Electioneering

A few random thoughts on election day:

  1. I wonder how many people noticed that the BBC used Radiohead’s Electioneering as the background music to one of their news items the other day.
  2. I see the BBC have a helpful Guide To Voting on their website today. I wonder how many people there are that are a) stupid enough to not know how to vote, and b) intelligent enough to know how to use a computer and the internet.

I voted before work, for what it’s worth. Frankly, the chances of Labour losing Southampton Test (Alan Whitehead, majority 11,207) are remote at best. However, as I was looking at my ballot paper to double-check I hadn’t accidentally voted for UKIP I had an idea…

At the moment, ballot papers have a list of candidates on the left-hand side, and a row of boxes on the right. You place an ‘X’ next to the candidate of your choice. This is far too simplistic.

What I want is a list of candidates on the left-hand side, and a list of the parties on the right, in a random order. To vote for a candidate you have to draw a line, correctly connecting their name to the name of their party.

That’d sort things out (well, that and proportional representation).

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