Voting begins in AV referendum

Rolling coverage as voters go to the polls in elections for local government, the devolved administrations and the AV referendum 1.56pm: Time for a lunchtime summary , which is going to be short because it has been a quiet morning: • The former home secretary David Blunkett, who is opposed to AV, has said that the £250m figure cited by the the no camp as the cost of replacing first past the post with the alternative vote has been “made up” . (see 10.35am ). Blunkett said he believed it would “undoubtedly cost more”, but put the figure at £90m. • A Guardian/ICM poll predicts a resounding victory for first past the post in the referendum . The survey, conducted before the referendum, on whether to introduce the alternative vote for elections to the Commons predicts a 68% no vote with only 32% for yes. A YouGov poll for the Sun suggests 60% support for the no campaign, a 20-point lead over those in favour. But a poll by Metro shows a swing the other way, with those polled backing AV by 47% to 43%. (see 8.55am ) • The three main party leaders have all cast their votes (see 11.50am ), ( 9.59am ) and ( 9.37am ). On other fronts: • The foreign secretary, William Hague, has ordered the expulsion of a further two Libyan diplomats from the Libyan embassy in London “on the basis that their activities were contrary to the interests of the UK” . Foreign ministers are meeting in Rome to discuss plans to fund the Libyan rebels. The US has pledged to provide $25m for “non-lethal” aid. • On Syria, Alistair Burt, the foreign office minister, told Sky news sanctions against senior individuals in the Syrian regime were being considered, but added that “it’s still not too late for Syria to turn back” . Hillary Clinton has given her backing to EU sanctions against Syria. Matt Weaver is liveblogging all the latest on Libya, Syria and the Middle East unrest. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/may/05/libya-syria-middle-east-unrest-live The liveblog will resume shortly. 1.06pm: Dear Salopred – yes, London is the only region without elections other than the AV referendum (the London borough elections were last year and the mayoral and London assembly elections will be in 2012). The Lane ward poll in Peckham mentioned by supermole is a byelection for a councillor who recently stood down . 12.39pm: The Political and Constitutional Reform committee has called Nick Clegg to give evidence next Thursday on political and constitutional reform in the aftermath of AV referendum result. Clegg leads on constitutional reform in his role as deputy prime minister, and the session is part of the general scrutiny of the government’s reform programme. A press notice from the select committee, chaired by the Labour MP Graham Allen (who, incidentally, is in the yes camp for a switch to AV) states: The session is likely to focus in particular on the government’s immediate priorities, including the aftermath of the result of the referendum on the alternative vote and reform of the House of Lords, as well as the workings of coalition government. Should be interesting. 12.29pm: The FT’s Jim Pickard blogs that, contrary to some people’s expectations, a number of senior Lib Dems will be at the referendum count on Friday. They will include the former party leaders Lord Ashdown and Charles Kennedy, and the deputy leader, Simon Hughes. The UK results will be announced at the Excel Centre, in Docklands, London. Counting officers in 440 local voting areas will begin counting votes at 4pm on Friday. They will feed their local totals into one of 12 regional hubs across the UK, and the chief counting officer (Jenny Watson, from the electoral commission) will announce the regional totals as and when they come in before the final UK-wide result is declared. 11.53am: Our Ireland correspondent, Henry McDonald, has sent us this: Voters in Northern Ireland will have three ballot papers to fill in today as the province goes to the polls for elections to the assembly and local district councils. They will get a white paper for their choice of assembly candidates and a brown one for the council elections. On both of these, Northern Irish voters will vote by proportional representation with 1 as their first preference candidate, 2 their second preferred choice and so on. A third, light grey paper will be handed to each voter for the UK-wide AV referendum on electoral reform, where the vote will be cast with a simple X beside yes or no. The assembly poll will elect 108 new members to Stormont, while 582 council seats are being contested. More than 1,200,000 people are registered to vote in Northern Ireland. Polling stations opened at 7am and close at 10pm. Meanwhile, a senior police officer in the province said there will be an increased security presence due to the continued threat from republican dissidents. Deputy Chief Constable Judith Gillespie said this was to ensure there was no interference in the electoral process. 