Last Thursday's by-election to the IW Council - with an annual budget of £325 million that touches everybody's life - secured a turnout of 32%.
On Friday a by-election for a Resident Member of the Pan Neighbourhood Partnership (PNP) Board - with a Government budget of less than £400,000 pa for 7 years, that is making real and positive changes to the lives of many Pan resident's - secured a turnout of 31%.
The PNP election was entirely postal. Maybe there is a lesson to be learnt here ?
6 comments:
Yes Geoff - more people vote in the old way than by post - unless my maths is wrong?
Trouble is Geoff your party and the Libs keep getting caught fiddling postal votes.
Mind you, Tony fiddled the formula one record and Lord Mandy fiddled his building society application so we shouldn't be surprised eh!
Put 'ballot rigging' and 'tories' into Google and what do you get....?
From The Times
March 19, 2008
Army of ghost voters who won an election but wrecked career of Eshaq Khan
A Conservative councillor has been found guilty of corruption after a botched cover-up and now faces a police inquiry
When the Conservative candidate Eshaq Khan unexpectedly unseated a long-serving Labour councillor in local elections last May, it seemed to be the high point of a long career of public service.
He already held senior posts in charitable and cultural groups and was a respected figure in the tight-knit Kashmiri community in Slough, Berkshire, where he ran a carpet and furniture business.
But within days of his triumph, his victory began to unravel amid a welter of allegations of a crude campaign of vote-rigging and, ultimately, forgery and intimidation of a witness.
It ended in disgrace yesterday when Khan was found guilty at a special High Court election hearing in Slough council chamber of corrupt and illegal practices to secure his election. He was stripped of his seat and banned from standing for office for five years. He now faces a police inquiry.
Khan, 50, won his marginal seat in Central Ward after his team registered hundreds of “ghost voters” in the month before the election .....and so on.
So what do you have to say about that Tory 'Boy'?
To anon at 8.20pm: I am not 'Tory Boy', whoever that might be, but I must point out that there have been far more instances where Labour members and councillors have been caught and often prosecuted for vote rigging than any other party.
So once again Labour lead the way in dishonesty and amorality. So sad for our once proud and upright nation and utterly unforgivable.
What are all the decent Labour supporters doing about their government's destruction of this country's moral fibre, I don't hear the condemnation that I should be hearing, not from you or the Conservatives. Shame on you all.
D.R.
The change to the Postal Voting rules made corruption more likely, as some of us pointed out at the time. All the same, I'd like a bit of chapter and verse here; I'm aware of vote-rigging on the part of all three parties, but so far as I know no one is in the lead on it. Certainly, I would hope not.
"Moral fibre" can be defined in more than one way, but when you post again, you might be more specific. You've mentioned abortion in the past, but I don't believe there has been a huge difference between the parties, in realistic terms, on that issue for some time. Expand a little; I'm not at all saying I'd disagree with you, but I'd like to know the terms of the debate.
That's because there are no 'terms' just a series of daily mail rants, until he/she is caught out and then the 'terms' change - from Labour/Liberal ballot rigging to 'you'll all as bad as each other - shame on you' sort of stuff. My old school teacher would call it sophism.
This week a Tory candidate narrowly missed prison for harassing his opponents. The Slough example infers court action will follow. If DR has any numbers, then let's see it, but he hasn't - he's just being led by his bile and self re-enforcing belief that the country has gone to the dogs and it's all the fault of someone else.
Of course, we all condem ballot rigging - there, I've said it. But let'snot delude ourselves that it is restricted to one party or parties which is what DR attempted to do.
As for Tory Boy - well, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Tory Boy (or girl) he certainly is - and I don't care who knows it.
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