Election day tomorrow – have you read any manifestos?

Tomorrow people will be going out to vote, and for those perhaps still wondering who or what party to vote for and why, we have compiled a quick reference for policies and manifestos.

There has been research saying 67% of people don’t read manifestos – with one in ten people not even having a clue what they are.

A manifesto is a document issued by a political party ideally well before an election and often contains policies and beliefs that the party stands for and would want to implement if elected to govern – or in coalition partnerships can form part of their requests to join or support a government.

They do sound quite dull documents, however most now are quite well crafted modern readable documents and are worth a look.

Wrexham and Clwyd South Party manifestos, or similar documents, can be found below with a brief mention of the first item contained in them:

• The UKIP Wales manifesto has scrapping the Senedd as their first mention – you can find it here.
• Welsh Liberal Democrats manifesto puts a ‘caring recovery’ from the pandemic first, you can find their document here.
• Plaid Cymru’s manifesto starts with a ‘vision’ of their programme for the future of Wales starting with ‘Lessons of the pandemic for our post-Covid future’, you can read their document here.
• Abolish The Welsh Assembly have a ‘statement of policy’ document – which says they have one policy, which is their party name. You can read their document here.
• The Welsh Conservatives start with a plan for ‘finishing the job on Covid-19’ over the first 100 days if they won. You can read their manifesto here.
• Reform UK don’t appear to have a specific manifesto, but have an economic plan that starts with ‘low tax, simple tax = higher growth’. You can view the plan here.
• Welsh Labour’s manifesto starts with six pledges, the first detailing how a recovery from the pandemic would take shape – you can read them on their document here.
• Gwlad’s manifesto kicks off with a section on ‘Welfare and Taxation’ listing the problem as they see it now, a short term policy and then long term policies. You can read their manifesto here.

As well as candidates standing for a specific party locally, there are a range of candidates on the regional ‘list’ that you will also be voting for tomorrow, some are members of the above parties however there are several more. Below is a similar list of the party, a quick look at their first listed item, and a link to the manifesto or similar document.

• Britain’s Communist Party has a manifesto document at the bottom of this webpage, which begins by talking about the regional investment policy for Wales.
• The Freedom Alliance has details on candidates standing on the list / Wales here and a manifesto specific to Scotland, but we can’t spot one for Wales.
• Propel have published a ‘statement’ that “reflects the Party’s values”, that begins by saying individual sovereignty must be protected, you can read it here.
• The Wales Green Party give their top ten ‘green guarantees’ in their manifesto, the first focusing on a ‘green new deal and the economy’, that can be found here.
• The Welsh Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition have a policy platform statement that promises to ‘resist Covid austerity’, you can read the full document here.

Tomorrow when voting for members of the Senedd you will have two votes.

One for a member to represent your constituency, and one to represent your Welsh region – also known as ‘list’ candidates. There are 20 people elected to represent five regions of Wales, with the North Wales region returning four representatives.

The constituency vote is run as first past the post, with a straightforward who gets the most votes wins system.

The second box you will mark is for the regional seat, and you vote for a party. Each party has submitted a list of candidates in order (below) and a formula called the Additional Member System is used to determine who is elected, the aim is to help to overcome the imbalance often associated with first-past-the-post elections. It is important to look at the candidate lists on the table below, as they are the people you are voting for!
Here’s how the regional system works:

• each party or group in a region presents a list of candidates;
• electors vote for the person they want to represent their region;
• the votes for the regions are usually counted after the constituency votes have been decided;
• each party’s total is divided by 1 + the number of Members of the Senedd it already has in that region;
• the party with the highest total after this calculation gets the next seat and the person on top of its list is elected;
• the same pattern is repeated until all four regional seats have been decided.

How do I vote?

Polling stations are open from 7am to 10pm tomorrw.
If you don’t have your poll card, you can go to the polling station and give them your name and address. You don’t need any other form of ID.
Give your name and address to the staff inside the polling station when you arrive. You don’t have to take your poll card with you.
You’ll be given a ballot paper containing a list of the people, parties or the options you can vote for.

• Take your ballot paper into a polling booth.
• Follow the instructions on the notices in the polling booth and on the top of the ballot paper to vote.
• Put it in the ballot box.

…Done!

In Clwyd South there are are seven candidates running in the election:

In Wrexham there are eight candidates looking for your vote:

The list candidates also looking for your vote are: