{"id":2235,"date":"2009-06-03T20:52:43","date_gmt":"2009-06-03T20:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jcm.org.uk\/blog\/?p=2235"},"modified":"2009-06-03T21:08:53","modified_gmt":"2009-06-03T21:08:53","slug":"european-elections-2009-online-resources-to-help-you-make-an-informed-choice-about-your-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2009\/06\/european-elections-2009-online-resources-to-help-you-make-an-informed-choice-about-your-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"European Elections 2009: Online resources to help you cast an informed vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first thing to note is that European elections (in the UK at least – though the rest of this post will apply EU-wide) have a stupidly complicated voting system<\/strong>. This video should explain how it works<\/a>. (Likewise, a lot of us are unclear on just how the EU works and what it is that the European Parliament does<\/strong> – this video should explain<\/a> quickly and easily.)<\/p>\n

To make matters more complicated, political parties also tend to work slightly differently when it comes to European issues – not least thanks to the political Groups in the European Parliament.<\/p>\n

As such, it’s worth finding out how your own opinions tally with the party you’re thinking of voting for<\/strong>. I’d suggest checking out both VoteMatch.eu<\/a> (alternatively VoteMatch.co.uk<\/a>) and EUprofiler.eu<\/a> – answer their short series of policy questions, and they should give you a good indication of where you stand in relation to the parties and political groups. (Assuming they’re working – both are coming under heavy traffic at the moment, and are going down a lot under the strain.) A discussion of the pros and cons of both sites by the Telegraph can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you’re UK based<\/strong> and want to check out a party’s policies in more details, check out this handy list of links to the manifestos of ALL the UK parties standing<\/a>. The BBC also has a handy overview of all the UK parties<\/a> on offer.<\/p>\n

However, don’t forget that all the UK political parties (bar the Conservatives and – if they get a seat – the BNP) will be part of a political Group in the European Parliament<\/strong>, and each of these Groups (effectively a coalition) will also have its own policy objectives. A handy roundup of the Group manifestos<\/a> can be found at the handy EurActiv EU news and policy site.<\/p>\n

To find out who your current MEPs are<\/strong> (multi-member constituencies, you see – you have more than one), and how they’ve performed in the job, try MiCandidate.eu<\/a> or VoteWatch.eu<\/a> – which has the added benefit of a ranking system, by which we can see how MEPs compare to each other based on attendance to votes, questions asked, speeches made, and so on. Both sites also – if you have a poke around – have some handy resources for checking out the policy platforms of the various political parties and groups EU-wide.<\/p>\n

Finally, a passionate explanation of why your vote is important, and why you should care<\/strong><\/a> – no matter what your political opinions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first thing to note is that European elections (in the UK at least – though the rest of this post will apply EU-wide) have a stupidly complicated voting system. This video should explain how it works. (Likewise, a lot … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections","category-eu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2235"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2240,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235\/revisions\/2240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}