In the first election for the Thames Valley Police and crime commissioner (PCC) back in 2012 the turnout was 13.3 per cent. That was thought to be disappointing.
The 2016 PCC election is the first election, that I remember, where no literature has been delivered to our door. We will wait and see the turnout with interest.
I had one communication from the Tory candidate.
When police commissioners were introduced, I thought it a crazy idea – money and time being diverted from the core activity of policing: the prevention of crime and the apprehension of offenders. I still think it is a bad idea.
However, we were told (when these posts were introduced) that the elections would not be party political. This time we had four candidate, all identified by a party political label. I spoilt my paper in protest.
Policing and politics are of course intertwined; but an assurance was given and has been ruthlessly broken without any arrests being made….
It is a bad scheme Iain, I emailed the commissioner three times and never received so much as an acknowledgement let alone an answer, I even took to writing and posting him a letter, guess what?
Hopefully a poorer turn out will leed to the office being scrapped !
.? Not sure why the comment is addressed at me – I fully agree this is a daft idea and a waste of money and like Paul I spoilled my paper
Fully agree with other commenters. This role of police commissioner should not be party political. I refused to vote for any of them. There are more important things to spend money onthan this pointless election.
I’m also not interested in voting for candidates who make no effort at all to canvass my vote. It was not easy to find out in advance who the candidate were or how they planned to help the town.
Agree with ppjs, should not be aligned with a political party. I received no literature, no visits so didn’t even bother turning out to spoil my paper.
Spoiling a paper still shows that you turned up. And no one will know that you ‘protested’. Better to not turn up if you want to ‘protest’.
No Daniel – if you don’t turn up it looks as if you don’t care; if you vote “none of the above” it show you do. Spoilt papers are counted and recorded – and I bet that if they outnumbered votes for the candidates it would lead to some serious soul-searching.
I agree the post should be non-political.I was told one of the candidates was delivering his own publicity but have no idea who was actually standing so I couldn’t vote for any of them.
No Hester, I would have to disagree. In fact I *know* that you are wrong. If I do not vote, it is because, all things considered, I have *chosen* not to vote. I haven’t just not turned up because I do not care. However I will concede that there may be *some* people who do not vote because they can’t be bothered, or do not care. But what you say is a generalisation, and at best an opinion. But it is not a fact. Of course…how one separates the wheat from the chaff…the non-botherers from the decisive….I do not know.
If you turn up to vote, and you purposefully spoil your vote; how does that ‘register’ as a protest? How does that “purposefully spoiled vote” get separated from the spoiled papers that were just filled in incorrectly? How do you separate the “protestors” from those that just made a mistake?
If you “turn up to vote”….you voted.
If you do not turn up to vote – you didn’t.
I have had people knock at my door wanting to speak to me as I didn’t vote (or haven’t voted yet)…trying to ascertain why that might be and to perhaps to convince me to vote for them.
I have never had someone knock at my door asking me whether I intentionally spoiled my vote because I am dissatisfied with “all of them”, or whether I just made a mistake.
But it is a toughy….
For what it is worth, I almost always vote, but only if I feel informed enough to make a decision.
I was totally uninformed about yesterday, and so chose not to vote.
I voted with my feet, I simply didn’t walk in to the polling station.
They are yet another level of management we don’t need. The money to pay for them and their staff comes out of our pockets and which could be better spent on officers driving around the town.
All the candidates’ manifestos were online. You may have waited for something to come – as I did – but when nothing arrived (apart from the one from the Conservative candidate) I googled the Police Commissioner election and all the manifestos were there.
I agree with Hester on how to best register a protest. The difficulty I have is I believe its both a right and a duty that have been hard won to exercise a vote. I therefore feel obliged to so so if at all possible.
On this case though, in common with most of the comments above I dont think the post should exist, and certainly shouldnt be a party political post so I think the best way to register the protest is to spoil your ballot.
Daniel is correct that you cant separate the wheat from the chaff, however politicians do know what a ‘normal’ level of spoilled papers looks like so if it’s a much higher number they are fully aware that a protest is being registered.
