Interesting Links for 14-05-2022

[andrewducker]

1. When there's a choice candidates vote alphabetically over 80% of the time

(tags:names voting bias )

2. Who wants to see a standing wave in a swimming pool?

(tags:water physics )

3. Why the Sudden Infant Death syndrome finding might not be very useful

(tags:death children viaNancyLebov )

4. Alliance Party In Northern Ireland Could Rewrite Power Sharing

(tags:politics NorthernIreland )

5. Trying (and failing) to track down why American outhouses have crescent moons on them

(tags:moon toilet USA history )

6. Wakefield Labour executives resign en masse amid row over by-election selection process

(tags:labour OhForFucksSake )

7. Edinburgh Councillors celebrate as Water of Leith walkway reopens after years of closure

(tags:Edinburgh walking rivers )

Comments

[calimac]

1: And for that very reason there's a law in California that candidates' names are arranged by a random alphabet that changes each election, and that in a given election this alphabet's beginning spot is rotated between jurisdictions (i.e. if it were the ordinary order it would run A-Z here, B-A there, C-B in a third place, etc.). Someone was really worried about the alphabetical order effect, which I think was first proved in Australia where voting is mandatory and consequently a lot of punters don't care who they vote for.

But another question is worth asking: if this is showing up regarding municipal council candidates from the same party, then how much information is being distributed to voters about these different candidates? Oftimes with small-bore elections I find difficulty in acquiring information by which to decide who to vote for.

[andrewducker]

Parties are responsible for distributing their own leaflets.
I believe that there is Royal Mail support available for distribution, but I don't know how much and who gets it though.

[calimac]

Party-distributed leaflets of the kind you have in the UK don't exist in the US, though they do send out endorsement notices for primaries and some non-partisan offices. But candidates for many offices including local ones have the option (not always taken) of having statements printed in booklets issued by the state election authority.

These statements, however, are not very useful. For major offices like governor, they're mostly useful for weeding out the nut jobs. (In the current election, one gubernatorial candidate's statement reads, in full, "F all politicians." [I'm not censoring anything.] I want to reply, "You are a politician: you're standing for office, aren't you?")

For local offices, like school boards, they're mostly bland and earnest, and I find them mostly useful for crossing-off candidates who make egregious grammatical errors.

I find candidate forums far more useful than any of this, because they reveal who knows what they're talking about. But what I really want is news coverage. For state legislature and above, news articles give the "inside politics" view: who are these people, really; what their agendas are; who's respected by their colleagues and who isn't; any behind-the-scenes explanations of why who's running for what office. But for local offices, cities and school boards, such info doesn't get published.

[andrewducker]

I agree that it would be nice if local news took an interest, but I don't know how much local news still exists.

I do know there were numerous hustings across Edinburgh for the candidates to take part in, but not all of them attend, and many people voted entirely based on party and not the individual.

Of course we don't vote for judges or police chiefs like the USA does, so we have a lot less elections in some ways.

[bens_dad]

The Alliance party got a lot more seats (17 v 8) this election, but as far as I can see that is because the Unionist vote was split three ways instead of two, rather than because the Alliance got more votes.
TUV (Traditional Unionist Voice), a hardline breakaway from the DUP, did well this time, suggesting a unionist move away from compromise.

[andrewducker]

Handily I wrote a post about the changes in voting patterns since the start of the Assembly:
https://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/4145692.html

Upshot, over the last 24 years Unionists are down 10%, Alliance are up 10%, Sinn Fein haven't budged.

[calimac]

Considering that the DUP began as a hardline breakaway from what the rump of became the UUP, and the DUP has been gaining over the UUP in subsequent years, to have a hardline breakaway from the DUP gain votes suggests that, while the Unionists may be losing votes to the Alliance, those who remain Unionists have been digging in to their trenches further, consistently over the years, rather than it being a recent thing.

[andrewducker]

I suspect it's mostly a generational thing, with the changes mostly being because adults are dying off and their children don't see themselves that way.

[calimac]

Unless you can demonstrate that the TUV is made up entirely of extremely aged pensioners, that's only a tendency and, judging by the numbers, not enough of one.

[andrewducker]

Oh I'm not expecting anything to change this week. This stuff is generational and I don't expect the Irish Question to be solved in any meaningful way for many years.

I've had a quick look at the demographics behind it, and the following was interesting:
This trend away from a Protestant majority “is likely to continue”. The main drivers of change are differing birth and death rates between the two communities, the effect of migration, and loss of affiliation, which is more pronounced in urban areas and in the east of Northern Ireland.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/new-light-shed-on-prospect-of-catholic-majority-in-north-1.3891032

Which is more complex than "it's just a generational change", but in general I don't expect *many* people to change their mind on such a politicised and community-based position once they've reached an adult decision on their affiliation.

[calimac]

I wasn't talking about "this week" either. My point is that I don't see enough of a change with the generations. Ian Paisley Sr has been dead for eight years now, but if his viewpoints were going with his generation, we'd see a lot more drop in their support than we have.

Also I should add that I'm talking about the viewpoints within the Unionist community, not the gradual demographic change between the communities. If the Unionists are minded to dig in more firmly to their position, then a demographic shift is not likely to lead to a solution, and I can see a scenario whereby N.I. joins the Irish Republic which would turn out to be very unhappy to have all these Angry Ulster Unionists in their polity.

[andrewducker]

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, I don't think the shifts between TUV and DUP are generational in the same way. From my reading the DUP have had some major issues in the last year or two, their leadership has been a bit ineffectual, and they've been seen to compromise more than a chunk of their supporters were happy with. And with STV it doesn't hurt to make your first vote TUV and stick DUP in second.

Now I feel the need to see what the second votes of TUV supporters were.

[kerk_hiraeth]

Sadly it just proves that most people don't even read the ballot paper. SNP here had two candidates; senior one happened to be first of the two on the ballot, so he got my 3 & the other got my 4. Lib Dems & Greens got less than 7% between them last time and I only expected a little better of the same two candidates this time. There was no change anyway. Same two Tories and one SNP; probably the senior one got elected; haven't seen the final figures yet.

Literally no information on the Lib Dem candidate, exceot a picture, and yet this appears to be his third attempt. Kudos to him for at least getting a Lib Dem on the ballot, but the local party needs to ramp up it's game; if this were England this are would be absolute perfect Lib Dem territory.


kerk

[andrewducker]

I think a lot of people who might have voted LibDem are pro-Independence, which limits how well they can do in Scotland right now.

2 Tories and an SNP candidate elected? Do you live in The Borders?

[kerk_hiraeth]

Blairgowrie and Glens ward of Perth & Kinross council.

kerk