Report on Uk voting problems published

2010 UK Parliamentary General Election Interim Report: Review of problems at polling stations at close of poll on 6 May 2010 - Electoral Commission. According to the commission at least 1,200 people lost their chance to vote on election night because of bad planning by councils

The Guardian datablog has a useful spreadsheet of places where the electorate couldn't vote.You can donload it directly from the website.

The OSCE ODIHR also deployed a mission to the Uk elections - some preliminary needs assessments are currently online.
In response to the elections Institute Public policy research has published a report Devising an Electoral System for the 21st Century: The case for AMS

Who is the new prime minster?

Yesterday it was announced that David Cameron had become the new Prime Minister
Here are some sites where you can find out more.
His official website tells you that his hobbies include growing vegetables. You can also download details of expenses and look at recent speeches.
the 10 Downing Street Flickr
and YouTube channels now contain information on Cameron. You can watch his acceptance speech and recent conversation with Barack Obama

However more detailed information on Cameron can be found on these websites.
The BBC has photographs and comment on Camerons life
the Guardian Aristotle database has facts and figures, the paper also has videos and recent news stories.
TheyWork for you has an excellent listing of recent parliamentary activity, questions, expenses and work in his constituency.
Finally the Political Studies Association Uk (PSA) conference proceedings database has some full text papers on David Cameron's leadership of the Conservative Party. See this example from 2007 which considered whether Cameron had feminized the party

Did you have any trouble voting?

One of the news stories relating to election day was the claim that many people did not get to vote as the polling stations closed before they got their chance.

The Electoral Commission has now launched an investigation where members of the public can write in with their experiences.
The BBC website provides an introduction to what they regard as the root problems. It also contains a discussion forum where members of the public have put their comments This includes footage of queues shot from mobile phones.
The Channel 4 factblog considers claims that the problems were caused by high turnout and ultimately finds them to be a fiction.
Finally another interesting site to watch is the OSCE election observatiuon team who will be reporting on the consuct of the British elections.

Lib-Dems - what will they do?

The final results have indeed revealed a hung parliament. The Guardian has a spreadsheet where you can download date for each constiuency
But the question now seems to be what will the libDems do? Most of the Uk newspapers have columns discussing this at length
See David Camerons offer to them via the BBC website
and Gordon Brown's statement
The Official LibDem website has Nick Cleggs statement and will be posting further press releases
LibDem blogs has some comment on the situation from his supporters
as does the LibDem Voice website where members are being urged to have their say. They also have a twitter account
The Next Left blog from the Fabian society today said most of the public supported a coalition.
The BBC also has a good text feed of comment including postings from bloggers and journalists
Finally you might want to compare the content of the manifdestos yourself. The Guardian has a good visual display of the words which may offer insight as well as links to the full text.

Hanging on - with the election news!

As Britain edges towards a hung parliament. You can catch up with hours of last nights events condensed in a 17 minute election night podcast from the BBC Today programme. Download from their main website
Or alternatively Take a look at some TV footage on the BBC website and find out what happens in a hung parliament.
Read the log entries from the LSE Election Night event. A live webcast was broadcast which may be made available on the website .

Following on the theme of hung parliaments which has been covered earlier in this blog The blog from the University of Nottingham School of Politics has some interesting comment on events and the history of hung parliaments in Britain.
Also useful are some comments from historians on the History and Policy website
and a recent posting from Progressives on the history of Labour coalition governments.

Made up your mind who to vote for?

If you havent decided which party you want to vote for yet why not try the vote match tool developed by Unlock Democracy, the Joseph Rowntree Trust and the Telegraph Answer some questions and see which party your opinions most closely match.

CEP LSE 2010 election analysis - 110 page book discussing some research on the key issues. These include health, immigration, the economy.

About My Vote from the Electoral Commission has information on the voting process
Channel 4 also has a more light hearted election quiz to help you decide.
and the Vote-u-Lator claims to use your social network (via Facebook) to take the 'err' out of voter. Find out more from this post
Finally for some relief try the Downing Street Fighter game from T-Enterprise - who will win through to no.10?

finally the BBC has just released an online collection of comedy election clips They include Yes Prime Minister.

