How do you vote?

[Denny Crane!]

From a British point of view but I am sure it applies to all countries.

How exactly do you decide who to vote for?

What are the influences in no particular order:

Image
Performance
Election Manifesto
Peer pressure or influence
Social Class

Have I missed any?

I am curious as to why people would vote based on election promises since the last decade has proved they are not followed through yet they undoubtedly have an effect on most people. Labour in particular engineer there campaigns to target swing voters in the middle class with promises on education and health.

Image means nothing though a combination of a good image and performance in the media and parliment are a good way to judge what kind of man they will be in office.

Social classes all seem to vote in one direction or the other, how else you can explain safe constituencies. A particularly hard up area that will always vote Labour believing they will implement working class friendly policies or vice versa well endowed areas vote coservative. I suppose this ties in with the image of the party as a whole as well.

Last you have the idiots who vote the way there father did or the way people they work with vote and I think one sentence is enough for that.

So what are your influences? How do you decide who to vote for and who if it is not to impertinent a question will you vote for next time.

Personally I am stumped. I like David Cameron so far but would rather vote liberal however they seem to be in to much of a state to vote for, ming the merciless is well respected but has remained fairly quiet so far and I think the fiasco of CKs exit ruined there chances in the elections. Obviously Labour is out of the question. Since a liberal vote is in all likelyhood a wasted vote it looks like a conservative vote for me.

Peter

[David Deas]

Whichever guy seems the most competent, thats who I vote for. It'd be silly and short sighted of me to vote one party every single time.

[Denny Crane!]

Whichever guy seems the most competent, thats who I vote for. It'd be silly to vote one party every single time.

How do you decide if he is competent especially if he has never been in office before?

Peter

[vizi]

Whichever guy seems the most competent, thats who I vote for. It'd be silly and short sighted of me to vote one party every single time.

^^^^
That is what I do, and unlike most US voters I vote in every election no matter how big or small.

[RusskiSoldat]

I don't vote unless it's something incredibly local over which I can excersise a degree of influence.

[David Deas]

Its not rocket surgery. I saw Bush was incompetent the first day I saw him speak. Of course, Gore wasn't exactly miles ahead either.

[Denny Crane!]

Its not rocket surgery. I saw Bush was incompetent the first day I saw him speak. Of course, Gore wasn't exactly miles ahead either.

So it is based on their performance in the media? The likes of question time or live debates? Do you vote purely based on competency or do you vote biased towards your political leanings?

EDIT: And by this I mean would your political bias outweigh your preference for competent politicians or vice versa?

Peter

[Tom Paine]

Well currently I can't vote, but when I can its going t be based on my personal leanings in conjuction with their manifesto (ie, I'll look for a nice leftist party) and then their probable or expected comeptance if they get into power, based on anything I can, eg performance at a local and a European level if they have councillors or MEPs but no MPs (yeah, I think I'll be voting Green, when I can; that is, 2008)

[Reidy]

Well, what you do is you take the voting form, find the name of the candidate you wish to vote for and put a cross in the box adjacent to your chosen candidate.


Seriously, I don't really know which way i'll vote when i get the chance (4 years), but currently i suppose i'm leaning to the right a bit.

[Erik]

I vote like this:
First I make a selection of candidates, based on political orientation, where I wil focus on.
This usually leaves me with 3 or 4 choices (out of maybe 10-15)
Then I judge each candidate mainly on their past performance, but also on the way they perform in debates.
I usually read the manifesto's too, but only to see if they have some bright new ideas in them.

So I would say past performance is most important to me.
Even the newcomers usually have some history I can judge them on.

I have never been unhappy about the choice I made, so I think my system works.

Well, what you do is you take the voting form, find the name of the candidate you wish to vote for and put a cross in the box adjacent to your chosen candidate.

Seriously, I don't really know which way i'll vote when i get the chance (4 years), but currently i suppose i'm leaning to the right a bit.

4 years? I think you wil be voting by computer then.

[Gwendylyn]

I vote based on issues only. I don't watch debates or political speeches - I read them. The issues that will actually get me out and voting are social/privacy issues (gay marriage, abortion, censorship/free speech, religion, etc), but most often those issues are the deciding ones that actually alienate me from politicians because they try to be too compromising to appease masses, or appeal to the 'family values' crowds.

I don't vote unless someone earns my vote. That said, I've yet to bother actually voting.

[Muizer]

Well the issues I care about make me a leftist: favouring government over privatisation in the education, health, public transport and vital services (energy, water supply) sectors, being anti authoritarian on immigration and drugs policy. I'm also in favour of decentralised government (no more sovereignty to 'Europe"). These general aspects outweigh the fact that I'm more of a centrist on most other issues.

[LSJ]

I haven't been able to vote yet, but when I do will vote fot the party I support most, or no one.
How I would like to choose that party: whoever seems to support public healthcare, wants to keep Canada a peacekeeper nation, supports rights and equality for all groups (including gay, disabled...)
Generally, I don't have a clue who to vote for. I don't trust the Liberals, as they never keep promises. The conservatives don't quite match my beliefs in a lot of issues. The NDP has a lot of items on their platform that I support, except they want too much spending on some social programs that I feel are ineffective. They spend too much and may make Canada have debt...
The Green party is off the wall, as much of what they talk about is not going to happen within a few years, rather decades.
Maybe I will start my own party some year.
I know how I would like to vote; its just that there are no really good parties to vote for.

[Sétanta]

I vote (or will) for the most competent canidate. Mostly that canidate is a republican but I wouldn't be surprised if I occasionally vote democrat (for example I probably would have voted for Obama during the Senatorial Race) not because I agree with their beliefs on everything but because as I stated they are the most qualified.

[crjs1]

I vote depending on the political orientation of the party/candidate and obviously thier specific policies on issues; specifically, Health, Education taxation etc, thus as i am leftist this rules out over voting for the Tories - ever. The last general election I voted for the Labour Party, though it was difficult as they have strayed so far from thier traditional ground on the left of British politics, but anyway the views and voting record of my sitting Labour MP (he voted agianst the war etc) swayed it for me. In the Scottish parliamentary elections i decide who to vote for slightly differently, due to the different electoral system, which gives us 2 votes (one being a regional vote by proportional representation) Here i have tended to vote Labour with my first vote (which is counted by the first past the post system) and The Scottish Socialist Party with my second, as this party (which has a few seats in the Scottish parliament) is closer to my personal political leanings.