Voting - Election Understanding.

[agchristie]

As we head towards one of the most interesting General Elections should all homeowners be given more assistance how to cast their vote?

Instead of receiving biased Party material should more assistance be given to eligible voters to help inform a decision?

Reminders of previous party pledges, independently provided facts on issues on all key areas from Europe, Immigration, Health, Economy etc etc. Would this make any difference?

There was much comment regarding the Scottish referendum that many voters did not have sufficient understanding or information to help them make a decision, could the same be said for the General Election?

[ladybirder]

And what about people who have paid tax for 10, 20, 30 years but then become ill or redundant and can't get another job? Are they too to become deprived of their vote?

[ichkeria]

Nice idea and might work for referendums but not really practical for general elections. 'Reminders of previous party pledges' is exactly the sort of minefield that would make it unworkable. It would weight the whole thing hugely in favour of new parties with no political baggage dubiously trying to claim the 'we never broke any promises like the others' card. Real life and politics is a lot more complicated

[Hypognosis]

One particular year, I was trying to make a catchphrase out of "Read the manifesto!", which was short and snappy but edited to the point of losing the nub of the message which was "Read the manifesto... this time."
Also that left it unclear that I meant people should read the manifesto of the party they intended to vote for, not something I'd written myself.

Along the lines of what you're suggesting, I'd want to repeat this message but with one key alteration: Read the manifesto from the last election. Ask yourself "Have they delivered" before wasting your time on their 2015 promises.

Gromit's recent thread (featuring extract of Osbourne speech) got there first, though.

Aside from that, we have news media reporting on Party performance, we have Political Party websites for manifesto documentation, we have Wikipedia for longer histories, we have Bloggers for comment and opinion and this is AB, for those who are at a loss to form their own opinions, based on that lot.

:O)

Ultimately, though, when I took my own advice and saw just how many pages there are in a typical manifesto, I decided that I didn't have two or three hours to throw away on something that dull and didn't bother. I can't even practise what I preach, on this issue. :-/

Hence, we're reliant on the newshounds to *actually* read this material and pass it on to us, in digestable form.

A simple choice, then, between being at the mercy of Murdoch's minions as to how our opinions of political parties are shaped or spending actual hours of our free time, reading them for ourselves (strictly for masochists, I suspect).