polling station staff to some kind of "supervisor".
Just great.
So now we’re in the situation where the “supervisor” gets to tilt elections according to their own biases.
Just heard that my mum almost got turned away from the polling station today because all her official documents are in her original family name and the electoral register is in her married name. Eventually they allowed her to vote, after a phone call from the polling station staff to some kind of "supervisor".
Down here a policeman was turned away because his id badge wasn’t on the official list.
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
That's only the signatures. Shouldn't reveal the actual vote. And in any case the disclosure is illegal. Though at least one noted ScoTory got off scot (so to speak) free after a similar incident in recent years.
And our TSE misses the key point that postal vote verification is (supposed to be) done with the ballot papers face down at all times
In WA State, verification of signatures on returned ballot envelopes takes place BEFORE the envelope is opened.
Realize that's a Yankee innovation and thus HIGHLY suspect. But seems to make sense nonetheless.
Comparing signatures for verification purposes isn’t really a thing in the UK.
Is it not, Mr Gallowgate? I wonder what the returning officer and team have been doing all these years when I have gone to the count.
You tell me? I have no idea what you're talking about.
Verification of postal votes. Which apparently IS a thing in the UK?
The Times: "Almost half of countries where Charles is King support becoming a republic", including Australia, Canada, and Jamaica.
With the coronation, he's banging nails into his own coffin. It's excruciating as well as hilarious. Nobody told him to have a coronation. He doesn't have to have one if he doesn't want one. He could easily go about in a business suit or scruff it up like Bill Gates. But no, he demands full-scale anointment with oil from Jerusalem. He demands a seat in front of the Cosmati pavement getting an archbishop put a diamond-studded hat on his head. He thinks people care what he thinks about religion too. Every religion. Because they all want a king. Right. Right? The guy is f***ing gaga.
I'll give it a year, tops.
I bet the insiders are already discussing how to save the monarchy from him.
Someone had leaked us an email sent by the chair of Stockport’s Constituency Labour Party, in which he was rallying activists to go and campaign in Edgeley, where Labour faces a tough fight against a new independent party. “We are concerned at the strong showing of the Edgeley Community Association in the postal votes,” the email reads.
But hang on, how did he know about their strong showing? Or as Andy, one of our members, asked in the comments: “How do Stockport Labour know what’s in the postal votes in Edgeley? I didn’t think they were meant to be opened/counted until the count begins.”
Good question. We’ve been trying to work out what happened here, and it seems like the Labour official in Stockport may well have broken electoral law.
Cough.
Verification process.
Cough.
That's only the signatures. Shouldn't reveal the actual vote. And in any case the disclosure is illegal. Though at least one noted ScoTory got off scot (so to speak) free after a similar incident in recent years.
And our TSE misses the key point that postal vote verification is (supposed to be) done with the ballot papers face down at all times
In WA State, verification of signatures on returned ballot envelopes takes place BEFORE the envelope is opened.
Realize that's a Yankee innovation and thus HIGHLY suspect. But seems to make sense nonetheless.
Comparing signatures for verification purposes isn’t really a thing in the UK.
Is it not, Mr Gallowgate? I wonder what the returning officer and team have been doing all these years when I have gone to the count.
You tell me? I have no idea what you're talking about.
Verification of postal votes. Which apparently IS a thing in the UK?
Sure is. Object being to ensure that the signature on the form accompanying the ballot paper matches the signature on the application for the PV in the first place, to verify that the vote has been cast by the correct person. Because the voter ID is all face up, the actual ballot must be kept face down to avoid the landowner discovering that the voter hasn’t in fact voted for the person they were bribed or threatened to do so, and consequently evicting them from their cottage after the election, leaving them destitute and wandering the lanes living off turnip tops until eventually destined to end up in some poorhouse.
Went to vote in our ward in Bracknell Forest a few hours ago. Seemed really quiet, especially as there is one polling place for the whole ward.
My best guess is that Lab will make inroads in Bracknell Town, while Cons hold up better in the rest of the borough (with LDs best shot in Sandhurst)
What time? Traditionally, sluggish turnout in the day is bad for the Tories, low turnout first thing and after work for others (due to pensioner vote mainly).
