On 04/05/2011 09:48, Paul Waring wrote:
On 04/05/11 09:36, Mark Goodge wrote:
On 04/05/2011 09:25, Paul Waring wrote:
The one thing I would like to see if anyone is designing a generic 'ward
and candidate finder' is to plot the addresses of candidates to see
which of them actually live in the area they're standing for election in
(only one of mine does).
I can understand the attraction of this, but I'm not sure it's as useful
as you might think. There are many reasons why a candidate might live
outside their ward, so without knowing those reasons there aren't many
helpful conclusions you can draw from the knowledge.
Perhaps - in my ward the distance from the ward seems to be an
indication of how serious the candidate is (paper candidates live over a
mile away, serious candidates live within the ward or neighbouring
wards). I don't know if that applies further afield though.
I don't think it can be generally assumed. Council wards tend to be
fairly small, so a sitting candidate can easily find themselves outside
their ward either as a result of boundary changes or because they need
to move house. It's quite hard in some parts of the country to persuade
people to stand at all for council elections, and the supply of suitable
candidates doesn't necessarily match ward boundaries, so the main
political parties in particular will often need to allocate candidates
to wards other than where they live. The alternative would be a lot of
uncontested seats, or even vacancies, which IMO would be a far worse
scenario.
Mark
--
Sent from my Babbage Difference Engine
http://mark.goodge.co.uk
http://www.ratemysupermarket.com
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