Election Day

There is something low-tech about elections in the UK - the familiar old typeface on all the little notices outside the Polling Place and then leading you through the corridors of schools and other public buildings to the room where the voting actually happens. The pointing fingers that always make me think of Monty Python animations. In the hall you go up to the little desk where they look at your voting card, score your name off a list, by hand, and give you a voting form. That you take over to a little booth to mark with a cross in pencil and then fold it up and stuff it into a metal tin box. Still not sure if I find all this re-assuring or a little anachronistic.
In Scotland the six MEPs we can elect seem most likely to made up of 2 SNP, 2 Labour, 1 Conservative and, one other. That sixth MEP is where most of the electoral punditry is likely to be focussed as it seems likely the Lib Dems will lose their seat with the continued weakness of their support in Scotland and the rest of the UK, presumably because of their role in the Coalition. The SNP want you to believe a vote for them will keep out UKIP, but I have a feeling they would say that wouldn't they? More noteworthy would be if they were encouraging supporters to vote for someone else. If the Lib Dems are going to struggle to keep their seat, then the other possibility as well as UKIP is that the Scottish Greens will win the sixth seat. Although it is a form of PR, the system, and the fact that Scotland only merits 6 seats within the UK (double that if it was an independent state...) means that there are all manner of possible combinations. And a lowish turnout could be prone to a surge in a particular direction - hope for the Greens maybe? Rather than try and work out the impossible probabilities I personally think it's best to vote for the people you most want, rather than trying to vote tactically to keep out someone you want least. Or if you really can't stand any of the options then go along anyway and spoil your paper - at least that gets counted and shows you care enough to go out, unlike staying at home that looks just the same as 'don't care'. You've still got just under three hours, so get out and vote!