What about the regions?

Much of the emphasis of the main TV and news outlets has been on the leaders debates for England. But we shouldn't forget that dabates have also been taking place in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Here are some more quick suggestions for following these.

Scotland
The BBC scotland website has news stories, polls and blog. Look out for clips of the leaders debates on the BBC iPlayer
Scottish newspaper The Herald also has a scottish focus with news, polls and discussion as does the Scotsman

Another good site for polls and blogs is Scotland Votes which is maintained by Weber Shandwick public affairs with media partners including the Scotsman.

Wales
Again BBC Wales has TV programmes, polls and blogs
Also useful is Wales Online which is maintained by the Western Mail newspaper

Northern Ireland
BBC Northern Ireland includes a blog by Mark Devenport
The Belfast Telegraph also has news stories and polls coverage and famous blogger Slugger O'Toole has postings and summaries from major news sources.
Strategm a NI lobbying company has some good analysis of the polls which features comment from renown expert Nicholas Whyte
For some historic election results some excellent starting points are: CAIN CAIN is the Northern Ireland Conflict Archive maintained by the University of Ulster . Its election section contains all results from 1968 onwards. Associated with this ARK has information on all elections since 1885 with a clickable map of results since 1996.
Finally if you want to consider the impact of political devolution on politics and government in the regions, we would recommend the UCL Constitution unit website which has a major section monitoring devolution.
The Intute catalogue also has links to major web resources relating to devolution in Scotland, Wales and Government in Northern Ireland

Should you vote tactically?

Tactical voting has been in the news over the weekend.
Yesterday leading Labour Party member Ed Balls advocated using tactical voting to keep the Conservatives out
Left wing think tank Compass also polled its members on whether tactical voting was a good idea last week. Its website includes a fact sheet on marginal seats.
Also discussing the issue were Liberal Democrats. see some recent posts on LibDem Voice.
On a more satirical note, famous political blogger Guido Fawkes has also been spolighting MPs who would lose their seats if voters employed tactical voting. Take a look at his blog for more.
Also interesting is the Voter Power website. This enables voters to find out if their vote will make a difference, using a calculation based upon statistical analysis by the New Economics Foundation (NEF). In this model those living in marginal constituencies have the most power.

For some academic analysis
see the CREST website. Centre for Research into Elections and Social Trends (CREST) is a Research Centre based jointly at the National Centre for Social Research (formerly SCPR) in London - Britain’s largest independent social research institute - and the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford. They have a number of papers on tactical voting. Paper 95
Definition and measurement of tactical voting : the role of rational choice
Tactical Voting and Tactical Non-Voting
Finally why not take a look at the IPSO Mori poll site which includes recent polls where the electorate have been asked if they intend to vote tactically. This archived paper considers trends in tactical voting from 1987-2010

What does history tell us about the elections?

An interesting site from History and policy. Historians are using their insight to explain current trends. Find out what they think about Gordon brown's microphone gaffe
if you are interested in the history of British elections here are some useful sites.
The LSE election blog has also been comparing today with the last time a hung parliament occurred in 1974

See Uk election statistics from 1945-2004 in this House of Commons research paper and find more useful facts and figures on by-election turnout and results since then from their main elections website
British election studies provide insight and data on attitudes and behaviour from the 1960s onwards. It is possible to download more recent data free of charge from the website. In general most data prior to 2005 requires a subscription to ESDS Uk data archive
Find copies of party manifestos from 1945 onwards via Richard kimber's political resources website
If you are interested in political communications you might also want to look at the Uk web archive materials relating to the 2005 elections. They include archived snapshots of blogs, campaign and party websites taken during the campaigns.

Political communication in the election- new Media or TV?

