Verdicts · Elections
What the UK thinks about elections
Settled referendums
20
since Jul 2026
Votes cast
3,526
all time, on elections
This week
0
votes · 0 referendums settled
Written opinions
170
all time, left by voters
Last week's opinion highlightThe most respected opinion last week
“I mean apart from destroying the principle of a secret ballot, you do not owe the state, a polling clerk, or anyone else an explanation or justification for your decision of how or why you vote. Just pure bureaucracy that will deter voters”
BenL, debating No on “When voting in UK general elections, should voters have to name one manifesto policy they agree with for their vote?” · read the thread →
5
Respects
Most respected on elections last week
- 1.BenL9 respects
- 2.JustFactsNotBeliefs6 respects
- 3.constancia5 respects
- 4.djeglin5 respects
- 5.MikeyN4 respects
Who answered last week
The 605 placed voters lean Centre Right overall.
Regions last week
Votes each week
0so far this week
All-time elections highlights
Biggest landslide
NO 92%
Do most voters understand the manifesto of the party they vote for?
92% of 293 votes went the same way.
Closest result
50 / 50
Should Andy Burnham call an immediate general election?
Dead level — an exact tie.
Most debated
NO 80%
When voting in UK general elections, should voters have to name one manifesto policy they agree with for their vote?
25 written opinions.
Last week
3 settled · 1,181 votes
Should there be a general election before Christmas?
The verdict
“A new Prime Minister facing fundamentally shifted political realities needs to be a direct mandate from the public”: the chamber heard that appeal, then chose to wait, with continuity beating the demand for a fresh national test.
When voting in UK general elections, should voters have to name one manifesto policy they agree with for their vote?
The verdict
A plan to make voters show their homework met a room defending privacy, anonymity and the right not to explain a vote; No won decisively.
Do most voters understand the manifesto of the party they vote for?
The verdict
Manifestos were treated less as contracts than soundbites: the chamber rejected the idea that voters understand them, with the sharpest voices blaming the detail that never gets read.
Every elections verdict
- NO 55%Should there be a general election before Christmas?“A new Prime Minister facing fundamentally shifted political realities needs to be a direct mandate from the public”: the chamber heard that appeal, then chose to wait, with continuity beating the demand for a fresh national test.
- NO 80%When voting in UK general elections, should voters have to name one manifesto policy they agree with for their vote?A plan to make voters show their homework met a room defending privacy, anonymity and the right not to explain a vote; No won decisively.
- NO 92%Do most voters understand the manifesto of the party they vote for?Manifestos were treated less as contracts than soundbites: the chamber rejected the idea that voters understand them, with the sharpest voices blaming the detail that never gets read.
- NO 66%Is the average UK citizen sufficiently astute to vote in their own best interests rather than historic party allegiance?“Most see what's good for them” captured the chamber’s bleakest instinct: No prevailed, and the winning case treated party loyalty less as history than as a failure of judgement.
- NO 57%Should we have a General Election now?Andy Burnham’s arrival became a test of democratic legitimacy, but No prevailed; the strongest case against an election was bluntly simple: “We’ve had more than enough changes of Prime Minister.”
- NO 53%Did the major parties make a mistake in not contesting today's Clacton By-election?“They bottled it” was the sharpest charge in a close Clacton verdict, where the major parties’ absence narrowly survived the attack.
- NO 75%Should Nigel Farage have triggered the Clacton by-election?Farage’s by-election gambit was judged a “pointless publicity stunt”: No carried the platform vote by three to one, while his defenders cast it as a first strike against a hostile establishment.
- YES 63%Does no perfectly fair electoral system exist?Nearly two to one, the chamber agreed that mathematics beats politics here, but the more striking thing is how many of them thought the question itself was barely worth asking.
- NO 62%Do online political polling forums significantly influence election outcomes or policy?The chamber voted down its own premise: three in five said online forums and polls carry little weight over elections or policy, even as most of the debate's substance came from the Yes side arguing the opposite, a mismatch between who turned up to argue and who turned up to vote.
- YES 67%Should the UK ban company donations to political parties?The Reform funding row gave the chamber a clean hook, and it took it two to one: a ban on company donations to political parties, prompted by a police probe into £250,000 payments routed through a Tice-controlled firm, carried with 99 of 147 votes.
- NO 68%Is Burnham gearing up for a 2026 general election?Two to one against, the chamber decided Burnham's denials are just that — denials, not a plan — even as barely anyone bothered to make the case in writing.
- NO 66%Should online voting be introduced?The chamber that grew up with smartphones was the one most sceptical of putting a ballot on one: even the 16-24s, digital natives to a person, voted down online voting almost unanimously, and the wider verdict followed suit as No prevailed by two to one.
- TIEDShould Andy Burnham call an immediate general election?A question about mandates produced no mandate at all: the chamber split exactly down the middle, 72 votes apiece, on whether Andy Burnham should go to the country before governing further.
- NO 60%Will Count Binface defeat Nigel Farage in the upcoming by-election?Even the people who like the joke didn't back it winning: the chamber decided Count Binface will not defeat Nigel Farage in Clacton, by three to two, sentiment and electoral realism pulling apart.
- YES 59%Will Farage win the Clacton by election?Younger voters weren't so sure Farage would hold his own seat, even as the chamber backed him to do it by a comfortable if unspectacular margin.
- YES 78%Should there be a cap on political donations to UK parties?Voters here brushed past the GMB's warning to Labour MPs with something close to consensus, backing a cap on party donations by more than three to one — though the 35-44s, alone among the age groups, split evenly down the middle.
- YES 53%Is voting pointless when no major party addresses the UK's core fiscal and demographic crises?There's a certain irony in a vote pronouncing voting pointless, and the fact that it barely carried — 49 to 44 — rather undercuts its own thesis.
- YES 51%Should the UK introduce compulsory voting with fines for non-participation?A vote this tight on compelling people to the ballot box split almost exactly along generational lines: the young voted it down, their elders voted it through, and the coin-flip national result (49-48) was really two electorates cancelling each other out.
- YES 84%Should the UK tighten rules on overseas political donations?A landslide: 84% of the chamber backed tightening the rules on overseas political donations, with only 9 dissenters out of 58 across every age group and both sexes.
- YES 53%Will the Greater Manchester mayoral byelection reveal widespread support for Reform UK?A narrow Yes, 21 to 19, but the topline masks a sharp split: women on the platform backed the Reform-surge thesis 80% to 20%, men split almost the other way, 42% yes.