PCC elections.

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Comments

  • I eventually went along to vote once I was eventually able to locate my polling station.  I'm new to the area.  In my previous area we used to get a voting card with a nice little map that showed your polling station.  This time I got told the name of the building only.

    I promptly lost the card (put it in a safe place) so decided to use the internet to find my polling station.  I could find a list of them all, but nothing that told me what areas they each covered so I was still unsure which was mine.  In the end I decided to just turn up at one on the principle that if it was the wrong one then they could point me in the right direction.

    As for the post, I have no idea what I was voting for.  I don't understand the structure of the police and how this post fits into it.  I think it is a new post, which raises the question on why we need it when we didn't have it before.  If its not a new post then who was made redundant to allow it to be filled by the elected candidate?

    By the time I had rummaged through all of that I had lost interest in who the actual candidates were and what they stood for.  I put a mark on the voting card but I have no idea whether I made a responsible decision or not, which is as bad as not voting at all.  Lots of extreme political parties get in because the people who vote for them don't understand what they are voting for.  I fear I might have just done the same.

    What really makes me angry about this is that we didn't get the change to vote for whether we wanted to change the system.  So many people seem to be against the move but our democratic process didn't allow me a change to have my say.  Really confused.

  • Tom.Tom. ✭✭✭
    I didn't vote for two reasons:



    Firstly I really don't know what an elected Commissioner's responsibilities are and how he will be able to administer them.



    Secondly, and of more concern, this seems to be a deliberate attempt to politicise the day to day running of the police force, some that should be avoided at all costs.



    Also of interest is that on the that Bristol elected an independent non party Mayor, Hartlepool also voted to abolish the post.
  • I didn't vote. In the run-up to the election I did not receive a single piece of campaigning literature, and I live in a densely-populated suburb not out in the sticks. I had no idea of who was standing and why and to do what.

    Nor am I happy with the concept. It'll encourage party hacks and attention-seekers and I couldn't see a problem with the old system.

  • If ever there was a chance to do something this was it, it's abundantly clear to see our Police are very poorly led, and public confidence is rock bottom, they don't seem to be able to coordinate the urgent activities (recent failed searches etc) and generally if there is a two-sided issue they'll hop on the wrong bus. I see the new idea doing nothing for this, but it could have been ideal to put in leaders who will challenge the status quo of poor management and the under-performing element. Wasted! 

  • Agreed EKGO but if the candidates can't even be bothered to identify themselves to me, let alone set out their stall, I'm not inclined to think they'll have much impact on a wily chief constable.

  • even this thread can't be bothered...

  • It's funny how people can always find lots of reasons not to vote. image

  • so you keep saying. if it isn't important to people it isn't important to people. if people thought it would affect their lives in any way they would be bothered. but they dont, because it won't.

     

  • Rickster wrote (see)

    It's funny how people can always find lots of reasons not to vote. image

    It's hard to vote when you haven't been told for whom or what you're supposed to vote ...

  • much as i'm finding this debate enthralling, i'm going to watch the strictly results show.

  • On the other hand, I have voted in my union's current industrial action ballot image

  • I've voted in every local and national election that I've been able to since I was old enough to vote. The PCC elections are the first that I can remember where I've consciously made the decision to not vote.
    The only information that we had about who was standing and what their aims were came in a Lib Dem leaflet, which highlighted their candidate and attacked the Conservative one calling them an ex-slash and burn councillor. In fact I  knew more about who was standing in Plymouth and why, than the area I live.

    In the end I decided I would exercise my right not to vote because I'd rather do that than turn up and randomly select from a list of names.
    If the government want people to vote then they should make sure that they have the information they need to do so, pointing them to websites or phonelines in order to find out more is OK but has to be used in conjunction with other means like adverts in local papers or leaflets because there are people who don't have access to the internet or find it difficult to hear people on the phone.

  • I voted, only because I can vaguely see the benefit of the new post and, in my area, 4 out of the 8 candidates happened to be Independent and one of those was ex-police and actually sounded like he knew what he was doing.

    HOWEVER, I can entirely appreciate why the turn out was so low, and why people who would normally make a point of voting in all elections didn't vote this time.

    The first I'd heard anyting about the elections was in a very ambiguous TV advert 2 or 3 of weeks ago.... The advert really didn't make it clear what the post was all about, and I had to go out of my way to find out more information. We received not one single piece of information on any of the candidates and, again, had to go out of our way to find that out.

    That wasn't hard, but the vast majority of people wouldn't do that, nor should they have to. I fail to see what the amount of money spent on this election was actually spent on... it certainly wasn't on any type of public awareness excercise.

    As it happens, of the 900-odd people entitled to vote at my polling station, only 22 turned out! The Independent candidate, who I thought sounded the only viable option, happened to come LAST, and the Tory candidate got in on an 16% turn out image.

     

     

     

     

  • our labour candidate stated that he didn't want to make the post political and then went on to mention the tories 3 times in the leafletimage

    it was a close thing between him and one of the independant ex police men and the indepedant won..

  • up here the Tories don't even mention Conservative once! image

  • I did go and vote, but I can understand why so many people didn't. Holding an election in November is a bad idea, and not allowing candidates a mailshot is pathetic. I did research the candidates online, but you shouldn't have to - it ought to be as easy as possible.

    I'm not sure if elected commissioners will turn out to be a good thing or not. I can see some potential in it. e.g. if I'm concerned about a particular issue (cycle theft, say) then there's someone I can contact to try and get the police to take it seriously.

  • Is that what you think they are there to do Tom? big mistake, look at London, we have had Boris in the same job for a while now, he isn't there to listen to problmes of the poeple and then get the police to act on them.

    What you are talking about with the bike theft issue is what Safer neigbourhood teams are designed to do.

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