Voting does matter...even in safe seats

The General Election campaign will drag on a few days more yet but for many people it will have seemed all over before it began.

Take South Holland and the Deepings, for example. The seat is held by Conservative John Hayes who, in 2010, won a 21,880 majority with 59.1 per cent of the vote. The only questions to be decided on Thursday are whether his vote will be nearer 50 or 60 per cent this time and who will come second.

But, maybe it's time to look at the way we vote differently. In this election I think the share of the public vote will actually matter, even if it doesn't directly impact on the outcome of seats such as South Holland and the Deepings. There's two reasons for this:

*Firstly, it still appears as though no-one will win an outright majority. That means the potential for coalition negotiations or, possibly, a minority government. Whilst it's seats that matter I actually think that if this figure is incredibly close the share of the vote could be seen as a factor to help 'legitimise' a government. If there are two sides with roughly equal numbers of seats but one clearly attracted a greater number of people to place their 'X' then it could act as a tie breaker - a bit like goal difference in football. So, while whoever came second in South Holland might seem irrelevant, the votes given to the parties here could prove important.

*Vote share could also be important when looking to the future of British politics. One knock-on effect of the rise of UKIP has been to spread the calls for voting reform beyond the Lib Dems and Greens. Between the three of them they could attract 25-30 per cent of the vote but end up with fewer than five per cent of the seats. I can foresee a situation where that sort of calculation starts to tip the balance towards the need for reform. So, to return to dear old South Holland and the Deepings, a vote for an outsider party in that constituency may strengthen the case for reform and serve to highlight the declining relevance of 'first past the post'. Equally, if you don't feel that way, it's clear that a vote for the Tories or Labour can help bolster the status quo in such a scenario.

In some respects non-Tory voters have a free reign in South Holland and the Deepings just as non Labour voters would in Bootle or West Ham. They know who their MP will be come Friday morning so they don't need to think tactically, they should simply vote for who they like - let a site such as Votes for Policies help you choose if you're unsure - and know that there's no reason why that vote won't matter in either the short or long term.

I always think that not voting simply allows the political system to be dominated by those people who blindly support one party. That vocal, tribal, card-carrying, bandwagon-jumping minority of political nutters then gets its voice heard loudest. When the overall race is as close as this one we shouldn't leave it to them.




PS: I gave my verdict on how the five candidates for South Holland and the Deepings fared at a recent hustings event for the Spalding Voice. Read it here.