A lot has been said about 2010 being the social media election. But is this true? Others have argued that more interest is being provoked by the televised debates.
Yesterday Radio 4 Today had an interesting piece on new media and the elections - which discussed how the parties have been using online campaigning
It featured comment about the new Labservative website - an example of a site created by the Liberal democrats to spoof labour and conservative policies. More discussion about its purpose can also be read on Campaign online
The Hansard society has also discussed the theme of online political communication on its website and digital democracy blog. See this posting 'calm down its only a tweet' which tests the theory that (twitter in particular) is ephemeral by looking at reactions directly after the first leaders debate. The site also has some interesting feedback and comment from readers.Plus a whole collection of reports which discuss the use of new media by British political parties.
Some other good starting points for following this continuing debate on social media and the campaigns include.
LSE Election experts blog - which has a weekly round up of the political blogs which highlights, discusses and analyses key trends.

A number of PR sites also have their verdict on the types of marketing and promotion being used in the campaigns which make for interesting reading.
PR week has an online sentiment tracker which is measuring and anlysing the online campaigns. The site also includes other free articles discussing tactics

Marketing week has some articles and comment on the importance of the different type of campaigns.

Chameleon PR has an interesting blog discussing related issues. See this posting on why expressing political beliefs on Twitter is not a good idea! There is also some discussion of the Conservative party poster campaign and viral marketing

Campaign is also another good place for discussion of marketing techniques.

Finally
Tweetminster - is for the duration of the campaigns running what it calls a realtime sentiment tracker. This is measuring the number and type of tweets being sent about individual party leaders. Will the social media prediction reflect the real results next week?

Should we reform the electoral system?

One of the issues relating to a hung parliament is the question of whether the electoral system should be reformed.
Here are some starting points for considering the impact of different voting systems on election outcomes.
The main organisation calling for change in the UK is the Electoral Reform Society. It includes a large collection of online pamphlets and reports However, do remember that the ERS favours the adoption of single transferable voting.

More balanced Summaries of the the Independent Commission on the Voting System
and other Uk government reviews can be found in House of Commons Library publications. see this example from 1998 and search the site for others.
For a broader overview of the types of electoral system available, an excellent resource is the ACE electoral knowledge networkwhich has involvement from a number of leading organisations. It includes an encyclopedia of terminology, electoral laws and resources.
Another excellent resource is International Idea's Handbook of electoral system design Which examines different systems and their consequences.
In 2006, The Minority Rights Group also published a pamphlet on Electoral systems and the protection and participation of minorities which you might find useful.
Finally a resource (in favour of PR ) where you can find articles and papers supporting Proportional representation is the US based PR Library

More on Hung Parliaments

Returning to the earlier theme of a Hung parliament
This week there has been more concern about what it might bring.
The British Chamber of Commerce released a survey stating business leaders fears
The Conservative party issued a briefing on the dangers of a hung parliament
Labour supporters on LabourList were also discussing 'hung parliaments'
Try looking at the earlier posting for some suggestions of starting points.In particular the BBC has a clear explanation
In addition, this week
Democratic Audit have just launched an election briefing on coming to terms with hung parliament in British politics
The Institute for Government also has a special feature
It includes the pamphlet - Making minority government work published by the UCL Constitution Unit and the Institute for Government which considers historic minority governments in the 1970s and expereinces from other countries such as Canada and New Zealand.
If you are interested in the experiences of other nations, you might like to look at the CBC archives which has historic film clips from Canada relating to minority government

How do the parties compare on health policy?

Yesterday The Royal College of Nursing warned that job cuts after the election would have disastrous consequences for the NHS.
But where do the main parties stand on health policy?
An excellent starting point (apart from the main party websites which all contain the official statements of their health policies) is the Kings Fund website. This independent organisation has created a health check feature which compares policies. They also have some webcasts of hustings and debates hosted by the organisation in the run up to the elections. This example is from the 22nd April 2010. Also interesting is a recent pamphlet which examines in detail Labour's management of the NHS 1997 - 2007.
Other examples of evaluation of the NHS management can be found on the Institute for Fiscal Studies website. This focuses upon funding. The LSE Centre for Economic Policy (CEP) has also published a recent pamphlet.
Finally the main health organisations all have websites which contain their manifestos for health and discussion of health issues in the election.
Royal College of Nursing
British Medical Association
Royal College of Midwives
NHS Confederation.

