In terms of the turnout, I think there's several reasons behind that:
Firstly, as you've said, there was a bruising referendum defeat. Whilst the work we've been doing on Lords reform, lobbying reform and other stuff is hopefully enthusing people, there are a lot of people who've somewhat given up on reform for the moment.
Secondly, I think there are a fair number of people who support reform, but who give money (and may turn up to marches/write letters occasionally, etc), but aren't really that strongly involved in the reform movement, who therefore don't choose to vote, to read through all the information on the candidates, and so forth.
Possibly as a third thing, a fair chunk of UD's membership is getting fairly old, I'm not sure where that falls in terms of them becoming disengaged from it, versus the higher likelihood of voting from older people in governmental elections.
(Blah blah blah, these are my own thoughts and ponderings, not extensively researched, and not in any way official UD PoVs)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2012-06-26 06:34 pm (UTC)Firstly, as you've said, there was a bruising referendum defeat. Whilst the work we've been doing on Lords reform, lobbying reform and other stuff is hopefully enthusing people, there are a lot of people who've somewhat given up on reform for the moment.
Secondly, I think there are a fair number of people who support reform, but who give money (and may turn up to marches/write letters occasionally, etc), but aren't really that strongly involved in the reform movement, who therefore don't choose to vote, to read through all the information on the candidates, and so forth.
Possibly as a third thing, a fair chunk of UD's membership is getting fairly old, I'm not sure where that falls in terms of them becoming disengaged from it, versus the higher likelihood of voting from older people in governmental elections.
(Blah blah blah, these are my own thoughts and ponderings, not extensively researched, and not in any way official UD PoVs)