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| Fifteen to One and all the contestants forgot to bank |
Nigel Farrage divided the nation. He is political marmite: people either love or hate him. Natalie Bennett paused too much and was too Australian (or New Zealand, if you were following my feeds), Leanne Wood had nice hair and an accent to die for: everyone on my Twitter feed wanted to go to live in the valleys, just so they could say, "I live in the Valleys," with her accent. Nick Clegg was desperate. David Cameron was quiet. Ed Miliband did something strange with his eyes and Nicola Sturgeon, representing a party that most of us can't vote for, was the overall winner.
The sad thing is that this popularity contest hasn't made ordinary voters feel any more empowered. Several people on my social media said that they weren't watching it or that they had turned off because they were fed up with their vote not counting.
I live in the 27th safest Conservative seat in the country, which is the 3rd safest seat in the whole Anglia region. Despite the fact that our MP was only one of seven MPs to vote against the equal pay bill earlier this year, many feel powerless to get rid of him. The country voted against electoral reform, firmly saying,"No!" to AV.
However, I've been looking at some numbers and it is possible. In the last General Election the electorate (those registered to vote) for this constituency numbered 69 539. Of those only 69.64% turned out. If everyone had voted then there would have been an extra 21 112 votes. Our MP's majority was 19,407.
Then there are the people who didn't register. It is estimated that about 17% of the eligible population don't register to vote. That could mean another 14 243 voters.
There could be 35 354 voters in our constituency who think their vote won't count, nearly twice our MP's majority.
It could make a difference.
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| www.voteforpolicies.org.uk |
It probably won't but it could.
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