The Times: "Almost half of countries where Charles is King support becoming a republic", including Australia, Canada, and Jamaica.
With the coronation, he's banging nails into his own coffin. It's excruciating as well as hilarious. Nobody told him to have a coronation. He doesn't have to have one if he doesn't want one. He could easily go about in a business suit or scruff it up like Bill Gates. But no, he demands full-scale anointment with oil from Jerusalem, and a seat in front of the Cosmati pavement getting an archbishop put a diamond-studded hat on his head. The guy is f***ing gaga.
Today’s best of specie podcast has Starkey on it. He’s vicious towards Charles.
Difficult to see what he can do to turn things around. Handing straight over to Wills & Kate is probably the institutions best bet. The longer he clings on, the more damage he’s doing to the institution.
Report from the Bootle constituency, Victoria ward front line:
1. Voted at 8.15pm. Only two people in the station with me. One just left as I arrived and one arrived as I left. 2. Everyone seemed to remember their voter ID. 3. No leaflets, no indications that there was an election on at all, except for all the signs about Voter Id required. Given this is a rock solid Labour ward, no surprise there. Seems no one from any party can be bothered when its going to be the usual landslide.
Comments
At a GE though it’s unforgivable IMO to facilitate the Tories . A progressive alliance is needed , I understand parties want to avoid looking like making deals but simply put up paper candidates . Tactical voting needs to be front and centre aswell.
Its now looking like its going to be towards the high end of predictions of Tory losses while the Lib Dems will do better than +200, since they seem set to outperform in the face of Tory voter strike, especially in the Home Counties. Labour will clean up their former heartlands and red wall firmly back under control.
Local elections are often just that - Independents and smaller parties (including the LDs) do disproportionately well in the 30-40% turnout but General Elections are nearer 70% and that becomes a very different story.
Labour should be looking to gain at least 500 councillors. 1000 gains is landslide territory. Any lead under 5% would be very poor. A lead of 10% and they would be well on the way to a healthy majority at the GE.
Cons need to be gaining hundreds of Councillors if they are on course to retain power. Recall that 2015 was fought on the day the Cons won a small majority and they lost over 1300 Councillors four years later. It cost PM May her job. Any further losses would be an awful performance and indicative of looming and almost inevitable GE defeat. They should aim to be within 10% of Lab and if they can get within 5% they would have a GE chance. Maybe not a good one but at least a chance.
The LDs and Greens are defending good results last time (record ones in the case of the Greens). So holding their own would be OK. However, they really need to make gains to maintain their momentum. At the GE they are likely to be squeezed - especially if the Con position has notably recovered.
I would note that local BEs have shown the Cons over-performing any polling. It will be interesting to see if that holds true tonight and tomorrow. Note the headline figures and the percentage vote but also take note of any regional patterns. Will the Con vote hold up in the West Midlands and Tees Valley? Could they pull off a surprise in Leicester? Will the LDs continue their progress in Surrey, Herts and Oxfordshire? Can the Greens win a council in Brighton or Suffolk? Can Lab continue their gains on the South coast and in places like Swindon as well as reclaiming traditional Northern and East Midlands strongholds. Can Reform UK show any evidence of their polling performance? Can the Socialists win a Councillor?
FWIW I doubt the voter ID nonsense will have much impact on the results. Those that vote in LEs are far more likely to be engaged enough to know what they need and act accordingly.
NB. This far out from a GE only once under Con Govts since 1979 have Lab won this LE by more than 3%. That once was of course in the run-up to 1997. We are not headed for another 1997 but tonight may give us a better idea of what will happen.
If the Greens and Lib Dems do well then, in reality, that's pretty good for Labour even if it doesn't feel it on the night. The Green vote will almost all "come home" to Labour in a General Election, and the Lib Dem vote will probably do so in significant numbers where it matters.
If RefUK (although they have limited candidate numbers) and independents are doing well, that's less clear - it feels to a fair extent like these are people who'd "come home" to the Tories in a General Election (not uniformly but to a fair degree). UKIP got 4.5% and assorted indies and residents associations 11.5% in the equivalent 2019 elections (and Greens over 9%) so this is all quite significant in assessing good night/bad night.
