Who should I vote for?
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010Now I am a floating voter and my final decision will be made in the ballot box on Thursday (though I have a fair idea who it will be for). It is my duty and privilege to vote and to vote for both the best candidate(s) for my constituency and the best party for the country.
As someone who likes to think that they have half a brain I want to be making my decision based not on irrelevant details such as who my parents/friends support. I want to be voting based on the merits of the beliefs, skills and policies of the candidates and on the beliefs and policies of the parties they represent.
Now obviously it is necessary to do some tactical voting under our current first-past-the-post voting system (though hopefully we will have something better before the next election) and so that is another thing to take into account.
The Peterhouse Politics Society held a hustings which I attended and which allowed me to assess the MP candidates in person which was quite useful. I found it ruled out Daniel Zeichner (Labour), I wasn’t that impressed with Nick Hillman (Conservatives) either though he did a better job as a candidate than Zeichner: he was constrained by the policies of his party from doing well in my eyes :-).
I have watched the first election debate and the second election debate and I have downloaded the third debate which I will watch later.
This afternoon I have been experimenting with various websites which claim to be able to help you decide who to vote for. I have found the experience interesting (though it didn’t really tell me much I didn’t already know).
| Website | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| They Work For You’s Election website Asks how much you agree or disagree with a series of questions and then shows you your candidates answers. |
By far the best interface (and data) for determining what the candidates I can vote for think. Weights all the candidates based on how close they are to what I agree with. Very transparent on how it is working out which party I agree with. Produced by MySociety who have produced some pretty cool stuff. |
Not quite as good at dealing with national policies – it is focusing on local politics. It could be extended to also cover councillors and party leaders to give it both national and even more local coverage. |
| Vote Match Similar to the above in that it asks you whether you agree/disagree with a series of statements and then tells you how this compares with national party policies |
Possibly better at national politics as that is its focus. |
Lacks transparency on how it is calculating the result. Doesn’t tell you what each party thinks about each statement as you go along. |
| Vote for Policies Gives you a selection of 4 policy areas (to pick the ones you care most about) and then presents you with a set of policy statements from each party showing their policies in that area. |
Uses actual party manifesto data to help people determine who to vote for |
I was initially confused by the interface and filled the first page in wrong and had to go back and correct it. It would be greatly improved by better granularity on policies within the same sub-area of policy. It only allows the selection of the one you like the best from the available options and doesn’t allow any credit to be given to the policies which would have come second (or any pain to be served out to parties who have a policy which means that I would never vote for them in a million years (e.g. “we don’t believe in global warming” (RAGE))). |
| Who should you vote for? Another how much do you agree/disagree with the following statements quiz. |
Has a few other political quizzes which among other things determined that I am an idealistic lefty :-) (but then I knew that) | Doesn’t say how much each party agrees with each statement as clearly as theyworkforyou (though this information is available in the onhover text. |
| Active History Presents choices between policies from the three top parties. |
Uses actual manifesto data | Only chooses between the top 3 parties and so isn’t so useful in Cambridge where the Greens have a good chance. It also feels to simple (like voteforpolicies in that it only lets you choose the policy you like the most but doesn’t give any wait to policies you would have put second). People like me who know what policies parties have can guess which is which reasonably easily. |
Vote For Policies’ constituency results are also quite interesting as it indicates that the Lib Dems are wrong in their two horse race (between them and Labour) claims for Cambridge. Rather it is a three horse race: Labour, Greens, Lib Dem. Of course this data isn’t that reliable.
The Guardian’s pole of the polls indicates that the Lib Dems have failed to make the breakthrough I might have hoped for.
But in answer to the question it is for me a toss up between the Lib Dems and the Greens who both have a reasonable chance of winning in Cambridge (though the Lib Dems are more likely to win). I think on average I agree with Lib Dem policies more frequently than Green policies (but I consider the environment to be very important) however Tony Juniper is standing for the Greens in Cambridge and he is the most qualified candidate standing. However if I vote Green and they loose then I am fairly sure that the Lib Dems will win instead and that is another result I quite like. I suspect that this is a fairly rare situation for voters to find themselves in. Hopefully we will get STV before the next elections and then everyone will have a better chance of their vote counting.