I think it is our *opportunity* to vote, that was hard fought for.
….”…politicians do know what a ‘normal’ level of spoilled papers looks like so if it’s a much higher number they are fully aware that a protest is being registered…”….
HOW do they know this? I would argue this is supposition…
It is supposition, as is the motivation behind people choosing not to vote. Theres no cast iron way of registering a protest so vote so you have to choose between not voting or spoiling your paper. I’ve explained why I think the latter is preferable.
I too voted by not turning up. The trouble is with even going to spoil your ballot paper is that you are counted as part of the “turnout” and if the was high they would say the elections are worth it even though full of spoilt papers.
Hmm….with your way, they’ll never know what you intended, other than you were happy to vote. With my way there’s at least a chance they’ll come and speak to me.
But you are right; both supposition… but I think mine is better than yours….
I am the only one in my family who voted yesterday, we had nothing at all from any candidate about it. Yes i know I could look it up on choosemypcc…..or whatever it was….but if the candidates cannot be bothered to make me aware of who they are, why should we be bothered to vote.
Don’t get stressed about this insignificant position, just found out who the next mayor of London is !
Fantastic result for London Mayor
Many years ago I accompanied a candidate to the count for a local election. All the spoiled ballot papers – some deliberately spoiled, others obviously accidentally – were shown to the candidates or their representatives so that they could agree on how each one individually would be counted or discarded. Can anyone confirm that this still happens? Because if so I think it really is worth turning up and writing a message on your ballot paper to say what a colossal waste of public money you think elected party-political PCCs are.
Helen – yes it does happen. I was an observer at the local elections last May and can vouch for that.
I see that the turnout for the Thames Valley Police Commissioner election yesterday was nearly twice that 4 years ago so am trying to find out how many were spoilt ballots. Will report back when i get an answer!
According to the Vale website the total votes cast were “around 430,000” and the total of first-preferences for the individual candidates was just over 412,000. I have emailed them to ask whether the difference is spoiled ballots, or if there is some other explanation.
4% sounds qiuite high to me….
sharia law on the way for london – hope all the ‘uncle toms’ as the winner calls them will survive.
For goodness sake – i’m no labour supporter but theres no need for that sort of drivel rudi
I wonder how many spoiled votes there were in London?
Many a true word spoken in jest Danial ! Sky news suggested thousands of the 50k inhabitants (mainly Jewish ) of Golders and Bethnal Green were mysteriously missed off the voting list !! And Iain it’s not drivel that Rudi speaks, there are already enclaves here where sharia law does exist and police turn a blind eye to elders taking the law into their own hands, that’s a fact, slowly our Christian way of life as we know it is being disolved, even the Archbishop of Canerbury has expressed concern about that, it’s not so much of an impact for me at my age, but I sincerely fear for my children and grand children’s future !
Hester – we look forward to finding out (if you’re able) how many votes were registered as spoilt. My husband and I also spoilt our ballot in protest, for all of the reasons above and more!
So London elects a moderate muslim mayor and suddenly sharia law is on the agenda – what a load of old tosh. You can call it what you like but sounds horribly like racism to me.
… Is that “around” 430000 votes, because they lost some like before?
Mmm – I did find it slightly surprising that of all the places in the Thames Valley they chose to do the count here!
Hester, thanks, that’s good to know.
Rudi, Captain K: how exactly do you think that the mayor of London could introduce sharia law across the capital? Leaving aside the fact that he doesn’t appear to have any sympathy in that direction, the Human Rights Act would make it impossible.
Helen, it’s not the new mayor that will introduce sharia law, it’s already here! Iain, how can you call him a moderate when he shared the hostings with a known terrorist? this is not about racism, it’s about two cultures that are just polar opposites, I couldn’t go to a Muslim country and build a church, hold an open prayer meeting or celebrate Christmas, it’s simply not possible, so answer me this please? Why should I accept a culture that refuses to accept mine?
… did The Veil pay for consultants to do the count for them…?
Or, perhaps The Veil’s up to the job…. when it counts….
