to want to go down the protest vote route when this General Election is finally called?

[Bleh]

I was thinking yesterday about which party I would actually want to vote for in the next election, and they all see pretty bad options to me. I have very specific reasons (not going to go into here) why I would not vote Lib Dem. Previously voted Labour, but now definitely not keen on them. Conservatives, no, which leaves the minority parties, most of which are nuts.

There has to be ONE viable alternative, surely?

I have no idea who I will vote. I think the are all bad news for the country on a whole. I think I will have a look and see how their individual policies will benefit us a family and decide who to vote from that.

A protest vote, unfortunately, tends to be a wasted one.....

If you feel that strongly, join the party that best fits your views and change from within. Don't moan about things, participate. Get active. A "protest vote" is a wasted vote and akin to apathy and there sure is enough of that in this country.

I've been thinking about this and it's about time that MN got itself out there.

AIBU is a different kettle of fish obviously but I think there is a sort of consensus about practical / moral issues.

Yes, now the MN party, that's something I can get behind.

I think I'm going to have to do some serious research and thinking - what is important to me, and which party supports what I think is important? Initial research did not go well.

I agree with Bucharest either wasted or dangerous depending on how much of a protest statment you wish to make (like voting BNP even if you have no sympathy for the ideas just to make a point that you do not like the current main parties).

That's how the SNP ended up with so many seats in the last Scottish elections and that's been just splendid . Be careful.

i wont be voting for any of the main 3 parties...

it's good to have parties like the BNP and UKIP......keeps the others on their toes..

If you really want to protest then spoil your ballot paper, and persuade anyone else who wants to protest to do the same thing.

Political parties only really try to please one sort of person, those who will change the party they vote for and are in an area where there's enough of them to swing a local election.

They main parties have become terribly good at working out who those people are and what they will vote for, which is why they've become so similar to each other.

Not voting is no sort of protest at all, non-voters are just people that the parties don't have to worry about pleasing. That, in part, is why they don't make that much of a fuss over low turn outs and why there's no real motions to make voting compulsory. In fact not voting is just encouraging the sort of system that we have at the moment.

Voting for a "protest party" you don't believe in is dangerous, as they just might get in...

So spoiling your ballot is the way to go if you must protest. It proves that you're willing to go out and use the vote that our ancestors fought for us to get.

Spoilt papers are counted. So imagine how things will look if 10% of the papers in an election are spoilt, imagine even more than that. It would be enough to swing many elections from one candidate to another.

The parties would become aware that there is a number of votes out there that are up for grabs and that is sufficient to win them the election.

So they might work harder to please those people.

Though that said first they would try to ridicule the idea, trying to please that many people is a hurdle they lazily don't want to try for. It's in their interest for people to sit out of it and not vote.

It will take a few elections for this point to be hammered home to them but they will learn.

It's a long term process but it seems to be the way to go.

Prove that we're out there, prove that we care and prove that there are enough of us to make a difference.

So please don't stay at home, vote.

If you really don't want to vote for any party then spoil your paper.

Encourage all of your friends to do the same.

We can reclaim politics for the people, we really can, but we need to get out there and do it!

I spoil my ballot paper when I am unsure of who I want to vote for. Many people say spoiling your ballot is useless as they are not counted, but they are. At each election the returning officer reads out the list of votes for all candidates and also says how many papers were spoilt. If one day the number of spoilt papers were the same as or more than the winning candidates votes then the powers that be would realise what some people feel.