Voting National or Voting Local?

By StAlbansRobin | Wednesday, April 28, 2010, 15:58

The General Election is only a week away. Because much of our exposure to politics is through national, rather than local, media outlets, many of us have come to, or are starting to come to, a decision about which candidate we'd like to be Prime Minister.

Because of our voting system, however, we don't actually directly elect the Prime Minister - we elect a Member of Parliament who represents our local interests with the party that wins the most seats in Parliament, or that is able to form a coalition government with another party, getting their candidate into 10 Downing Street.

This puts every voter in a difficult position - do you base your vote on national policies and essential vote because you want a particular candidate to be Prime Minister - OR - do you vote for a local politician, basing your decision on local policies or the individual local candidate you want to win, regardless of who you want to be Prime Minister?

It's a decision that many voters will be carefully considering in the coming days, and we'd like to hear what your view is - are you planning on tactically voting in the hopes that your vote will help lead to the Prime Minister you want, or will you be focusing on the local, and voting for the St. Albans candidate you think is most likely to improve life here in our constituency? I'm not asking WHO you plan to vote for, only whether you intend to base your vote on a national or local decision, or perhaps you see no difference?

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Comments

If your gut is telling you to vote for Liberal Democrats then you must know it is the right path to choose?!

Propping up other parties Ha! If everyone went for what their gut or their heart said and voted Lib Dems then there would be no other party to prop up.

It is time for a change what harm could they possibly do that the other two haven't already done to the country? If the US can be more open minded and vote in Obama why can't we? But bigger and better by having a new party in position!

Come on St. Albans lets start to make a difference and lets begin tomorrow!

By harkatthee at 18:28 on 05/05/10
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I notice Simon has pointed to one of the less well known comparison websites which has a nice pinwheel showing support for the Greens on the front and is run by two organisations I've not heard of.

A more respected one which has been around and covered the European Elections as well is:
tinyurl.com/3xt4e68

It's run by academics from Goldsmiths University, as well as the well known Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Better, it doesn't tell you how other people came out, but does tell you how you compare to all the parties.
There is also of course the BBC website.

In terms of the original question put, please don't forget we have local elections for the District Council as well. For me the answer is Liberal Democrat on both accounts because I agree their policies and principles and what they've tried to do at all levels.

By AlsoW at 23:18 on 04/05/10
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According to this Daily Mirror spreadsheet, St Albans is the most influential place in terms of tactical voting tinyurl.com/26f9rdo

By A_N_Other at 14:39 on 04/05/10
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It's a very interesting point. Anne has been a good old stick locally supporting many of my causes and I don't really give a monkeys about the expenses row ... they were ALL doing it. BUT when it comes to Cameron as Prime Minister, I just can't go for another lifetime of Cons and Labs bickering and spending their term undoing what the other one did. I would dearly like to see some real change so .... gonna but my neck on the line and vote with my gut. (Plus the online test showed my gut to be right!)

By The Book Mums at 12:25 on 04/05/10
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It's very difficult for people in St Albans to vote tactically this time round. I've spoken to many hundreds of people on the doorstep in the last couple of weeks, and a huge majority are still not sure what to do.

There are Tories who don't want to vote for Anne Main, but don't want the Lib Dems in case they prop up Labour.

There are Labour supporters who feel sure that Labour have a chance to take St Albans back from the Tories, but feel tempted to vote Lib Dem "to stop the Tories", even though the Lib Dems may end up propping up David Cameron.

And there are people who had planned to vote Lib Dem but are now not sure because they either don't like the idea of propping up the Tories, or don't like the idea of propping up Labour.

Add in to that mix a significant number looking at the Greens and UKIP and you can understand people's confusion.

No prizes for guessing who I'm voting for - but the reason is I vote for policies. Whoever wins St Albans, and whoever forms the next government, you can be sure that everyone will be trawling through ALL the results to see what people actually voted for. So I think it's important to vote for what you believe in, regardless of the final result.

I have recommended to lots of people that they look at the independent website tinyurl.com/32errbc There you can choose the policies you like, without knowing whose they are. Then the site tells you who you most agree with. Fascinating stuff.

By simongrover at 20:26 on 28/04/10
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