Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Rovio




Google searches for "hung Parliament" have been soaring, and if you put the word in the box, you will find both the Tories and an electoral-reform group called Power2010 advertising alongside your search outcome - along with a certain lingerie retailer.
The Conservatives are using their latest party election broadcast to warn of the dangers of such an result but there's also a number of websites springing up with the aspire of bringing it about.
Of course, it's nigh-on impractical for individual voters to make a hung Parliament happen, because we simply do not have adequate information.
yet in a three-way marginal, unless we identify something about how our neighbours plan to vote, you could find that voting for your first choice might end up handing success to the candidate who was third on your list.
But some web evangelists believe they can solve this predicament by using the net to build communities with the information to act together to change the electoral outcome.
One site, Count My Vote, asks you to name your favorite candidate - with a guarantee of ambiguity - and then tells you how other people in your constituency are voting so you can work out whether it's worth voting tactically.
But when I looked, I was the first in my constituency to use the site, so it needs the network effect to kick in pretty rapidly if it's to make a difference.
One more site, Hang'em, describes its mission thus:
"The aim of Hang 'em is not ideological. It is not about voting for a candidate whose views you agree with (and is likely to lose). It's about voting for people with integrity and character - the more independent the better - including Tories and Labour candidates with a record of rebellion."
So the idea is to recognize independent-minded candidates with a chance of winning and then rally people behind them. Already there are recommended candidates in most constituencies, and a Facebook group which the organisers believe will be the main way of spreading the message.
But even in this brand-new political movement, there are already splits and rows. Some are angry that any Labour or Conservative candidates are being put forward as suggested candidates; others are rowing over whether a Lib Dem/Labour or a Lib Dem/Conservative union would be better.
Of course, for sufficient of people all this is irrelevant anyway because they live in places where the outcome of the election is not really in doubt.
The Electoral Reform Society has a versatile site called Is Your Election Over? which maps constituencies and tells you whether your vote is likely to make any difference.
Right now, the web is proving very good at providing voters with a mountain of information about the parties, their candidates and their policies, with sites like Vote Match helping you make up your mind how to choose from the menu according to your personal policy tastes.
But, however keen the evangelists for a hung Parliament may be, they're going to have to draw huge crowds to their websites over the next 10 days to have a hope of making any difference to the outcome. And, according to the polls right now, they don't even need to bother - it will happen anyway.


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