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Super Thursday - Elections 2021

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Nominations for THE BIGGEST set of Elections, outside of a General Election year in British history have duly closed today.

And I am a small proof of that - as per Page 19 of this document and being one of 81 people, seeking 22 Council seats up for Election here in The City of Wolverhampton! ;)

4 Weeks today, sees the following up for grabs (as complied by LabourList):
  • A Parliamentary By-Election in Hartlepool
  • Every seat (129) in the Scottish Parliament
  • Every seat (60) in Senedd Cymru
  • The London Mayor and Every Seat (25) in the London Assembly
  • 39 Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales
  • 7 Combined Authority Mayors
  • 5 Single-Authority Mayors
  • The following four categories, which add up to 4,866 council seats up for election, about 25% of the approx. 20,000 councillors in the UK:
    • 21 County Councils (every seat, equalling 1,632 councillors)
    • 35 Metropolitan Borough Councils (one third of the seats in most of them but every seat in Doncaster, Rotherham and Salford, equalling 907 councillors)
    • 28 Unitary Councils (every seat in 13 councils, one third of the seats in 15 councils, so 1,241 councillors)
    • 60 District Councils (every seat in 7 councils, half the seats in 6 councils, one third of the seats in 47 councils, equalling 1,086 councillors)
  • Over 300 council By-Elections in seats and councils, that would not otherwise be up for election
From being a candidate, I of course hope that my party does as well as possible but I am just as fascinated - at how this will all pan out; knowing of the volitile Political world we live within and that expect the By-Elections - all seats contested were last seeked in 2016 or 2017.

How do you think May 6th will produce? Will this "Vaccine Bounce" for Boris or a "Post-Corbyn Boost" for Keir be the truthful story? Can the Greens continue there rise in Local Government and what will a Ed Davey led Lib Dems produce?

P.S - due to the Pandemic and the slow nature of the count this year, expect wall-to-wall coverage for reportedly 4 days!
 
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LSWR Cavalier

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Many people shall have the chance to participate in three or more contests, I wonder what the record is. Depending how the votes in Cymru and Alba go, there could be big changes.
 

bluenoxid

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Incorrect comment about Airdrie and Shotts by election which is actually happening a week later
 

brad465

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I wonder what the turnouts will be like.
Historically if there was an apathy party, in local elections it would win by a landslide. Turnout though does vary considerably between areas, but above 50% is rare. This year is different in many ways, but it still depends how many want to voice an opinion on how things have been handled covid wise, which I suspect would favour non-Tory candidates as there is less incentive to vote for the status quo if you support them when the election is relatively insignificant.
P.S - due to the Pandemic and the slow nature of the count this year, expect wall-to-wall coverage for reportedly 4 days!
I'm involved in vote counting for my local council elections and have been assigned counting work on both Friday 7th May and Monday 10th (daytime, no overnight counting), so yes it's possible that conclusive results won't become clear immediately. I suspect though the Hartlepool by-election (these elections have comparably low turnout compared to GEs) and maybe some of the commissioner and Mayor elections (if decisive) will be sorted by the end of the first day depending on counting procedures.
 

johnnychips

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Do you know when councils publish the list of local election candidates? I’ve already had a leaflet from Labour, and I agree with most of what she says, but there is no mention at all of Covid. I know that you really shouldn’t vote in local elections because of what the parties are doing nationally, but everybody does. However, if she’d said that she wanted to get rid of these restrictions, aim to get Sheffield back to a vibrant city economy, remove the concrete blocks and stickers everywhere, she would get my vote.
 
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Incorrect comment about Airdrie and Shotts by election which is actually happening a week later

Yup - put back by there Council, so everything is spread out and COVID doesn't try and cause any further hitches.

Do you know when councils publish the list of local election candidates? I’ve already had a leaflet from Labour, and I agree with most of what she says, but there is no mention at all of Covid. I know that you really shouldn’t vote in local elections because of what the parties are doing nationally, but everybody does. However, if she’d said that she wanted to get rid of these restrictions, aim to get Sheffield back to a vibrant city economy, remove the concrete blocks and stickers everywhere, she would get my vote.

Check your Local Authority website's Election Pages, or head to https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/, which will in the coming few days have every candidate, in every poll.

Good luck comrade

Many Thanks! Running in the safest Tory bit of my city, makes it a real task but one I embrace.
 

