Bits & Bobs

[timill]

Marcia's next go-round with the health services is set for Wednesday next. I just hope this is better than the last one... If it isn't, there's no way we're gooing up to Glasgow at the end of the month. Indeed, I think we probably ought to cancel out on it Right Now, but Marcia really wants to go.


I'm not really convinced that we need larger-than-A4 ballot papers to choose between about ten candidates for election. Especially when it had to be folded 3 times before it would go into the box.


We had a small meeting last night to put together the application for funding for the Parish Plan. The Countryside Agency say they want full details of costs before we've even decided how large the questionnaire is going to be. And of course we shouldn't do any work before the funding is decided...

The budget is set at £2500, of which £2000 will be cash and £500 volunteer labour. Actually, more like £900 will be volunteers, but we only get to count £500 of it towards the budget. The £2k should be £125 from the Parish Council and £1875 from the Countryside Agency. We shall see.

I revealed my Secret Plan to get good returns on the questionnaire - weekly Help Sessions in the Village Hall during October, with Free Beer[1] - and nobody fainted in horror. If that doesn't get people to bring in their forms, nothing will.


[1] Well, somebody will end up paying for it, and that someone will probably be me. I plan to get a 10-litre barrel, probably of Hobson's Choice, which will only cost about £30 per session. I Can Afford It. Well, Maybe...

Comments

Good luck and best wishes...

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

... to you both.

Susan arrives on Wednesday and I was thinking of dropping by and saying hello sometime of the following two weeks (she goes back at the end of the month).

Ballot papers here were three A4 sheets, mayoral, local and european, in white, yellow and pink and were NOT to be folded before putting in the box.

Good luck with the questionnaire

Re: Good luck and best wishes...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Hah, the EU papers here had to be folded. Lots. There were two ballot boxes, and one had a short slot, one a long slot.

Guess which box the EU ballots were to go into.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

how can you have a paid value of voluteers? That makes no sence.

Tell mom I am thinking of her and want her to get better faster than that.

[armb.livejournal.com]

Our papers (EU only) had to be folded three times and then poked in with a special plastic ballot poking stick (partly because the box was getting very full, at least by the time I voted after supper).

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Another week's waiting - argh! But at least you have a date. Hope that'll be the end of it!

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

So I take it that there is no agitation there for electronic voting like there is here? My county used the infamous punch-hole ballot even after the Florida debacle, but this last election we had electronic voting. Now, of course, serious questions have arisen regarding the whole electronic system. Balanced against the insatiable desire of most Americans to know the results immediately, of course...

Voting and Systems

[timill]

There doesn't seem to be any agitation for automated counting systems (of any sort) over here.

What we do have is some pressure for different tallying systems to give a "better" result. Usually this is for some form of proportionality, whether by list of STV or something else. I don't expect it to change in the next decade or so; the UK is a very small-c conservative country. Witness the success of the UKIP in the European elections - harking back to a Golden Past which (IMO) never was (or, at least, if it did exist, depended on the Empire to keep it going - and how are they going to recreate that then?)