Thread by @mafevema

😡😡 What I find very annoying is that an alliance involving only 1 candidate in some constituencies is regularly dismissed as "unworkable, undemocratic and/or would fail" but where is the recent hard data about this as it has not been attempted? 🧵

2/ I completely accept this works both ways i.e. the supporters of a pact/alliance do not have firm evidence that it would work.
The Constitution Society/@ElectCalculus had a go in a poll involving 14,000 respondents, a very big number.The aim was to check the reaction of voters

3/faced with only 1 Opposition candidate as a result of a Lab/LD/Greens pact. We obviously need more evidence & this poll has some aspects which are contentious- number of seats attributed to the Greens & lack of a question on how the voters would vote if there was no pact-

4/But respondents were given the option "wouldn't vote". The poll was done in June 2021, when there was a very high level of popular support for the government on the back of the vaccination strategy.

5/This
research indicates that supporters of the Labour, Liberal Democrat
and Green parties are amenable to voting for a Pact candidate, even if the candidate is not
drawn from their own party. Depending on how the seats are allocated, all three parties would
win from a Pact.

6/The predicted resistance from voters angry at being deprived of a choice, didn't materialise. So of course more evidence is needed but, instead of dismissing a large scale pact/Alliance as impossible & something which would anger the voters, why don't parties ASK them?

7/Could it possibly be because the parties would not like the answer (as shown by the usual suspects immediately attacking the poll)? Let's get the evidence & decide. If the public support it, isn't the true reason that "the winner takes all mentality" is too entrenched?

8/At least, then everyone will know the truth including Alliance supporters if the voters appear to reject it. Let's do it! @pimlicat @Compass @andrewblick @MakeVotesMatter @electoralreform @OpenSociety @InstituteGC
@ElectCalculus

Link to the poll & Blick's note (in the text).
electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_conso…