61653 HTAFC

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Do you know when councils publish the list of local election candidates? I’ve already had a leaflet from Labour, and I agree with most of what she says, but there is no mention at all of Covid. I know that you really shouldn’t vote in local elections because of what the parties are doing nationally, but everybody does. However, if she’d said that she wanted to get rid of these restrictions, aim to get Sheffield back to a vibrant city economy, remove the concrete blocks and stickers everywhere, she would get my vote.
Do councillors (or indeed councils) have much say over the Covid restrictions? I was under the impression that this was managed nationally (or regionally where applicable) but could well be mistaken.
 

johnnychips

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Out of interest, did you say what your views are on Covid, Kashmire? In your leaflets, tweets, FB etc.

Do councillors (or indeed councils) have much say over the Covid restrictions? I was under the impression that this was managed nationally (or regionally where applicable) but could well be mistaken.
Not a lot, but my candidate could be advocating strongly a return to normality even quicker than the government’s programme; as I said, removal of all the unnecessary signs, concrete blocks and bus route changes that the council have introduced; pushing for the reopening of clubs (night and football) and so on. Some of these are within Sheffield council’s gift, but the fact she supported other measures that the government are slow in introducing and voiced that opinion might make me vote for her.
 
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Ediswan

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Do councillors (or indeed councils) have much say over the Covid restrictions? I was under the impression that this was managed nationally (or regionally where applicable) but could well be mistaken.
Some. Stevenage council have closed all the children's play areas under their control. A bit like the national government, their reasoning is plausible, but there is no clear criteria for re-opening. Enforcement is impossible.
 

Busaholic

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Also parish council elections in some places - where I live it's a Town Council election with a surprising number of candidates. Owing to our District Council being abolished, we only have three election ballots, otherwise it would have been four. Boris Johnson thinks the outcome is sufficiently volatile to have been flown in specially, then got photographed with a red bus.
 
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Out of interest, did you say what your views are on Covid, Kashmire? In your leaflets, tweets, FB etc.


Not a lot, but my candidate could be advocating strongly a return to normality even quicker than the government’s programme; as I said, removal of all the unnecessary signs, concrete blocks and bus route changes that the council have introduced; pushing for the reopening of clubs (night and football) and so on. Some of these are within Sheffield council’s gift, but the fact she supported other measures that the government are slow in introducing and voiced that opinion might make me vote for her.

There are a couple of things that we have considered on COVID - my Council’s support to residents (£25 Million spent, which has included 1.2 Million food parcels and 4 Million PPE Pieces) and the very mixed picture, when phone canvassing.

Many have though that the situation should have been better dealt with nationally, but the economic contributions by Government have been praised.

Thus we have gone with what Wolverhampton has done locally, which is reflected in our literature.

And on COVID safe elections; due to me standing in the safest Tory part of my City and the dangers that door to door canvassing still has - I am focussing digitally, via phone and through leafleting.

The key is to get my party’s message across as wide as possible and doing it safely, is the most imperative aspect. And seeing my Branch’s Facebook page has reached 17K+ already (which covers two wards), that is certainly one positive for that engagement.
 

jfollows

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Do you know when councils publish the list of local election candidates?
"The Returning Officer will publish a statement of persons nominated for each ward by 4pm on the 18th working day before the poll. The statement will include:
 the full or commonly used names, as the case may be, of all candidates validly nominated
 the names of candidates who no longer stand nominated, if any (i.e. invalid and withdrawn candidates), with the reason why they are no longer standing
 the address of each candidate, or if they have requested not to make their home address public, the name of the relevant area in which their home address is situated (or the country if their home address is situated outside the UK)
 each candidate's description (if any)"
 
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GusB

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This seems like a fairly good place to ask this question: are political parties allowed to send personally addressed leaflets despite an address being registered with the Mail Preference Service? I'm fairly sure I registered with the MPS a few years ago, yet I've had several leaflets personally addressed to me. I presume they're obtaining the data from the electoral roll, but if I insisted they didn't send me electoral bumph are they obliged to listen to me?
 

Ianigsy

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It could be interesting- my local council were having quite a strong push on postal voting so that might increase turnout or reduce it. A low turnout makes oddball results more likely - Greens getting onto councils because left leaning voters can’t quite bring themselves to vote Labour or Lib Dem, for example.

My guess is that we’ll end up with a mixed bag of messages which allows everybody to claim victory.
 

JamesT

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This seems like a fairly good place to ask this question: are political parties allowed to send personally addressed leaflets despite an address being registered with the Mail Preference Service? I'm fairly sure I registered with the MPS a few years ago, yet I've had several leaflets personally addressed to me. I presume they're obtaining the data from the electoral roll, but if I insisted they didn't send me electoral bumph are they obliged to listen to me?

