Party names on ballot papers

[FredPuli43]

The PCC voting papers gave the name of the candidate's political party. For something supposedly apolitical this made no sense, but when did the party's name first appear on ballot papers in General Elections? I'm almost certain the paper only had the names of the candidates, with no indication of their party, when I first voted.

[Gromit]

By the way, Labour got the most votes in the elections but ended up with 3 less Commissioners than the Conservatives.

Conservative votes 1,480,323
Labour votes 1,716,024

[THECORBYLOON]

If a candidate did not get more than 50% of the votes they then looked at the second choices of those who voted and the second choices were then added to the original votes. That's why I said Prescott would have won under the usual voting method, he lost out on the second choice votes.

[humbersloop]

Yes corby, and he won on fptp in three of the four unitaries Humberside police cover.

Either way, we have a PCC with a "majority" mandate of 9.75% of the total electorate, which is a pretty poor state of affairs.

[DTCwordfan]

One could argue at least it is on the basis of 10 percent of the vote and 10 percent more than the previous system. However, I agree that it is very weak indeed and almost reminiscent of University politics and whacko elections, the problem perhaps being the lack of knowledge and communications, combined with a general apathy to voting (except for Corby).

Having said that, did I hear on R4 that one site listing the candidates had 30 million hits on it.

Not here.

[plautus]

The introduction of party labels was a partial response to the attempt by rogue maverick candidates to confuse the electorate. Prior to the 1970 general election an independent candidate in the Tory leader's constituency changed his name by deed poll to Edward Richard George Heath, identical to Heath's own names. He (the "real" Heath) was allowed to clarify his name by adding "Leader of the Conservative Party" to his description. There was a later case when a candidate described himself as a "Literal Democrat" rather than Liberal Democrat. The resulting confusion was held to have materially affected the outcome of the election.

[Gromit]

This is what was in the Conservative's Election Maniesto 2010:

// We will replace the existing, invisible and unaccountable police authorities and make the police accountable to a directly-elected individual who will set policing priorities for local communities. they will be responsible for setting the budget and the strategy for local police forces, with the police retaining their operational independence. //

And they have delivered.

[FredPuli43]

Thanks. Reminds me of old Joe Kennedy, father of JFK. The first time young Jack ran for elected office, he had one strong opponent. His crafty father paid for a man with the identical name to that candidate to be on the ballot. This confused the voters, and split the vote, many voting for the wrong individual, and Jack Kennedy was on his way.

[modeller]

#For something supposedly apolitical this made no sense#
So what do you suggest ? Stick a pin in a piece of paper.

If you only have names , how are we to choose ? In any election all candidates spout virtually the same garbage. At least with a label , be it political or the name of an organisation we have a broad idea of how they they might act.

[FredPuli43]

modeller, a general elecion is political, most people voting for the party they prefer on the day, rather than the individual, in the hope that that party's policies will be carried out in government.Then it makes sense for the party to be shown on the ballot paper. Here, it did not.

This election was to choose the person most suitable to being the totally impartial overseer of the police force for the area. The policy of any political party should, by definition, not be part of that and the political affiliation, if any, of any candidate, immaterial. Putting the party on the paper may result in the purpose of the vote being ignored and the voter choosing to take the opportunity of showing support for, or protesting against, the government. It seems unlikely that the majority of areas, as shown by the rsults, had the best individual for the job being the man or woman selected as a party's candidate, or that the one chosen's vote, by pure chance, happened to represent the voting pattern shown nationally in political opinion polls.