Iain, yesterday (Friday ) I was in a town watering hole discussing the mayor issue when a chap came up and said “I work for Greene King as a delivery driver, come with me when I deliver to Luton , there are streets there I can’t go down because the inhabitants gesture and swear at me because I’m delivering beer, on that basis no more brewery tap, nags head or punch bowl, no more Christmas tree on the square or Christmas (sorry winter ) lights, is that really a society you wAnt to live in?
I’m not going to engage with your racist ramblings steve.
If we stay in the UK the population of the UK will be over 50% Muslim in en years. Especially if Turkey is accepted into the EU. It will be interesting to see how tolerant the Muslim population will be. In the Netherlands free speech and intellectual debates about religion were met with Fatwas and violence. Would you be so vigorous Ian in condemning a Muslim for anti semetism? We are getting more intolerance imported into the country. leaflets are being sent to Mosques urging the killing of Ahmadi Muslims in this country. They are against terrorism and want to integrate into the community.
Janet, you really need to stop your underlying prejudice from limiting your understanding of basic statistics. While it may be true to say that those who consider themselves to be practicing Muslims are growing as a percentage of the overall population and those who consider themselves to be practicing Christians is falling, it is also true to say that the percentage of those who consider themselves to be neither is outstripping them both. Current projections suggest that throughout Europe the percentage of those born into the Muslim faith might reach 10% by 2050.
I wonder if it was consultants who gave those projections? I remembered, whilst queuing in traffic along the Drayton Rd today about consultants and projections in Abingdon…. but couldn’t quite place what it was about….
Still…. consultants.. Gawd luv’em.
The figures are in the public domain, resulting from the 2011 census and are available for all to see and interpret. The projections come from the Pew research centre, generally held to be among the least biased of analysis groups around. I would be fascinated to hear where Janet’s ‘data’ originated.
Well, that’s good to hear. The “data” surrounding the traffic and the double round abouts is only available via an FOI request.
Good to know that the predictions referred to have some rigour to them…. We aren’t used to such robust figures in Abingdon; only willy nilly ones. Thanks reductio.
Personally, I think we should stop wasting money on space research; if we carry on like this 90% of our planet’s population WILL BE MARTIAN
Don’t say I didn’t warn you…
Dear Reduction etc. Your data is considerably out of date. recent analysis has shown that the Muslim population has doubled in the last 01 years. The figures show that Muslims make up 20% or more of the electorate in 26 constituencies and live in all local authority areas in England and Wales. “There has been a spreading-out effect and this has accelerated in the past 10 years,” said Sundas Ali, a sociologist at Oxford University.
Link to the full report which Janet cherry picks from.
http://www.mcb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MCBCensusReport_Infographic.pdf
Janet’s statement on doubling in last 01 years cant be right as Sundas Ali’s study is based on 2011 census data.
In 2011 the percentage of the population identifying themselves as Muslim was 2.7%. The population of Turkey is 79m, so to reach the 50% Janet refers to approximately 70% of the Turkish population would need to relocate to the UK, so people can fairly easily judge for themselves the worth of Janet’s prediction.
Couple of points Janet. Your statement that the Muslim population has doubled is a classic piece of scaremongering ‘interpretation’. It is meaningless without reference to actual figures. One doubled is an increase of 1 whereas a million doubled is an increase of a million. Without reference to actual numbers it serves only to highlight prejudice. Better still use percentages, for example between 2001 and 2011 the % of the England and Wales population identifying as Muslim increased from 3% to 4.8%
I would still be interested to hear where your ‘more up to date data’ comes from. The most recent published paper I can find by Sundas Ali references the 2011 Census data.
Back to the PCC Election. There was information about the role of the PCC and then key points of each of the candidates’ election statements in the Oxford Mail over five consecutive days. Complete sets of election statements for the Thames Valley were easy to find online and download. It was also possible to request printed copies of these leaflets, including in large print and audio form. I obtained them on behalf of a care home where I am a volunteer.
Personally, I chose not to vote as I believe the role of PCC should always be apolitical. However I kept my opinion to myself when helping residents exercise their right to vote.