Referendum turnout: returning officer statement
5th December, 2008
Sir Neil McIntosh, the returning officer for the ongoing TIF referendum, has just spoken out about the current turnout figures.
“The turnout so far, while reasonable, is not as high as we had anticipated at this stage,” he said. “The normal pattern in a postal ballot is for a high response in the early stages with a smaller peak just before the deadline.
“Given the nature of this referendum, and the complex issues involved, there was always a prospect that this pattern might not be followed.
“I can only conclude that people are considering the issues and think that there is still plenty of time to vote. There isn’t.
“The risk now is that voters will get sidetracked and miss the opportunity to vote. Time is running out. My clear message is don’t delay, have your say.”
Or the vast majority of the population are nothing like as interested in this subject as many would like you to think.
Isn’t it strange that the massive opposition to these plans that the No camp claimed existed is not driving out a huge vote.
The reality is, the turn out will probably not reach 40%, and the ‘winning’ side will have only managed to get about one in five of the population to vote for them – hardly a massive Yes, or a massive No.
Personally, think that there is a fair chance of a Yes vote overall, whether or not that relates to 7 boroughs I don’t know, but we will know in 7 days.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
“Isn’t it strange that the massive opposition to these plans that the No camp claimed existed is not driving out a huge vote.”
i don’t suppose you considered the notion that all the millions spent by the YES campaign have still not managed to motivate enough people to bother voting.
A marketing campaign performance to match the performance of the £3,000,000,000 scheme in the first place,
Third Class and untrustworthy.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Hmmm, if we start discussing the probable low turn out we may next get on to whether it invalidates the poll….
Perhaps the city leaders may decide to go ahead dispite the probable vote against the charge – they know best after all. They will be following the Stockholm example where 14 of the 15 municipalities vote against but it was still imposed.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Perhaps the decision to hold the ballot so near christmas or the fact that the ballot is so complicated to fill in or the fact that part of the misleading propaganda has involved the idea that road tolls are inevitable. There could be a whole host of reasons
December 5th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Think you have hit the nail on the head Sean, the whole handling of this issue from its inception has been a shambles.
December 6th, 2008 at 10:54 am