MPS is only for marketing mail being sent by companies who are members of the scheme. So not relevant for election material.
However, the ICO says you can request political parties stop sending you material and they are obliged to stop - https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/be-data-aware/political-campaigning-practices-direct-marketing/
 

brad465

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It could be interesting- my local council were having quite a strong push on postal voting so that might increase turnout or reduce it. A low turnout makes oddball results more likely - Greens getting onto councils because left leaning voters can’t quite bring themselves to vote Labour or Lib Dem, for example.

My guess is that we’ll end up with a mixed bag of messages which allows everybody to claim victory.
I know we don't quite do everything the same as the US, but their turnout of 67% being the highest since the start of the 20th century was in part down to post/mail voting, so if we could get higher than normal turnout if postal voting was encouraged more widely than just your council, albeit the elections here are much lesser than a Presidential/General election.
 

GusB

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wireforever

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General question if total voter apathy happened and nobody voted in the whole council area that had a local council election in May would the existing council members previously elected carry on in power/opposition
 

jopsuk

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General question if total voter apathy happened and nobody voted in the whole council area that had a local council election in May would the existing council members previously elected carry on in power/opposition
it's probably never been considered- at the very least at least candidates and local activists will vote
 

JamesT

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General question if total voter apathy happened and nobody voted in the whole council area that had a local council election in May would the existing council members previously elected carry on in power/opposition

No, there has still been an election, even if nobody voted. For each constituency, you’d have the tie breaking procedure that is normally used when there’s been an equal number of votes for multiple candidates. Just this time everyone would be tied on 0. I believe it’s normally drawing lots, so you’d end up with an essentially random selection of councillors forming the new council. How they choose to arrange themselves in terms of parties and governance would be up to the winners.
 

Busaholic

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General question if total voter apathy happened and nobody voted in the whole council area that had a local council election in May would the existing council members previously elected carry on in power/opposition
The truly savvy candidate would live (or, have an address) in that ward, so at least one vote would be guaranteed, unless the apathy had even got to them. :) I'd suspect Putin's stooges of having toured an area distributing ricin beforehand if such an eventuality occurred.
 

Trackman

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No, there has still been an election, even if nobody voted. For each constituency, you’d have the tie breaking procedure that is normally used when there’s been an equal number of votes for multiple candidates. Just this time everyone would be tied on 0. I believe it’s normally drawing lots, so you’d end up with an essentially random selection of councillors forming the new council. How they choose to arrange themselves in terms of parties and governance would be up to the winners.
I believe they cut a pack of cards if it's a tie - must be some sort of an old tradition.
It's happened in Yarmouth and Bolton not that long ago.
 

MP33

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I am a member of a National organisation that has Regional Representatives. A few years ago and not where I live so I would not have been eligible to vote, they had an election for a Region. There were two candidates and not that much interest. One candidate got just over 20 votes and the other candidate zero votes. To be eligible to stand your application had to nominated by at least 10 people residing in the area and able to vote. All the nominators must have had a change of mind or signed the application form just to get rid of him.
 

xotGD

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A few years ago a Conservative candidate got zero votes in a council ward in County Durham.

They'll probably win the seat these days
 

Gloster

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I believe they cut a pack of cards if it's a tie - must be some sort of an old tradition.
It's happened in Yarmouth and Bolton not that long ago.
It is up to the returning officer to decide the method, unless one of the candidates concedes (which is probably not going to happen). The method has to be one involving chance, rather than skill: drawing lots, drawing a card, tossing a coin, etc.
 
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In seeing that the Monster Raving Loony Party have bakers dozen candidates standing; its reason has been spectacularly answered...
 

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yorksrob

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Well, we've got something called the Alliance for Democracy and Freedom. Couldn't see any reference to lockdown, so now't to trouble my spoilt ballot.

Also something called the Workers Party of Britain, which from the website appeared to be based in latin America.

The liberal Democrats were saying why they wouldn't vote for the next coronavirus bill, but I didn't get a sense of them being explicitly against lockdown.

Spoilt Ballot all the way I think.
 

Scotrail314209

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The Alba Party might have lost a lot of chances to get votes in.


From the Alba Party women's conference today. Blatant lies about LGBT Youth Scotland and Stonewall Scotland in a despicable attempt to smear the Scottish LGBT+ community & align them with underage s** and p*********. Alba are an anti-LGBT+ party. Do not waste your second vote.

Actor David Paisley has tweeted that the Alba Party are attempting to smear the LGBT+ community by claiming that the likes of Stonewall want the age of consent to be ten years old. This will almost certainly come back to bite them and will make them more laughable than they are now.

Censored some words as to not cause harm and offense.
 
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