Also note the difference between share on the night and projected national equivalent. Under May, the Tories "won" by about 5% on raw votes in 2019 but PNE was level with Labour (and indeed the Tory "win" on one measure was deemed pretty disastrous for May, albeit also quite poor for Corbyn).
Today is likely to be peak Labour electoral win for many years, if not a couple of decades if they go into government next year - that’s the correct way to measure this result, that next year cannot be as big or bigger vote lead over the Tories. So for me, my psephology, It’s not the gap between Lab Con that matters from this, ignore psephologists selling you that - it’s the Lab % from this election. If it’s not up to around 40% tomorrow, the GE will be hard work for a majority.
Labour should be the party that has the best night: they are defending half the number the Conservatives are (and barely more than the LibDems), and are at least ten points higher in the polls. A par score for them is +500, any less and it will have been a poor performance.
Parties know who the postal voters are (that's published info), know they are pretty likely to vote, know past canvass data for them, and canvass in the campaign to say "I see you're a postal voter, have you returned it and were we lucky enough to secure your support?" So there's plenty to go on there in terms of where you start from on polling day.
In general, verification is pretty carefully done with ballots upside down now to make it fairly hard to get a better read from that.
So this feels to me a lot like adding two and two to get seven.
I tend to the view that the Conservatives will fare MUCH worse at the General Election than the local elections.
The next GE will be a Labour landslide but I'm afraid you're going to have to wait rather more than 19 hours to celebrate if I'm wrong.
cf @Casino_Royale
In my experience, there are lies, damn lies and canvass returns. Unless you have confidence in your canvassers, you simply can't rely on what the voters tell you - they are quite willing to tell you what they think you want to hear to get rid of you.
I spoke to a Conservative activist a few weeks after 1997 - he simply couldn't believe what had happened. He told me the reception on the doorstep had been friendly and he thought the vote was holding up and the polls were all wrong.
You have 90-100 houses - remember churn, people moving in, moving out. You knock and there's no one at home or a different person answers and you have to take all of that into account.
All you can get is a "feel", a sense, the things people say, the comments - are they willing to engage with you? That, for instance, is how I knew the Conservatives were going to win in 1992 - I did one of my barometer streets on the Monday evening before the election, a warm, drizzly evening. Door after door, it was the same - the willingness to engage from a few weeks before had gone, their minds were made up. Nothing rude or unfriendly but quite clear.
I don't think we need to know by 7am. But with voting on a Thursday, there is no reason why we shouldn't have the results in time for the new MPs to start work on Monday morning.
If the important question voters are asking themselves (apart from "where's my permitted photo ID?") is how best to vote against the Conservatives, then we're back in colourful analogy territory for the government.
Let's see.
Election in Hampshire ward suspended due to death of candidate
We're just hearing that the election in a council seat in Hampshire has been suspended because a candidate died after the polls opened.
Conservative councillor Graham Galton, running for election in the Coxford ward in Southampton, died on Thursday.
Residents have been told not to try to vote in the ward, with another election expected to take place within 35 days.
The council said in a statement: "The returning officer has been advised of the death of Coxford ward candidate Mr Graham Galton, who was standing for election to Southampton City Council in today's elections.
"Our condolences go to Mr Galton's family."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-65411351
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Chetzemoka
After all, why would a minor matter like the candidate being deceased put loyal Tories off voting for the blue rosette?
In comparison with this election, The Tory line of pebbles will grow next year more than the opposition line of pebbles. Don’t get me wrong, even with this fact it can still be torrid general election result for Tories. But it can’t be worse than this one.
But the baseline will be the elections that should have happened in May 2020 but got postponed to 2021 and Peak Boris. It's hard to see the Conservatives holding on to everything they won then.
But then the Lord MUST be inured to suchlike. (Enough "holy wisdom" for now!)
https://inews.co.uk/news/commonwealth-countries-list-leave-king-charles-overseas-influence-2286395
Realize that's a Yankee innovation and thus HIGHLY suspect. But seems to make sense nonetheless.
Although I think it only applies to party candidates - if an indy dies, the election goes ahead but no winner is declared if they "win" and the seat remains vacant.
