to think the Electoral Commission have fucked up the election?

[AgaPanthers]

The Electoral Commission are in charge of registering new political parties. Parties must register a name, and can register a description.

Names are not allowed if they would be likely to result in confusion with another party, and neither are descriptions.
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/41/section/28
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/41/section/28A

They have accepted the registration of 'An Independence From Europe' 'UK Independence Now'.

Due to the 'An' at the beginning of the name, this appears at the top of the ballot. twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/466245275812917248/photo/1

Many voters have reported confusion between this party and the much better known UK Independence Party (An Independence From Europe is basically a spoiler because their leader was deselected by UKIP).

AIBU to think that the Electoral Commission have fucked up and this is likely to end up in court?

Even a very small vote for the spoiler party could affect the outcome, even 1% could be in enough to take a seat away from UKIP and give it another party. If this happens in any of the constituencies that the 'An Independence from Europe' vote when added to the UKIP vote would have given them an extra seat, this should end up in court.

AIBU to think they have fucked up allowing this, and it's pretty shit of the Electoral Commission considering that they really don't have any other purpose.

There's a huge difference between getting confused with literal democrats and liberal democrats/lib dems and real lib dems and UKIP and An Independence from Europe Party. The latter two are absolutely nothing alike.

Even your average goldfish could probably tell the difference.

The reaction to seeing 'An independence from Europe Party' is 'oh look a party campaigning for independence from Europe' not 'Oh look UKIP'. Not least because all the billboards round here have 'UKIP' written on them in huge great fuck off letters. It's a bit of a give away.

Britain deserves a UKIP victory

why? what have we done to deserve that

and can we not just be made to sit on the naughty step instead

Mind you I'm in Devon. Maybe the reason for all the UKIP billboards round here was so the voters didn't get confused.

Well it's tricky because it's the European elevtions so there will be parties about UK and Independence.

They're no wherr near as close as the Real Lib Dems

I too would prefer to be on the naughty step, although I am hoping that we haven't done anything too awful, then we won't get UKIP. Is that right?

Sorry op even after looking at your photo (how did you get that by the way, there were posters all over our polling station banning photos and phones) I can't see how you can get them confused. But then, I only read the party name which was in bold, checked.the little symbol on the right hand side and ticked a box.I already knew who I was voting for ai didn't need to read anything else.

I am always amazed that ballot papers are always in alphabetical order. It is a well known fact that when people fill in questionnaires there is an "order effect", i.e. earlier answer options get picked more often. This is why, in market research questionnaires, long batteries of questions are usually either rotated or randomised for different respondents. If you look at council election results where there is more than one seat per ward, it is generally the case that candidates whose names appear earlier in the alphabet get more votes than those from the same party with names that are later in the alphabet.

Unfortunately, it is easy to confuse the public and the "An Independence from Europe" party knows this. Still, as it is UKIP that will suffer I'm not complaining!

Erm, I'm sure my ballot paper didn't look like the photo. Any idea why?

As Aga said, I read 'uk independence now' as the party name, and 'an independence from Europe' as the tag line. I had to read it twice to realise it wasn't ukip (not that I was voting for them anyway, like viva I was more concerned at the number of racist parties on there)

I'm adding all the racist UKIP supporters to my spreadsheet.

It actually says "UK Independence Now", right at the top of the ballot paper in large letters

Underneath the big bold party name.

What does it say about the intelligence of Liberal Democrat voters that 10,000 of them in Devon voted for the wrong party?

if you are talking about the confusion between Literal and Liberal that is far more confusing than something a name that bears only a passing resemblance to the other party name.

Regardless, if it stops UKIP getting in, I'm all for it. They are a nasty bunch of racist twats. Not in the league of the BNP but hiding behind a thin veneer of "middle class" respectability.

It's pretty pathetic that people are making jibes against UKIP voters. You either believe in democracy or you don't.

It's pretty pathetic if they can't tell the difference between An Independence From Europe and UK Independence Party what with them only having one word in their party names the same. What are UKIP's policies on literacy?

Sad to see an independent party, BNP, ukip and some other racist party as 4 of the 8 options.

Well, yes, that was my initial reaction, but on reflection, I'd rather that the racist votes are divided than go to a single party.

True.

I am curious as to where the photo came from.

I think it's a postal ballot

that would make sense :)

FWIW:

In London, the UK Independence Party vote was 371,133, which gave them 1 MEP.

The 8th MEP to be elected in this region were the Greens, with 196,419, a difference of 25,286. The 'UK Independence Now' vote was 26,675. So this probably didn't make a difference (considering that the NO2EU vote was 3,804, and it's reasonable to suppose that they would do that well without trying to trick people).

In NE England, SE England, E Midlands, E England, W Midlands, Yorkshire, NW England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, it would have made no difference.

In SW England, the last MEP to be elected was the Greens on 166,447. UKIP needed to score 499,341 to beat this. They got 484,184, and the Independence From Europe vote was 23,169, so it's reasonably likely that they would have won this one without the dodgy naming.