Adopt a Constituency

[minionofmidas]

As a Green voter, I hereby adopt Brighton Pavillion.
They can't possibly win it, of course...although the Frankfurter Rundschau just yesterday claimed they might...after their correspondent had spoken to Green Party Head Office obviously...but I'm pressing thumbs for second place.

[minionofmidas]

IIRC Bridgend does have some posh-ish outer suburban places as well...though not enough for the Tories to still be a force these days. Would explain how they won it in 1983, though.

And in the other Reading seat, they've deselected their MP on the grounds of having voted for the Iraq War and being a bit brash in personal conversations...and have nominated some elderly councillor and good friend of Salter's in her stead.

[minionofmidas]

we need some similar method in the US. Actually I think that's very similar to what's done in Iowa and Arizona, both of which have pretty fair districts (while Arizona has that district with the weird appendage, that wasn't done for partisan reasons but that that appendage contains a Hopi reservation, and the Hopis have traditionally had many disputes with the Apaches who make up the surrounding area, and probably wouldn't fit right together in the same district).

Navajos. Anyways the Hopis don't as a rule vote.

[minionofmidas]

Only from 1885?
Anyways, isn't Aberystwyth Uni Welsh-speaking? Nice enough place, btw.

[minionofmidas]

Well this really due to turnout, as Bute had 21 voters at the time (okay 20 of them didn't live there).  I think it was 1831.

The quotation from Erskine May's Constitutional History is:

"A case of inconceivable grotesqueness was related by the Lord Advocate, in 1831. The county of Bute, with a population of fourteen thousand, had twenty-one electors, of whom one only resided in the county. 'At an election at Bute, not beyond the memory of man, only one person attended the meeting, except the sheriff and the returning officer. He, of course, took the chair, constituted the meeting, called over the roll of freeholders, answered to his own name, took the vote as to the Preses, and elected himself. He then moved and seconded his own nomination, put the question as to the vote, and was unanimously returned.' "

Why were the people of Bute not allowed to vote? I mean, like, all 14 thousand of them?

[minionofmidas]

Yes...but striking the entire population off the voting lists due to property requirements sounds...extreme.
Probably an effect of extreme poverty (think Highland clearances) in combination with local rules on land tenure being somewhat at odds with the Acts describing who can vote (whatever that was called, pre-1832).

[minionofmidas]

Yes...but striking the entire population off the voting lists due to property requirements sounds...extreme.
Probably an effect of extreme poverty (think Highland clearances) in combination with local rules on land tenure being somewhat at odds with the Acts describing who can vote (whatever that was called, pre-1832).

Also, qualifications varied throughout England. There were open boroughs (in which any male adult present at the time of the election could vote), freeman boroughs (in which all freemen could vote), Scot and Lot boroughs (in which only ratepayers could vote), burgage boroughs (in which property qualifications existed), and corporation boroughs (in which the city corporation/ council chose the MP).

Disenfranchisement of residents was not unique to Bute. For example, in 1824, Edinburgh had over 100,000 residents, but only 33 were qualified to vote. In 1780, about 6,000 voters returned a majority of the members of Parliament.

We're talking about a county seat though, not a borough seat.
Edinburgh in the 18th century must have been one of the worst hellholes ever in existence upon the planet, from what I hear.
As late as 1824 though? That surprises me. Maybe the borough didn't include the New Town?

[minionofmidas]

A little too remote perhaps. But yeah...not bad at all.