I am now forecasting that LAB will win the 'projected national equivalent' (which indeed is the important measure) by around 7% say LAB 38% CON 31%.
That really is the bare minimum that LAB need to feel confident of 'largest party' in the GE. They won't need to be 7% clear for largest party status in the GE due to recovery in Scotland but there will be some firming in the CON vote in the GE compared with today.
Seattle Times ($) - WA judge fines AG’s office, DSHS in ‘cavalier’ withholding of lawsuit evidence
The state attorney general’s office and Department of Social and Health Services have been fined $200,000 — and face the prospect of forking over hundreds of thousands of dollars more in legal fees — for what a judge called “egregious” and “cavalier” withholding of evidence in an ongoing lawsuit.
King County Superior Court Judge Michael Ryan, in a March 21 ruling, ordered the fine as a “severe sanction” for the state failing to turn over nearly 11,000 pages of records to attorneys suing over the alleged neglect of a developmentally disabled woman at an adult family home in Kent.
“The discovery violations in this case are egregious, severe, without excuse and the result of willful disregard of discovery obligations by both DSHS” and the attorney general’s office, Ryan wrote in his scathing 12-page order.
The $200,000 penalty is just the start of the state’s legal woes — and cost to taxpayers — in the lawsuit.
The attorney general’s office admitted it recently discovered an additional 100,000 pages of records that had been wrongfully withheld, according to court filings.
Ryan’s ruling put the state on the hook to pay the legal fees for the plaintiff’s attorneys.
Attorneys with the Seattle law firm Hagens Berman, in a motion Friday, calculated the state should pay the firm $214,000. A hearing on the fees is set for next week.
The price could grow, as it does not count the time Hagens Berman attorneys will spend reviewing the recently turned over 100,000 pages.
In addition, Ryan on April 11 appointed Seattle attorney Russell Aoki as a “discovery master” in the case, charging him with investigating the discovery violations and determining whether the state has hidden any more documents.
Aoki will be paid $500 an hour, billed to the state. He is authorized to interview employees of the attorney general’s office and DSHS and to hire a forensic computer expert — also at state expense — and will draft a detailed report on his findings.
The increasingly costly legal blunders have come to light as Attorney General Bob Ferguson launches his long-anticipated run for governor, in which the three-term Democrat is touting his experience leading the AG’s office since 2013. The penalties and withholding of documents in the case were first reported by McClatchy. . . .
SSI - Note that similar (albeit way more costly) error by her office when she was WA Attorney General, was an important factor Christine Gregoire's razor-thin election for Governor in 2004.
My immediate guess, is that this will NOT be as negative for Ferguson in 2024. But NOT helpful!
With the Tories so far ahead with the old, and so far behind with the young and middle aged, any age distortion could be much greater than in the past. Add to that a small impact from the voter suppression rules and they could surprise on the upside. As indeed they’ve done in recent council by-elections.
So 9% up in the NEV is taken to be what's needed for a Labour majority without a landslide.
I don't wholly buy the conclusion. It chooses rather too easily to ignore local elections in the Blair/Brown years when Labour were in government, notably in 2004 when the Conservatives were 8% up on the NEV yet Labour won in 2005. By taking as the point of reference only local election results prior to GEs when the Conservatives were in government, by definition it is restricting the sample to just one local election (1996) which was followed by Labour ousting the Conservatives in a landslide, and drawing conclusions almost entirely from local elections under Conservative governments before GEs which Labour lost.
On the calculation of the NEV itself there are also grounds for scepticism. Today's local elections in parts only of England are being extrapolated as far as countries where there are different political parties and used to draw lessons for a general election where you are voting for more than your local councillor. It would stretch credulity a bit less if the methodology used to derive the NEV were transparent, but I've tried and failed to find any proper explanation of the methodology. We just have to wait for Moses to arrive with tablets of stone and have to take what's on them as read.
One way of improving reliability of postal voting, if that's needed, as various PBers have suggested.
https://kingcounty.gov/depts/elections/results/ballot-return-statistics/2023/202302.aspx
Reasonably brisk at my Polling Station. Greeted by name by the polling official as she knows me professionally, who diligently checked against my old faded driving licence, which is barely legible.
