Election deposits to go?
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The Electoral Commission has just proposed this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2907501/Election-deposit-scrapped.html
I don't think it will happen because the big parties won't want it. Note also that the Commission is proposing to change the number of signatories instead, i.e. to increase them for some elections. For parliament and local elections it's now 10. For the mayor of London it's 330. So abolishing the deposit might not be a good thing as far as we're concerned.
I think abolishing the deposit would be great, but I also doubt it will happen.You only have to look at elections in the US and the trouble they have overturning Citizens United to see how money buys the presidency. Or as Greg Palast satirically described it, 'the Best Democracy Money Can Buy'.It might not be good for the party, but I'd rather gather signatories than the cost of an election deposit for each constituency.
At the moment we don't have to gather any signatories to contest the Party-list elections, i.e for the European Parliament, the London, Scottish and Welsh Assemblies. All that is required is an official letter from the Nominating Officer. Before there was PR for ther Euroelections we had to get 30 signatories (as we did when we contested the North East in 1999)
jondwhite wrote:It might not be good for the party, but I'd rather gather signatories than the cost of an election deposit for each constituency.Thanks for the offer. We may need your help in getting the 330 signatories if the Party decides to contest the London mayor elections in 2016.
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