What role is race playing in the 2010 elections?

In East London there has been increasing concerns in recent years that the British National Party will gain an MP. In 2009 the House of commons Library produced a research note which examined the performance of the BNP in Uk general elections from 1992-2005 and in local elections. Take a look to see if they are becoming more popular.
Certainly they continue to generate media coverage. In the news this week The BNP caused a stir by using images of Marmite in their election broadcast
The Institute for Policy Research recently published a survey which examined why people support the BNP. It argued that alienation not immigration was the main cause in the 150 local authorities studied.
SearchLight magazine has some articles which discuss the key battlefields and issues at stake on its Hope not hate website
The Guardian newspaper also has stories and reports covering race in the Campaigns. It also exposed the geographical spread of BNP supporters in an earlier article (which drew upon leaked membership names)
Other monitors of the dangers of the BNP are the Institute of Race Relations which has news clippings on its website and the Muslim Council of Britain
On a related note a the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust have produced a couple of useful pamphlets on the nature of the BNP and its supporters.
British National Party: Inside the Roots of Its Appeal has statistics and analysis of the socio-economic background of BNP supporters, regional variations in BNP support and the relationship between the BNP and other UK political parties.
The Far Right in London: a challenge for local democracy? was published in 2005 and considered its role and tactics in East London
Finally you can browse the Intute catalogue to find more articles and resources.

Changing language of political communication

Yesterday, The BBC posted an interesting feature on its website which used word clouds to examine visually how the words used in political manifestos have changed over the years.
In 1945 the most popularly used word was 'must', nowadays it is 'people'.

If you are looking for the full text of older manifestos- an excellent starting point is the Political Resources website maintained by Richard Kimber which has the text of most examples from 1945 onwards
You might also like to know theat the LSE Library and archives hold printed copies. For details of their election ephemera collection and how you can help by collecting 2010 materials see the website.
For scholarly discussion of elections. See the Elections, Public Opinion and Parties Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association. It includes details of the British Election Study 2010 and contents pages from its journal. You might also like to look at the conference proceedings section of the same PSA website where you can read and download the full text of many papers from PSA annual conferences since 1994. They include many examples relating to elections and the changing nature of political communications.

Did the debates promote interest in the elections?

According to recent figures from the UK Electoral Commission. Late voter registration was very high last weekend.
Yesterday BBC radio 4 discussed this. Today reporter Sanchia Berg stated that after the first leaders' debate 120,000 voter registration forms were downloaded from the Electoral Commission website. Jennie Watson, chair of the Electoral Commission also contributed with her perspective. Their comments can be heard online from the website.
Also interesting is recent report from Hitwise which discussed how the internet plays a key role in driving voter registration. It noted an increase in searching following the election announcement
Another factor may have been the use of social media advertising by the Electoral Commission which placed adverts on Facebook last weekend.
For examples of its advertising materials. Take a look at the official Electoral Commission website Other organisations which also seek to encourage new voters are Rock the Vote and Operation Black Vote
For historic data on levels of registered and unregistered voters in the UK a good starting point is the research section of the Electoral Commission website. For instance see this recent report on the completeness and accuracy of the electoral registers in the UK.
Another good place is the Office of National Statistics. Again search for elections. Examples of data include: Post-war turnout for general elections, 1945-2001: Social Trends 33 and Parliamentary electors on the 2000 and 2001 electoral registers
International Idea also has an excellent website which contains statistics and reports on voter turnout worldwide. You can use it to compare the position of the UK with other countries.

Twitter archives do they show the rising popularity of Nick Clegg?

