Elections procedure

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 569.

By-elections

A by-election takes place when a seat in the House of Commons becomes vacant between general elections. If there are several vacant seats then a number of by-elections can take place on the same day.

A seat becomes vacant when an MP resigns from Parliament (for example to take up a job which by law cannot be done by an MP), or because an MP has died. The law also allows a seat to be declared vacant because of a Member's bankruptcy, mental illness or conviction for a serious criminal offence. A by-election does not automatically take place if an MP changes political party.

Until a new MP is elected, constituency matters are usually handled by an MP of the same party in a neighbouring constituency.

'Moving the Writ'

Traditionally the Chief Whip of the political party whose MP held the vacant seat will begin the procedure for a by-election. This is known as 'moving the Writ' and takes the form of a motion in the House of Commons.

The law says that an election has to take place at least every five years. However, the interval between elections is usually a bit shorter. A party in power does not normally wait until the last possible moment. For example, the Labour government called the 2001 election after only four years.

When a party has a very small majority in the House of Commons, or no majority at all, the interval can be much shorter.

Ø Fixing the date

Ø Candidates nomination

People who want to be candidates in a constituency have to deposit ₤500 with the Returning Officer (the person responsible for the conduct of the election in each constituency). They get this money back if they get 5% of the votes or more.

The local associations of the major parties usually choose their candidates and pay the deposits for them. However, it is not necessary to belong to a part y to be a candidate. It is a curious feature of the system that, legally speaking, parties do not exist. That is to say, there is no written law which tries to define them or regulate them.

The law allows candidates, if they wish to include a short “political description of themselves” on the ballot paper. In practice, of course, most of these descriptions simply state 'Conservative ' , 'Labour ' or ' Liberal Democrat' .

Ø Campaign - local level

British elections are comparatively quiet affairs. There is no tradition of large rallies or parades as there is in the USA.

Formally a different campaign takes place in each constituency. Local newspapers give coverage to the candidates; the candidates themselves hold meetings; party supporters stick up posters in their windows; local party workers spend their time canvassing.

Canvassing

Canvassing is the systematic initiation of direct contact with a target group of individuals commonly used during political campaigns. A campaign team (and during elections a candidate) will knock on doors of private residences within a particular geographic area, engaging in face-to-face personal interaction with voters. Canvassing may also be performed by telephone, where it is referred to as telephone canvassing.

The main purpose of canvassing is to perform voter identification - how individuals are planning to vote - rather than to argue with or persuade voters. This preparation is an integral part of a 'get out the vote' operation, in which known supporters are contacted on polling day and reminded to cast their ballot.

If it looks as if these people are not going to bother to vote, party workers might call on them to remind them to do so. Canvassing is an awful lot of work for very little benefit. It is a kind of election ritual.

The amount of money that candidates are allowed to spend on their campaigns is strictly limited. They have to submit detailed accounts of their expenses for inspection. Any attempt to influence voters improperly is outlawed.

But the reality is that all these activities and regulations do not usually make much difference. Nearly everybody votes for a candidate on the basis of the party which he or she represents, not because of his or her individual qualities or political opinions. Few people attend candidates' meetings; most people do not read local newspapers.

Ø Campaing – national level

It is at a national level that the real campaign takes place. The parties spend millions of pounds advertising on hoardings and in newspapers. By agreement, they do not buy time on television as they do in the USA. Instead, they are each given a number of strictly timed 'party election broadcasts '.

Each party also holds a daily televised news conference. All of this put s the emphasis on the national party personalities rather than on local candidates. Only in the 'marginals' - constituencies where only a small shift in voting behaviour from last time would change the result - might the qualities of an individual can debate, possibly, affect the outcome.

Ø Polling day=day of the election

General elections always take place on a Thursday. They are not public holidays. People have to work in the normal way, so polling stations are open from seven in the morning till ten at night to give everybody the opportunity to vote. The only people who get a holiday are schoolchildren whose schools are being used as polling stations.

Each voter has to vote at a particular polling station. After being ticked off on the electoral register, the voter is given a ballot paper.

Elections on the British mainland are always very fairly conducted.

Northern Ireland, however, is a rather different story. There, the political tensions of so many years have had a negative effect on democratic procedures. Matters have improved since the 1960s.

But the traditional, albeit joking, slogan in Ulster on polling day is 'vote early and vote often' - that is, try to vote as many times as you can by impersonating other people.

Ø Counting

After the polls close, the marked ballot papers are taken to a central place in the constituency and counted. The Returning Officer then makes a public announcement of the votes cast for each candidate and declares the winner to be the MP for the constituency. This declaration is one of the few occasions during the election process when shouting and cheering may be heard.

Ø Election night

The period after voting has become a television extravaganza. Both BBC and lTV start their programmes as soon as voting finishes. With millions watching, they continue right through the night. Certain features of these 'election specials', such as the 'swingomerer' have entered popular folklore.

The first excitement of the night is the race to declare. It is a matter of local pride for some constituencies to be the first to announce their result. Doing so will guarantee that the cameras will be there to witness the event. If the count has gone smoothly, this usually occurs at just after 11.00 p.m. By midnight, after only a handful of results have been declared, experts (with the help of computers) will be making prediction s about the composition of the newly elected House of Commons.

By two in the morning at least half of the constituencies will have declared their result s and. unless the election is a very close one (as for example, in 1974 and 1992), the experts on the television will now be able to predict with confidence which party will have a majority in the House of Commons, and therefore which party leader is going to be the Prime Minister.

Some constituencies, however, are not able to declare their results until well into Friday afternoon. This is either because they are very rural (mostly in Scotland or Northern Ireland), and so it takes a long time to bring all the ballot papers together, or because the race has been so close that one or more 'recount s' have been necessary.

The phenomenon of recounts is a clear demonstration of the ironies of the British system. In most constituencies it would not make any difference to the result if several thousand ballot papers were lost. But in a few, the result depends on a handful of votes.

In these cases, candidates are entitled to demand as many recounts as they want until the result is beyond doubt. The record number of recounts is 7 (and the record margin of victory is just one voter).