Interesting Links for 5-5-2011

[andrewducker]

• Transforming Safe House tells the zombie hordes to bring it
  (tags: zombies architecture awesome)
• LGBT rights and the Scottish election
  (tags: lgbt scotland)
• "No campaign used made-up figures," says David Blunkett
  (tags: av voting uk OhForFucksSake)
• Last WWI combat veteran Claude Choules dies aged 110
  (tags: War history)
• Osama bin Laden's last hours come into focus as White House revises its story (Osama unarmed, wife not used as a human shield)
  (tags: terrorism OsamaBinLaden usa)
• Is Doctor Who now too scary for children? (Hah!)
  (tags: doctorwho children tv)
• Scotland election: Issues guide
  (tags: politics scotland)
• Court to rule on unmarried couples' property rights
  (tags: property marriage uk law)
• Some figures on the UK ebook market. Not actually sure what they mean though.
  (tags: ebooks books uk publishing)
• Is it time to rethink postal voting?
  (tags: voting uk)
• EU revises Schengen deal on borders amid migrant surge. Worrying.
  (tags: immigration europe)

Comments

[feorag.livejournal.com]

A removal of postal voting would lead to the disenfranchisement of myself, autopope and many others whose work means they cannot guarantee being at home on any particular date. As that includes a lot of (usually, but not this time) Lib-Dem voting Guardian reader types, it would be a bad thing for anything left of the BNP in general.

[cosmolinguist]

I don't think removing postal voting is likely, but yeah if it did happen it would also disenfranchise people who are disabled, elderly or otherwise have accessibility or mobility issues and don't want to or are unable to physically go to a polling station. And this is also a group of people that I think tend to vote somewhat to the left of the BNP.

[lilysea.livejournal.com]

My concern about knocking out postal voting is access for people with disabilities.

Australian article about Polling place accessibility and the NSW state election

http://hoydenabouttown.com/20110325.9695/polling-place-accessibility-and-the-nsw-state-election/

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

A ballot where individual voters can choose to reveal their vote (as you can with 'on demand' postal voting) is no longer a secret ballot. I don't think that's a good plan.

Blunkett

[doubtingmichael.livejournal.com]

Fuck's sake indeed.

Blunkett is a nasty piece of work and a bully, but the biggest difference between Blunkett and Cameron here is that Blunkett will own up to it, where Cameron is too clever to say anything that could cause him problems later. I have spent some time trying to get the measure of Cameron, and my opinion is that the key is his background in PR. This is quite scary, because it means we will never know what he's really thinking - everything he says is image maintenance.

I really hope some legal challenge can be mounted, but it seems unlikely that there's a framework in place. Essentially, we don't seem to have any constitutional support for referenda, and all the dirty tricks came out. I have found it enormously frustrating.

Re: Blunkett

[andrewducker]

It doesn't seem to me that mounting a legal challenge will do any good, to be honest.

I'd want to see the Electoral Commission made specifically responsible for monitoring these things in any future referendum.