The Library of Congress Twitter Archive. last week the Library announced that it will be maintaining an archive of Tweets. However, this will not be open on the Internet. Access is likely to be based in the main reading rooms with a 6 month embargo on access. While the Twitter archive will not be posted online, the Library envisions posting selected content around topics or themes.
In the meantime you might like to know that the Google replay service offers the opportunity to search twitter from February 2010. Further details about this is on the official Google Blog To try it out, go to the normal Google screen run your search, then expand the web results click “Show options” on the search results page, then select “Updates.” The first page will show you the familiar latest and greatest short-form updates from a comprehensive set of sources, but now there’s a new chart at the top. In that chart, you can select the year, month or day, or click any point to view the tweets from that specific time period. One possible use at the moment is to look at the increase of tweets relating to Nick Clegg since February!
Of course he is not the only topic in the elections - Last week Prospect magazine ran an article stating that the whole election campaign should be cancelled except on twitter and the Internet and the Labour Party provoked a storm by using Young blogger and twitter fan Ellie Gellard otherwise known as the Stilettoed socialist to help launch its manifesto.
For the latest twitter feeds see a selection of the best (as chosen by the telegraph newspaper ) also useful is the Edelman site which has created a TweetLevel tracking and measuring the influence, trust engagement and popularity of the top 150 politicians, bloggers, candidates and journalists, ranked by their influence, on Twitter during the campaign.

Swingometers!

A well loved feature of past British BBC election night coverage has been the swingometer - which was used to calculate how many seats the various parties would get. The BBC archive has just released a fascinating collection of clips. These cover the period of the 1960s to Peter Snow in 1997

If you are more interetsed in calculating the results for this year's election, try the current online BBC swingometer
The Times newspaper also has an election seat interactive map.
More sophisticated is the Electoral Calculus website which uses scientific calculation to predict outcomes for individual constituencies and the nation as a whole.
The UK polling report is also useful for pulling together in one place recent polls from the main agencies, giving a snapshot of the current mood.
Finally the ever reliable Richard Kimbers Political science resources website has an index of 2010 websites. There is a section for political polls and betting where you will find links to the main online betting agencies should you want to lose (or win!) some money!

The Nick Clegg effect

According to recent polls the debates have increased public support for Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.
Here are some useful sites for finding out more about who he is and what he stands for!
His Official web site has a biography, recent calendars of events and press releases. You can also read the party manifesto
The Guardian Aristotle (which is a useful site for getting factual information on all UK MPs) has a profile and voting history.
Consumer watchdog They work for you - covers very similar ground with voting record, lists of appearance and expenses statistics
Liberator magazine has some headlines
For discussion and debate from a Liberal Democrat party prespective some sites to try are: Lib Dem Blogs which aggregates discussion from party supporters
Very similarly Libdem Voice also contains recent postings from key blogs
Next left blog from the Fabian Society
regularly contains related materials on the left, socialism and Liberalism.
The Beveridge Group exists to promote discussion among Liberal Democrats of how policies in the Social Liberal tradition of Lloyd George, Keynes, Beveridge and their radical Liberal roots, can best be adapted to the needs and challenges of the 21st Century. Its website also has discussion
Centreforum is a major Liberal think tank. Its website currently contains discussion of what the Libdems would do in the event of a hung parliament.
download this report on whether they could work with the conservatives in a hung parliament. For instance you can download this pamphlet

Finally you can browse a catalogue of websites related to the UK Lib Dems on Intute

What's your verdict on the election debate?

All the main British newspapers have headlines and commentary discussing the debates today. I therefore thought it would be useful to offer a series of links to their election special pages. In addition to news most of theese also contain polls, cartoons, blogs and background information on the British electoral system.

Guardian 2010
Telegraph
Financial Times
Independent
Times
Daily Mirror
The Sun - readers poll on the debate
Mail
BBC
Channel 4
ITV includes footage and blogs.
Sky politics news

finally why not try the epolitix.com online news service. This has an excelent collection of online news and interviews.
You can also catch up with the latest reaction from the polls by chacking the UK polling report site - which aggregates the main ones.