To think voting for the Green Party is a wasted vote?

[Rebecca2014]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30829222

For one thing you will be giving a greater chance of the Tories and UKIP winning the election due to the fact votes are being taken from Labour and the Lib Dems. You are not taking votes from UKIP, you are taking votes from Labour the party more likely to win the election.

Second my family live in Brighton and the Green Party have been awful there, the rubbish collections...the roads, do not talk about what they done for the motorist in that town.

If you are voting for the Greens, why???

No vote is a wasted vote. With enough support they could become a coalition partner and I would welcome their influence. Their education policy is one of the most sensible that I have seen in a long time, finally echoing the evidence that teachers have been studying for years. Their advocacy for the environment & sustainability is years overdue, and actually makes sound financial sense, if we can get people to start thinking the long term effects of ignoring the damage we are currently doing.

I don't agree with all of their policies, but they certainly have more that I agree with than the others.

Equally, if you tell people that voting UKIP is a wasted vote, do you think that they will stop to consider the error of their ways and vote the way you would like?

I am voting Green because while the Lib Dems most closely match my personal views, I feel let down by them (although possibly their only real mistake was the coalition govt. which was never going to be a good move for them).

While the UK's voting system is undemocratic and does indeed nullify the opinion of anybody who doesn't vote Tory/Labour, I don't think that rowing in with it will help. Perhaps if year after year they see other parties getting votes, somebody might start making a move to bring in proportional representation.

At one point UKIP were dismissed as a minority party that it was a waste of time voting for. Now look at all the worried people.
If we get a pick and mix government, they will spend so much time squabbling and preening and being rude about each other, whilst all sticking their snouts in the same trough that the rest of the country will probably revert to indifference with Westminster and campaigning and protesting for change at a local grassroots level. Which is usually fairly effective.
As always, we'll just have to wait and see, Just like we did through the endless years of RW Conservative government in the 80s.

I voted green (my first vote) last time and i will vote green again, for me its not a tactical vote about 'who will get in' (although clearly id love it to be greens). But i vote for the party that stands closest to what i believe and i think the current main parties are incredibly short sighted about the future we are leaving our grand children.
Thats everything from;
flooding
farming (how we are going to manage the MASSIVE increase need for food)
building new houses (yes we need ALOT more, but they need to be managed better to have less ecological affect otherwise we fuck up our food chain)
HS2 - What the actual fuck?!!!!
sustainable energy
NHS

I do believe our little country is at a tipping point and we need long term thinking or we are going to cause ourselves massive problems

AnnieLob summed it up for me.

A 'wasted' vote for me would be voting UKIP. It would be a 'waste' of my intellect and intelligence.

It seems to be that those of us that vote Green vote according to our ethics and values rather than using it as a tactical counter.

Let's see

Tories/UKIP/BNP etc. - cold day in hell before any of them would get my vote

Labor - used to be my party of choice. Are now a pile of wank barely recognisable if you look at the original labor party. So no vote for them

Lib dem - pathetic party, backtracked no end. Should never have joined the Tories. What a waste of my vote that was. So many good ideas and vertually nothing to show for it

So all the main parties are basically a pile of shite and I'd never vote for the others already mentioned. There are a few 'joke' parties I could vote for but that really would be a wasted vote

I'm voting green. Let them have a chance to run the country. They surely can't fuck it up as much as the main 3 have. Perhaps a different party winning might prompt the others to sort their shit out so I can once again feel confident to vote for them ;-p

I dont believe there is such a thing as a wasted vote. aside from voting for bonkers parties which you dont agree with the manifesto of course.

If you believe what a party is saying then voting for them is never a waste.

WaywardOn3

MrsLH, is that you ?

Load of rubbish.

the only way our system can work is if everybody votes for the party they want to be in power.

but as I want sustainable and practical electricity, it won't be the greens for me.

The Greens now have more members than UKIP, and more members than the Lib Dems.

