bolo wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 9:55 pm
Fishnut wrote: ↑Thu May 06, 2021 9:19 pm
TL:DR: I don't think the position should exist. If it has to exist I don't think it should be an elected position. And if it has to be an elected position the bar to entry and the support given to candidates has to be signficantly increased so we can at least have a chance of an informed electorate.
Thanks Fishnut. I had forgotten what PCC stood for and was thinking it was some sort of local council. Makes more sense now.
Belatedly replying to this to note that it illustrates quite nicely just how little recognition there is of the position.
I can't find anything more recent than 2016, which was the last PCC election, but according to an
Electoral Reform Society survey only 11% of people in England thought they knew who their PCC was (and 10% of them were wrong). While voter turnout improved in 2016 the
Electoral Commission say that this was "clearly influenced by combining the PCC contests with other elections in both England and Wales", rather than being held separately as they were in 2012. Local election turnout in 2016 was around
33% [PDF] and the Electoral Commission
reported that,
The ballot box turnout was 32.8% in those areas of England with combined local and PCC elections; 20.2% in those places with standalone PCC contests.
So it looks like if people went to vote for in their local elections they voted for PCC as well, but far fewer people bothered to turn out if it was just a PCC election. Given that the PCC constituencies are so large there will be areas where local elections are taking place and others where there aren't. The lower turnout for standalone PCC elections means that those areas essentially get less of a say in who is their PCC. Of course, there's nothing stopping those people from voting in their PCC election but it's clear that a lack of awareness means most won't.
It will be interesting to see how the turnout compares this year. I'm curious to see how independent candidates do - they won
12% of the races in 2012 but only 7% in 2016 and all of them were incumbents. I know that Avon & Somerset were one of those and they decided not to run this time and the Conservatives won. I suspect that we've seen the end of independent PCCs and now they'll just be another way for parties to exert themselves. I'm also curious to see if the data will allow me to see how much influence, if any, local elections has on who gets elected.
Most immediately, I'm interested to see how Wiltshire voters respond to
this. Jonathan Seed ran as the Conservative candidate. He
either failed to disclose a 30-year-old drink driving offence (the party's claim) or he disclosed it and was told it wasn't a problem (Seed's claim) and when it was made public he ended up either being disbarred from running (the party's claim) or withdrawing from the race (Seed's claim) on Sunday. He won the vote and now there has to be a rerun costing, potentially costing the council
£1.5 million. Questions are understandably being asked about why the council should pay this bill when it's the Conservative Party's error that has caused the need for the election to be rerun. Personally I'm hoping the voters show them they don't appreciate their money being wasted like this and elect someone else but I fear I'm going to be bitterly disappointed.
What's most surprising to me is how they thought the conviction wouldn't be a problem. The high bar for candidates has been known since the elections were first held in 2012, with the Guardian
reporting that,
The strict rules on past offending forced out Bob Ashford, the Labour candidate for Avon and Somerset, because of a £5 fine 46 years ago for two minor offences at the age of 13. He was told by the Home Office and Electoral Commission that his conviction was enough to bar him from standing for the post. In September Mike Quigley, a 65-year-old Tory councillor, was forced to bow out as the Tory choice in Nottinghamshire, over a drink-related offence committed on his 21st birthday.
If a £5 fine as a 13 year old disqualifies you from standing, a drink-driving as an adult and an
army officer sure as hell would. That anyone thought this wasn't an issue is beyond me.