Full slate of candidates for each of LD, Con, Green and Labour, which wasn't the case last LE, though then we had BNP ot one of their offshoots.
Two Independents
Two Tory
One Green
One Labour
For 2 seats
2 votes from me for Independents.
My "signature" is used once every 5 years or so and looks completely different each time. For most people under 35 years old, it will be the same.
And situation you describe is commonplace here, resolved by allowing voter to submit updated signatures (under oath) IF their ballot sig doesn't match file sig.
From tenor of push back by PBers, amazing that the Ballot Act was ever enacted in UK, seeing has how ballot hadn't been used before AND was very different from old system?
There is a verywell organised Lincolnshire Independents (not Independence
There are various formulae (the one I used was called the "Richmond Formula") for trying to extrapolate the result from your canvass returns. Accurate? To a point and perhaps more so outside London - when I worked Polling Days in Cornwall, the Agent seemed to have a pretty good idea of what was happening.
One early indicator I believe some Agents use is to look at one polling district and see if the turnout and those coming out to vote were looking promising.
I remember elections where one Ward was basically abandoned two hours before the close of poll because it was "in the bag" and everyone rushed to another Ward to do last minute knocking up - again, you can do that in urban areas more easily.
Just heard that my mum almost got turned away from the polling station today because all her official documents are in her original family name and the electoral register is in her married name. Eventually they allowed her to vote, after a phone call from the polling station staff to some kind of "supervisor".
In my case, am pretty careful when returning my ballot, and so far my sig has always passed muster compared to decades-old file signature.
However, IF in future my sig is "challenged" have no problem returning the paperwork they will send me in that case, in order to "cure" my ballot BEFORE final deadline.
The numbers - Labour 44%, Conservative 29% (-1), Liberal Democrat 11% (+2), Reform 6%, Green 5%, SNP 3%..
Polls herding around a 15-18 point Labour advantage but a series with the Conservatives sub 30% and the Liberal Democrats at or above 10%.
Shocking stuff by this government. They need to go.
One advantage to having a canvassing period, is that it gives more time for election workers to investigate such issues.
Another approach is via provisional ballots, where in questionable cases, a prospective voter is allowed to vote, but their ballot is kept aside until their eligibility is established. Counted if it is, not if not.
Interesting.
So now we’re in the situation where the “supervisor” gets to tilt elections according to their own biases.
This was a terrible idea.
My best guess is that Lab will make inroads in Bracknell Town, while Cons hold up better in the rest of the borough (with LDs best shot in Sandhurst)
With the coronation, he's banging nails into his own coffin. It's excruciating as well as hilarious. Nobody told him to have a coronation. He doesn't have to have one if he doesn't want one. He could easily go about in a business suit or scruff it up like Bill Gates. But no, he demands full-scale anointment with oil from Jerusalem. He demands a seat in front of the Cosmati pavement getting an archbishop put a diamond-studded hat on his head. He thinks people care what he thinks about religion too. Every religion. Because they all want a king. Right. Right? The guy is f***ing gaga.
I'll give it a year, tops.
I bet the insiders are already discussing how to save the monarchy from him.
https://archive.is/IBghW
And it looks like the face-eating leopards are in for a very good night.
Sinn Fein should win 28-30%, up from 24% in 2019. The DUP and TUV should win 28-32%, up from 27%.
It looks like SDLP will do terribly, down from 13% to 7-8%.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmInkxbvlCs
Edith: should have said, British and Australian, of course. There remains one in Sydney, at the maritime museum.
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205163139
Difficult to see what he can do to turn things around. Handing straight over to Wills & Kate is probably the institutions best bet. The longer he clings on, the more damage he’s doing to the institution.
1. Voted at 8.15pm. Only two people in the station with me. One just left as I arrived and one arrived as I left.
2. Everyone seemed to remember their voter ID.
3. No leaflets, no indications that there was an election on at all, except for all the signs about Voter Id required. Given this is a rock solid Labour ward, no surprise there. Seems no one from any party can be bothered when its going to be the usual landslide.
Prediction for the ward - Labour HOLD.