Election fraud? a personal account. Normanton 2005.

A 'campaign' that was always behind before it started yielded quite a result - 780 votes surpassed expectations on one count but does need some explaining.

The decision was made to stand when 2 days before final call a letter was received from Labour man on a mission, Ed Balls, asking for input on his listener panel. Others include a goading 4th estate, various other wind up merchants but mainly the conditions of our daily lives and the direction that we are headed for.


A leaflet was laboured over and eventually spewed out something of a hackjob. All the deadlines were approaching so it had to do.

A day at the printers before final off and a chance to put things in to perspective - What the hell are you doing!?! Followed by a dark, moody period calming to introspection, sleep and facing the inevitable. Whatever faults, at least there was a measure of belief.

Barely subdued anger fuels much action but does little for direction. The election provided an element of direction and a chance to promote some ideas - not particularly my own, but shared ones. The goal in the election was never a personal one, it was more to get people to see the pitfalls and potentials ahead, to challenge their beliefs and see themselves as potential.

All grand plans proved illusory as the campaign fell further behind - 1o, ooo leaflets for 4o, ooo households over 6 days (3500 delivered) and targetted for public meetings.

Brief respite came in the form of a 'meet the candidates' meeting promoted by Churches together (thanks given to secretary, D. Rowland and the Bishop of Pontefract as chair). All the thoughts that had previously seemed so clear were now absent and the 5 minute intro took two hours to prepare and stumbled out over one and a half minutes.

(Dig in.)

Quite a lively event with a small cross section of community players giving us wannabes a grilling. Mr. Balls had done his homework and did sterling work but largely stuck to the party line as did the Tory candidate. The Liberal stand in deviated slightly considering youth and John Aveyard of the BNP gave an honest enough account of his beliefs. Yours truly performed consistently offering half remembered arguments and trying to put the case for humanity.
Chatting to the audience afterwards revealed that it hadn't gone down as bad as first thought.


The rest of the campaign then largely fell into one of technicalities - delivering leaflets and barely any chance to discuss aims with the public.
Meetings prepared on the hoof would have been a joke if the whole thing hadn't been considered something of an experiment. In effect one caretaker heard the first speech and the others were used as practice.

78o votes doesn't mean much under those circumstances other than perhaps representing something of a critical but disconnected public.

And potential.