The Whole Internet on who to vote for

A bit of a change of topic for this post - sorry people, no celebs this time (unless you count politicians).

I've been boring pretty much everyone I know with political "debate" (ahem) over the last few days, and one thing keeps cropping up: loads of people don't know who to vote for, and don't know how to decide.

So I thought I'd give you a brief guide to the various places on the internet that can help steer you towards a decision by May 6th.

REGISTERING TO VOTE

If you're not registered, go to About My Vote. (Here you can also check whether you're already registered, in case you did it and forgot about it). You need to do this by April 20th.

FINDING OUT WHO YOUR LOCAL MP IS

They Work For You is a great source of info - tap your postcode into the search box and it tells you what constituency you're in and who your MP is. It also tells you some basic info about that person - how long they've been in Parliament for, the things they're interested in and where they stand on some key topics.

There is also a section of the BBC Democracy Live site where you can do the same thing. This also gives a link to your MP's website and their email address.

FINDING OUT WHAT YOUR LOCAL MP HAS BEEN UP TO

You might be interested in exactly how your MP has voted on an issue you're concerned about: go to the Public Whip website, search for your MP's name or your postcode, and find out.

My own MP is Labour's Linda Gilroy, and I'm interested in whether she voted for or against the Digital Economy Bill this week. I'm self-employed and the introduction of the Bill would mean that, if ANY member of my household is caught using an illegal filesharing network, my internet connection could legally be cut off, leaving me unable to work. http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/ shows her entire voting record and yes, she did vote FOR this thing.

FINDING OUT WHICH OTHER CANDIDATES YOU CAN VOTE FOR

If you go to this page on BBC Politics and type your postcode into the top-right box (under 'Find your constituency') it will give you a list of all the candidates standing for election in your area. The easiest way to find out more about them is to Google their names and plough through their no doubt fascinating websites.

WRITING TO YOUR LOCAL MP AND ELECTION CANDIDATES

If you've been investigating what your local MP has been doing with their time in Parliament and you're not happy, tell them. Ask them what they think they're playing at. You don't have to know the ins and outs of all their policy decisions - that's their job. It's also their job to clearly explain what they're doing with your vote and/or your taxes.

You can find your local MP's email address if you search for them using that page I mentioned earlier, BBC Democracy Live. You can also contact your MP through http://www.writetothem.com/. If you'd like to write to the candidates who'll be standing for election in competition with your current MP, perhaps to ask them why they deserve your vote instead, their websites will give an email address and perhaps even a phone number if you're lucky.

FINDING OUT MORE ABOUT EACH PARTY

Let's face it: most people don't have much of a clue about their local MP and the point of a general election is to decide who should govern the whole country, not just your part of it. Plus, if you have a local MP like mine, they'll only vote against the general party line once in a blue moon anyway so you might as well just go by what their leader is saying and assume it applies to them too. So what are Brown, Cammo and Clegg promising, exactly?

Obviously the news channels and papers are good sources of info. The BBC is particularly good when it comes to elections, since it has to obey far more rules about preventing bias than the commercial channels. You can watch Question Time, This Week and The Daily Politics on the BBC iPlayer. Have I mentioned BBC Democracy Live? That's very good. Channel 4 News seems to do the job pretty well too, and it has Jon Snow.

You can go to each party's official website for pretty much all the info you can stand. These are...

http://www.conservatives.com/

http://www.labour.org.uk/

http://www.libdems.org.uk/

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/

http://www.ukip.org/

You could also follow a few politicians on Twitter. I'll warn you though: if you find it hard to listen to endless bitching and bickering, interspersed with cringeworthy ass-kissing (yes I'm looking at you, Alastair Campbell), you might want to hide all your sharp objects away first.

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UPDATE: The three main parties have now published their manifestos. The PDF files of each can be found here:

Conservative: http://bit.ly/bNuB4I Labour: http://bit.ly/b2mBe6 Lib Dem: http://bit.ly/9jrVlG

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DECIDING WHICH PARTY YOU AGREE WITH MOST

It's very unlikely you'll agree with everything a particular party has done or said - ideally, your voting decision is about finding a 'best fit' rather than perfection. There are a few online services that can help with this.

Lib Dem Voice does an interesting thing by giving each MP a rating based on how authoritarian or liberal they are. Again, enter your postcode into the search box and it will tell you how your MP ranks, which is quite enlightening. Unfortunately the site is run by Lib Dem supporters so it's biased - even the tags of 'authoritarian' and 'liberal' are subjective so it's unreliable. It would be nice if there was a similar independent site but I'm buggered if I can find one.

Vote Match and Who Should You Vote For both offer teen-magazine-style quizzes to determine which party best matches your values. Which is pretty useful, especially if you've always voted a particular way out of habit but your opinions have changed along the way.

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UPDATE: There's another quiz thing here, at Vote For Policies. It asks you which policy areas you're interested in, and then allows you to choose the approaches you prefer, with 'the big reveal' at the end... which party is offering what you want? Strangely, the majority of people who've used the site (28%) should be voting for the Green party.

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TACTICAL VOTING

The mere mention of tactical voting seems to strike fear into the hearts of some people, particularly those non-mathsy ones who think it might involve long division. I shall now explain tactical voting the only way I know how to explain anything: by concentrating on ME and me alone.

In my constituency, the Member of Parliament is a Labour member (Linda "eroding your civil liberties is what I am about" Gilroy). Her competition in the 2010 election will be a Conservative candidate, a Lib Dem one, and a UKIP one. In the last general election, in 2005, the Conservative candidate came second, with the Lib Dem one in third place.

If I had the only vote in the country and could elect a party all by myself, I'd vote Lib Dem, and Labour would be my second choice. However, I am not. In my constituency, it's going to be a battle between Labour and the Tories in first and second place (judging by last time), so it could be argued that, by voting for the Lib Dems, I'd be taking a valuable vote away from the Labour party and narrowing the gap between them and the Tories, possibly even allowing the Tories to snaffle the seat away and giving them one more MP in the House of Commons.

So, since I believe that Labour would be a better choice than the Tories, it would make sense to vote Labour instead of Lib Dem. That's why it's a tactical vote - it's not what I'd do ideally, but I'm "playing the game".

I found out how my constituency voted in 2005 by going here and typing my postcode in. You can do the same. There's more about tactical voting in this BBC article.

THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP

If the idea of a general election has got you more hand-flappingly excitable than Professor Brian Cox talking about conspiracy theories in a strong wind, you can help out in many ways.

If you've found a party that's really captured your enthusiasm and you want to help them win, visit their website (see above) and volunteer to do some canvassing. They always need people to hand out leaflets to potential voters, phone them or bother them on their own doorsteps during Neighbours.

You could instead volunteer to help an activism group like Hope Not Hate, which isn't affiliated with any party but campaigns against the election of the BNP.

And if you fancy helping out on election day at one of your local polling stations, you can apply to be an election observer (where you'll check to make sure the correct procedure is being followed and nobody's interfering with the ballot papers).

I THINK THAT'S IT

I think that's it. Have I missed anything? Any questions? Please leave a comment if you know of any other good websites for people who are unsure what to do with their vote. Your vote is a privilege and you should use it wisely.