Election experts are keeping a close eye on voting in the Minehead area to see if a new information campaign can boost the response to this week’s poll for seats on West Somerset Council.
Candidates hoping to win a seat on West Somerset Council local elections have been offered free space on the internet to woo voters.
Residents of Minehead & surrounding area are now able to click on to their local site to see what the rival candidates have to say. Organisers of the information campaign say they are hoping to plug an information gap and encourage more people to vote in the local elections. In some places less than a third of the electorate has bothered to vote in recent years.
“More and more people are using the internet to compare prices and compare products, so we don’t see why they shouldn’t be able to choose their councillor in the same way,” comments local organiser Clara Lawrie.
There are 30 candidates standing for the 18 contested seats in the TA24 area. Clara Lawrie has contacted all of them with the offer of free web space for a short statement saying why people should vote for them.
Her approach has been approved by the national body representing council election officers.
“Unfortunately some people will not get a single piece of candidate information through their door. There needs to be more joined up thinking about how to provide better information to electors,” says Malcolm Dumper from the Association of Electoral Administrators.
The organisers of the web campaign, who are independent of any political party, hope this week’s local elections will lead to greater use of the AboutMyArea websites, run by the community for the community, for politicians and councils to explain what they do all year round.
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