I am in Scotland so the situation is a bit different. I am a Green party member but will be voting SNP. The SNP are polling about 44% of the vote in Scotland at the moment, and it'd be great if they succeeded in taking 10s of seats from Labour, and sending a large contingent to Westminster. It's a FPTP system so I dont want to split the vote by voting Green. I agree with most of the SNP policies anyway, and even if I didn't its not like Scottish MPs can do much in WM.

specialsubject

but as I want sustainable and practical electricity, it won't be the greens for me.

You are aware of how pitiful our margin of safety is after 3 Labour and one Coalition governments. That private companies have been paid a kings ransom by the incompetent cretins running this country to bring decommissioned (dirty) power stations back online. That sweetheart deals have been agreed with large industrial users to shutdown to ensure the domestic supply is adequate.

If that's the Labour/Tory/LibDem idea of "sustainable and practical" then it's hard to see how the Greens naivete could be any worse.

Personally, I am a massive fan of nuclear power - the more the merrier. I appreciate it seems paradoxical to happily vote Green. However, voting Labour, Tory and LibDem over the years hasn't built anymore nuclear power stations, so I'm hardly worse off, am I ?

Why do you vote for a party if you are not a member? I vote for the person regardless of his / her party. We had an MP for years and he did his constituents a superb job so I voted for him until he retired. We now have a Conservative MP who does nothing for us. I scan the faces on television at Prime Minister's Question Time and I never see him there either. All he does is get into the local paper cutting ribbons and opening fetes so I don't vote for him I vote for UKIP There are people to vote for - it doesn't have to be a party.

but as I want sustainable and practical electricity, it won't be the greens for me.

Depends where you live ;)

www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/05/scotland-fossil-fuel-free-by-2030-says-report

I'll probably vote for them. I would have voted Lib Dems in the last election (I screwed up so couldn't vote in the end) and completely lost faith in them in the sodding coalition.

I live in Brighton and yes, what they've done with the roads has pissed me off, both DP and I have to use our cars for our commutes and it's a nightmare. But it's happening up and down the country and probably would have happened in time if it were a different party in power.

I'm another who is scared of UKIP gaining more power. I'm from Clacton, my family are all still there and having grown up there, I can totally see how they're gaining power in places like it.

I don't think it's a wasted vote at all. It's good for democracy to have more than two valid options, the more the better IMO.

The whole point of a vote is that you vote for whoever's policies you agree with the most. I had a similar argument with an ex-colleague several years ago who said that people should just vote Tory or Labour, my mum says that the only wasted vote is one that you don't actually believe in.

This is looking like being the most tactical election we've had. Let's face it, there's only so many seats up for grabs, as over half of MPs have huge majorities. What happens in the swing seats matters, and a lot of people will be placing "anti" votes instead of supporting who they want - but that's what happens with FPTP.

Almost guaranteed another coalition, just who between is the question. (Lab/Lib,/SNP seems to be favourite).

ItsAllGoingToBeFine

...its not like Scottish MPs can do much in WM.

I wouldn't be so sure. They could certainly hold the balance of power in a hung parliament. Which raises all sorts of fascinating constitutional questions (for those interested in such things).

How far would the people of England be prepared to see the SNP advance Scottish policies, as the price for getting English policies enacted ?

If there was an SNP equivalent for England, I would seriously study their policies - my current feeling is certainly one of sympathy.

As a Tory voter I'm happy if you vote Green instead of Labour. It's not wasted if it keeps loopy Ed and his shower out of power for another term.

People should vote for who they want but also be aware of which two maybe three parties have the greatest chance of winning in their constituency. I would imagine a Green voter would rather hold their nose and vote Labour in a Tory/Labour tight constituency race

I will be voting green because it is the party that most represents my view point. I believe in voting for the party you want to win.

I wouldn't be so sure. They could certainly hold the balance of power in a hung parliament. Which raises all sorts of fascinating constitutional questions (for those interested in such things).

Indeed. Several sources now have mooted the idea of a Labour/Tory coalition....