On 29 Apr, 15:08, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 29 Apr 2008, MIG wrote:
Postal voting is inappropriate in a number of ways, including fraudulent
registration, dodgy canvassers "helping" vulnerable voters etc,

These are valid criticisms, as is John B's point about giving too much
influence to some heads of households.

but also because people vote long before they've heard the case for each
candidate, which benefits any large party with established machinery and
support.

This is absurd. Are you (and John B) seriously saying that paying
attention to political campaigns is an important or useful step in
deciding who to vote for?

For the big parties it isn't, but for smaller parties (good or bad),
often subjected to news blackouts, going round the streets in the
runup to voting is often the only way that they can let people know
that they exist.

If everyone has already given their postal vote to a major party
they'd already heard of, small parties are disproportionately
disadvantaged.

A political campaign isn't information, it's
advertising. It's where politicians lie to you in order to make you vote
for them (as opposed to everything else politicians say, which is, er,
where they lie to you in order to make you vote for them). We'd have a
better democracy if they were banned altogether!

I don't disagree.


My decision about who to vote for is based on the track record of each
candidate and party - not what they say they'll do, but what they've done
in the past. Actions speak louder than words.

But only the ones that get reported.