Make My Vote Count

The campaign for voter choice and a more representative parliament

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Less than 1 million voters targeted as democracy shrinks

In this election it has been reported that Labour and the Tories are not running anything more than token national campaigns, instead they are spending millions of pounds (up to two thirds of their total budgets) on targeting high-tech campaigns to win over just 838,000 key voters in marginal seats who will decide this election. In other words the main parties are now concentrating their efforts on just one in fifty of the electorate (or just 2%).

Make Votes Count and the Electoral Reform Society have booked a poster van to expose the scandal of Britain's shrinking democracy. The poster reads: " your vote does not count - only 2% of voters will decide the outcome of this election www.makemyvotescount.org.uk".

Mobile poster

Under Britain's first-past-the-post voting system the election is determined in the marginal seats, at most 160 out of the total 646 seats being contested. With an average of 70,000 electors per constituency, the nature of voting system itself concentrates the parties efforts on voters in these marginal seats (at the most a quarter of the electorate). But increasingly sophisticated marketing techniques now enable the parties to pinpoint the individual floating voters in the marginals that they need to win to achieve victory.

"By targeting their resources on the 2% of floating voters in marginal seats, Labour and the Tories have virtually admitted that the votes of the rest of us - 49 out of 50 potential voters - are not important", said Nina Temple Director of Make Votes Count. "It is scandalous to see how Britain's democracy is shrinking in this election, no wonder so many people think that voting doesn't make a difference. We will be pressing the new government to hold a referendum on a new voting system that would make every vote count."

Note for editors:

  • A poster van will be circulating around Parliament Square at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday 19 April, and touring around a number of safe seats in the London area.
     
  • Labour's 2005 Manifesto reads: "Labour remains committed to reviewing the experience of the new electoral systems - introduced for the devolved administrations, the European Parliament and the London Assembly. A referendum remains the right way to agree any change for Westminster." (See page 110 in chapter 9 on Democracy: Power devolved, citizens empowered). It is understood that this review has been secretly established as an internal review, but after the election it is expected that this will be opened out, to include the Lib Dems and the public.

Press contacts:
Nina Temple 02079282076 or 07776135970
Alex Folkes/ Lewis Baston ERS 0207928 1622
Jon Pyke (with the poster van on the day) 07779797444