11.50am: David Cameron arrived in the rain (it’s more like drizzle) earlier to cast his referendum vote at the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster before strolling off towards Downing Street, according to PA. The media tried to ask him about the impact the result may have on the coalition, but they did so in vain. 11.32am: My colleague Jon Dennis noticed the warning on his polling card, which said: “You cannot be issued with a ballot paper after 10pm, even if you are at the polling station before then.” You may remember the outcry at last year’s general election when many people were disenfranchised because they had still been in queues at 10pm. The Electoral Commission says it unsuccessfully lobbied the government to put a clause in the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill, now an Act, to ensure those still in a queue by 10pm could still vote if they had a ballot paper in their hand at the deadline point (for example, polling staff could hand out the ballot papers down the queue). So they issued guidance to chief returning officers to print the advice that Jon noticed on his polling card. The Electoral Commission has power of direction over the referendum, as opposed to the local elections. So to ensure everyone gets their say in the national poll, they instructed chief counting officers to have more polling stations (with 2,500 voters allocated to each), which should reduce the queues. (The Electoral Commission recommends this quota of voters for each station as good practice for other elections too). The cost of the referendum has been put at £81m, similar to the cost of a general election. The electorate for the referendum is around 46 million, according to the electoral watchdog. This is based on the latest available figures for registered and eligible voters in Britain (December 2010). 10.35am: Back to one of the central claims made by the no campaign about what having AV would cost. (see 9.37am ) David Blunkett, a vocal proponent of retaining first past the post, has claimed that the £250m figure cited by the no camp has been made up, according to the Times (paywall) Blunkett is quoted as saying: We are in the middle of an election campaign. People in elections use made-up figures. I have never used the £250m figure. It [AV] would undoubtedly cost more, but I have used an extra £90m. 10.27am: I seem to have confused readers in my opening post (I have amended it so that readers don’t have to get to this post to get clarity). But for those who have already read this far, I referred to STV for Scotland elections, which is actually used for the locals, not the devolved elections. Thanks, babytiger , for pointing it out. The devolved elections in Scotland are based on the mixed-member proportional representation system, ie first past the post system by constituency, with an additional member top-up by region. 9.59am: Nick Clegg voted in the Stannington area of Sheffield just after 9am. He wished the “best of luck” to Liberal Democrat candidates standing for town hall election, and urged people to come out and vote yes in the referendum to to make politics “a bit better and a bit fairer”. Here are some lines, courtesy of Press Association: Asked about the reaction on the doorstep, he said: ‘Good. Lots of people have got, obviously, questions and some people have got objections to what the government is having to do. ‘But I think most people – the vast majority of people – accept that we’re having to do a difficult job in difficult circumstances and that we’re trying do it as fairly and compassionately and responsibly as possible.’ Ed Miliband has already voted in both the Doncaster council election and the AV referendum via a postal vote. But he accompanied his fiancee, Justine Thornton, to a polling station in north London to cast her vote. The couple spent about 10 minutes at Parliament Hill school, not far from their London home, where they greeted supporters before leaving on foot. 9.37am: David Cameron has taken a slot in the Conservative-supporting Sun to focus on the AV referendum . Three-quarters of the page is devoted to a graphic with Cameron on the left, and a sombre looking Winston Churchill on the right, with “vote no to save our democracy” emblazoned above and a standfirst that reads: “Do your duty today.” Cameron urges everyone to come out and vote to avoid Britain being landed with AV: Today is a big day for our country. The AV referendum is on and our democracy is on the line. Unless enough people get out and vote today, Britain is going to end up tomorrow with a new voting system that is unfair, unclear and unpopular around the world. I’ll let the last word go to Winston Churchill. Many years ago, he described AV as ‘the stupidest, the least scientific and the most unreal’ voting system. Among the five “important reasons” cited by Cameron for voting no is the oft-repeated claim by the no camp that AV would cost a fortune, wasting money that the prime minister said could be “far better spent in our schools and hospitals”. The referendum, agreed by both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, is costing an estimated £80m, whatever happens. But the rest of the £247m quoted by the no camp is based on the predicted need to buy counting machines and/or pay the fees of vote counters with more work to do. The energy secretary, Chris Huhne, has threatened legal action over this argument, saying Australia – which uses the system – didn’t need to bring in new machines. The former Labour home secretary David Blunkett chips in his support for retaining first past the