For reasons that need not detain us here, I have been looking into the ballot line system in New York State.
See below about the disintegrating Republican Party, for a start: what if there were a fiscal conservative, a moral conservative and a foreign policy hawk ballot line, even (indeed, especially) if they all nominated the same candidate, but only ordinarily? Or what if they never did?
More to the point, what about Britain? What if it were observably the case that, say, Labour candidates were elected only if also nominated by one or more some cash-strapped sectarian Left parties, or Tory candidates were elected only if also nominated by a cash-strapped local UKIP outlet?
The sectarian Left would never nominate a Tory, of course (then again, it is not unknown for Respect Councillors to defect to the Tories for communal reasons). But what if it didn't nominate the Labour candidate, either? And UKIP need not always, or even ordinarily, or even ever, nominate the Tory candidate.
The possibilities are endless. Why ever not?
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If Al Franken and Ben Stein ran together they'd be the
ReplyDeleteFranken Stein Ticket
By no means the first.
ReplyDeleteThe question is would the small parties add to the votes the big party was going to get anyway. Most UKIP supporters are going to vote Tory on the day to get Labour out, the same applies in reverse to SWP supporters.
ReplyDeleteHowever I can see nominations from the single issue organisations like the Taxpayer's Alliance or Migrationwatch or even the Greens being of genuine use in persuading floating voters.
Now, there's a thought.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I do think that it would be useful for the main parties to know how many of their voters were supporters (who might not otherwise have voted at all) of smaller parties.
What about individual Tory candidates who weren't nominated by UKIP, as almost none would be on that individual basis? Likwise Labour and the sectarian Left. If the smaller parties thus told their people to stay at home, then it might very well make all the difference. It certainly does quite often in New York.