General Election Thread

The 2001 elections were moved back by one week due to Foot & Mouth. Theoretically an election wasn't due until 2002 anyway so realistically there was no rush.

There is no requirement that elections happen on a Thursday. Indeed most European countries have them on Sunday. The 1918 election was done on a Saturday, the last general election to occur on a weekend in this country.

However there was discussion last last year about the counting of the ballets for a General Election, and that some areas wouldn't start counting until Friday morning. Cue Early Day Motion in the House of Commons.

Officially speaking, we are already in the election campaign period, regardless of Parliament's dissolution.

There is a 'Long Campaign' and a 'Short Campaign'. It's more to do with financial restrictions than anything else. In the long campaign you can spend up to £25k, in the short campaign it varies constituency-to-constituency but roughly £8-10k.

The Long Campaign officially started in January.

Some councils will certainly count the next day because they want to cut costs. By drafting in staff overnight they incur extra cost.

There are two problems with this:

1. It takes away the drama of election night

2. More seriously, you have the real risk of a result being declared whilst the London financial markets are open. Given the perilous state of the economy, that doesn't seem like a particularly sensible idea.

It was a five week delay owing to 'Foot & Mouth'.

Whist a General Election wasn't required until 2002, the Local Elections did have to take place once the restrictions on rural movements had been relaxed.

As both a General Election and the English Local Elections have to take place by 7 June 2010, it would be sensible to hold them both on the same day. Presumably there would have been whisperings by now if the LEs were to be delayed until June, not least because candidates will be printing election material with 6 May 2010 as polling day fairly soon (if they haven't done so already).

I'm not too bothered about some Councils delaying the counting until Friday morning as I think there will be plenty of drama with the results we get. I suspect that it's going to be very exciting - and rather close!

Is it wise to try both on the same day given the major screwup in the Scottish elections in 2007? Although I suppose the addition of evoting and differnet systems also made that far more complex, what system do English local elections use? Is it still FPTP?

Yes, still FPTP. I'm not sure how many councils are offering e-voting, or what percentage are interested in voting that way.

Does anyone else think another Florida/scotland thing is going to be happening. If this system comes in to operations I can just see legal cases happening the first time in comes in to patiences

I think there have been legal challenges through the Courts in the past, but IIRC they were to do with recounts and postal ballots in local elections.

David Dimbleby was on 5 Live this afternoon and revealed that they had rehearsed their Election broadcast last weekend over Friday/Saturday using mock election results in real time. Maitlis, Robinson,Vine and Cellen Jones all part of the team. I imagine presentation/graphic side is all worked through and its just a matter or ironing out any errors and waiting for it to be called now then!

I really hope their graphics are as good as in previous election broadcasts - the virtual swingometer used in the 2001 coverage was superb but if the 2008 Presidential election and Euro elections are to go by Im not too hopeful - basic boring and colourless just like the current news presentation - the BBC usually excel at this I really hope they don't mess it up the current graphics package used on the news is not fit for purpose

I should think they'd put a lot more effort into the General Election coverage than the Euro/Local/US programmes. They always have done in the past. The GE will be watched by many more people than any of the more minor elections so they have to do a good job.

Here's My Prediction;

Con 321
Lab 249
Lib 51
Oth 31

I think by the polling averages, that will be the result.

That's interesting. In 1997 BBC Two put out a highly watchable doc about election night broadcasts which showed footage of the 97 election night rehearsals (including the amusing sight of Paxman firing questions at an empty chair) this was done on the full election night set in TC1.

However, if they did the same last weekend isn't this studio in use for So You Think You Can Dance? If so, did they just rehearse in a smaller studio and pretend the size was bigger than it actually was - or are budgets so tight these days that the days of rehearsals on the full set in the same studio as 'the big night' are now over?