post. He lays out his arguments before concluding: I don’t think people should vote on personalities to defeat a particular party or a particular leader. I think people should vote because they want to retain one person one equal vote. Ed Miliband has urged voters not to use their referendum vote to give Nick Clegg “a kicking” because of his role in coalition government, but Blunkett’s comment makes one wonder whether the Conservatives are worried that those disgruntled with them will be voting yes for the same reasons. We shall soon see. 9.36am: Still in the Mirror, the paper has seized on a comment made by the Labour leader’s older brother, David, who has apparently described David Cameron as the “Basil Fawlty” of British politics. The Labour-supporting Mirror has obliged with a mock-up of Cameron with Manuel, Fawlty’s unappreciated waiter in the vintage British comedy. 9.21am: Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, tells the Daily Mirror that the local and devolved elections are voters’ opportunity to put “maximum pressure” on the government. His campaigning pitch has been to urge voters to send a message to the coalition about their anger at introducing policies for it has “no mandate”, such as NHS reorganisation. Miliband, who has been out campaigning in favour of the alternative vote, has tried to put the focus on significant Labour gains at the local elections. The Labour leader, who is on the same side of the fence as the Lib Dems on the referendum, has nevertheless seized on tensions within cabinet on the issue. What I’m interested in is what people want, and top of the list of voters’ concerns are the NHS, tuition fees and the cuts. And they will be asking why the Lib Dems are so hot under the collar about AV but don’t seem so hot under the collar about all these other issues. I think there is coalition land, a parallel universe where they are having this argument. And then there is the public, who are in a different place who are saying they don’t like these unseemly rows, it’s a bad way to run a government, and what we like even less is some of the policies they are pursuing, and that’s what Thursday is all about. Miliband, who took a question-and-answer session at Northfleet School for Girls in Kent yesterday as well as rallying his party, added: There’s a real sense this government doesn’t understand people and doesn’t understand people’s lives. They don’t understand the impacts they are having. They are profoundly out of touch with families struggling to get by and who are losing their tax credits, with the people losing their jobs, and who aren’t seeing the private sector jobs being created and youth unemployment with one in five people out of work. And what are they doing about it? Very little. 8.55am: Good morning. Have you been out to vote yet? (assuming you’re eligible and registered). Polls opened at 7am and close at 10pm, for those of you who didn’t opt for postal voting. Elections for the Scottish parliament, the Welsh assembly and the Northern Ireland assembly are being held, as are polls for 279 English councils. There are also local authority elections in Northern Ireland, a UK parliamentary byelection in Leicester South and mayoral elections in Leicester, Mansfield, Middlesbrough, Torbay and Bedford. The fact that so many of the British electorate have polls going on in their backyard was the reason the Liberal Democrats wanted the referendum on whether to switch the electoral system for electing MPs to Westminster from first past the post to the alternative vote to be held today. The only region without local polls is London, raising fears that turnout in the capital for the referendum could be as low as 15%. The BBC has produced a useful timeline of events once polls close . In sum, while we can expect a few local election results before midnight (Sunderland always prides itself on being first to declare, whether it’s a general or local election), the counting process for elections is going to stretch beyond Friday because not everyone is going to start counting tonight and also because some counts take more time than others. The final Northern Ireland assembly election results are not expected to be known until late Saturday afternoon. But we will know the result of the poll everyone’s been talking about – the national referendum – by around 9-10pm tomorrow. The count, everywhere, will begin at 4pm tomorrow, thought turnout should be known by lunchtime. The issue that has caused so much tension in the coalition government and seen the Labour party split between the yes and no camps looks likely to be resolved in favour of the status quo, according to a Guardian/ICM poll . The survey predicts a 68% no vote, with just 32% for yes. A YouGov poll for the Sun suggests 60% support for the no campaign, a 20-point lead over those in favour. But a poll by Metro shows a swing the other way, with those polled backing AV by 47% to 43%. Alternative vote AV referendum Scottish elections 2011 Welsh elections 2011 Welsh Assembly Government Welsh politics Scottish politics Local elections Local elections 2011 Northern Ireland elections 2011 Northern Irish politics Elections 2011 Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 5, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.