to hope for a good turn out in tomorrows elections?

[ScousyFogarty]

Its local council and AV vote on Thursday 5th

The local elections will be important, they deserve a decent turnout
if they are to represent current opinion.

Somewhere between 20 and 30 perent is the norm. But we deserve higher than that.
Whether we vote or not the politicians will take decisions which effect us all. (As they are doing now)

I am NOT a politician; but I do take a serious interest in what goes on

My uncle is standing tomorrow - I'm so excited for him. :)

I am going to vote, but I'd be far more likely to if any of the political parties round here even pretended to care about my vote. I find it difficult to condemn voter apathy when those seeking our votes aren't doing anything to inspire or inform voters.

We've had no campaign leaflets at all for the council elections. We got a single 'no to AV' leaflet, which was riddled with utter nonsense (but that's beside the point), and nothing from the 'yes' campaign. We did get the usual monthly newsletter from the lib dems, but it contained no information about their candidates own policies (just 'don't vote labour; they were awful last time', which is hardly inspiring).

Last night I decided to google to try to find out who was actually standing in my ward and it was not easy. Looking on individual party websites, I found the name of the Tory candidate (who hasn't a hope in hell here, so may as well not bother) but I couldn't find even the name of the labour candidate anywhere, not even on the local labour website. It appears that the greens aren't running in this ward and I couldn't find any information about any other candidates or even about anyone's actual local policies.

As I said, I will vote (yes and labour, in case anyone cares and only based on the national party) but I do so begrudgingly, especially as I know absolutely nothing about who or what I'm supposed to be voting for. I may as well do 'eeny meeny miny mo' and choose randomly though.

I am far from impressed.

Damsellein Disguise

thats disappointing . I have had leaflets from them all. Political meetings dont happen now. (But councils do matter)

It was traditional to vote party. And still is up to a point. (I was a none too serious candidate once) There was a tied council.

Alpinepony...you look over the moon. Can you vote for your uncle?

I hope for a good turn out but suspect it'll be as shit as ever, people seem to care even less about local politics than national and the AV referendum seems to have inspired approximately no enthusiasm.

My DP is standing and I really hope he wins, even though we don't support the same political party.

scousy Unfortunately not as I'm not in the UK - but he did tell me that he's voted for the only person he trusts!

Gaston Wow! I am in awe. I'd like to stand in the future but my boyfriend and I have extremely opposing views - although he is coming around to my way of thinking because it is the correct way as he ages. How do you stop yourselves murdering each other?

Gaston...interesting couple

We are extremely opposing too, I'm a (in his words) "a fluffy lefty" and he's a tory. However, when it comes down to it we agree on more stuff than you would think, some things we just cannot discuss and some things we can discuss and agree to disagree on or even change the other persons mind (rare, but has happened). It bizarrely works

General election time is the worst, I'm not that fussed about locally and would still vote for him despite his party allegiance as I think local elections are more about the individuals than overarching party strategy.

You should stand Alpine! Just make sure you have LOADS of free time first, it's very time consuming.

they reckon there will be the lowest ever turnout in London, due to no local elections - perhaps less than 20% of the electorate taking part in the AV vote. Whatever the result is for the AV vote, you have to question it's validity in circumstances where perhaps 80%+ of people don't even bother to get off their backsides to vote.

No local elections in Cornwall either so probably another area with extraordinarily low turnout likely.

I think if it's 'No 2 AV' which seems pretty likely they won't be complaining about the lack of mandate on such a low turnout but if by a small miracle the yes campaign wins I suspect DC will go bananas about it not being a true reflection of the mood of the country.

cant see it myself, most people really do not have a clue what AV is or isnt