Central Ward Re-Election?
pingupete | 02.07.2004 14:05 | Liverpool
Rumour has it that the Liberal Democrats are mounting a legal challenge to the validity of the Central Ward results.
Despite having won 60 out of 90 seats on Liverpool City Council, it seems as though the Liberal Democrats are likely to dispute the results in Central ward and push for a re-election there, as obviously complete domination of the council is not enough. The Greens had thought about challenging the results, but couldn't afford to.
As discussed on a number of previous threads, there was a definite case of 635 students (over 6% of the ward) being denied a full opportunity to vote in a single student hall, and there were many other problems in other halls. This was flagged up by the student Green Group (of which I am a member) who had been campaigning with the political party we obviously support (no advertising).
The leading candidates for each party got the following votes:
Labour 580 votes
LibDem 497 votes
LivLab 324 votes
Greens 223 votes
Tories 74 votes
Liberal 28 votes
But the 3rd Labour candidate vote was just 515, which meant he only got elected by just 18 votes. In no other ward in the city was there as tight a contest. Less than 300 votes separated four party candidates from election to the final seat.
The Liberal Democrats obviously feel they can win seats in any re-election. Presumably they will actually try and campaign for the student vote this time, and the halls will be full in an October/November re-election, not empty as they were this time. On the flip side, residents might actually be annoyed by another election, especially if the Lib Dems are painted as greedy or sore losers.
I know that the Greens are pretty confident they can win at least one seat, as they were already taking 2 student votes to every 1 for the Lib Dems. They will obviously gain credibility with students by being the party that actually flagged all this up. It will obviously be tougher if the Lib Dems actually leaflet student halls this time.
Labour should be very concerned and I imagine Liverpool Labour will run hard again to ensure the Labour vote splits. Based on the results though, they may not want to help the Lib Dems in, so who knows. Labour may benefit from painting this contest as a straight battle between them and the Liberal Democrats, which may motivate their voters to turn out again, but if it is non-postal, then it will be a lot tougher for them this time round.
Tories or Liberals may have a role to play in taking votes from the Liberal Democrats if they actually run a campaign.
Comments anyone (other than "not another boring political thread")
As discussed on a number of previous threads, there was a definite case of 635 students (over 6% of the ward) being denied a full opportunity to vote in a single student hall, and there were many other problems in other halls. This was flagged up by the student Green Group (of which I am a member) who had been campaigning with the political party we obviously support (no advertising).
The leading candidates for each party got the following votes:
Labour 580 votes
LibDem 497 votes
LivLab 324 votes
Greens 223 votes
Tories 74 votes
Liberal 28 votes
But the 3rd Labour candidate vote was just 515, which meant he only got elected by just 18 votes. In no other ward in the city was there as tight a contest. Less than 300 votes separated four party candidates from election to the final seat.
The Liberal Democrats obviously feel they can win seats in any re-election. Presumably they will actually try and campaign for the student vote this time, and the halls will be full in an October/November re-election, not empty as they were this time. On the flip side, residents might actually be annoyed by another election, especially if the Lib Dems are painted as greedy or sore losers.
I know that the Greens are pretty confident they can win at least one seat, as they were already taking 2 student votes to every 1 for the Lib Dems. They will obviously gain credibility with students by being the party that actually flagged all this up. It will obviously be tougher if the Lib Dems actually leaflet student halls this time.
Labour should be very concerned and I imagine Liverpool Labour will run hard again to ensure the Labour vote splits. Based on the results though, they may not want to help the Lib Dems in, so who knows. Labour may benefit from painting this contest as a straight battle between them and the Liberal Democrats, which may motivate their voters to turn out again, but if it is non-postal, then it will be a lot tougher for them this time round.
Tories or Liberals may have a role to play in taking votes from the Liberal Democrats if they actually run a campaign.
Comments anyone (other than "not another boring political thread")
pingupete
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pingupete@hotmail.com
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