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I'm working on https://tacticalvote.co.uk https://tacticalvote.co.uk and volunteered during the 2017 snap General Election too. # Tech Our site handled a lot

by buro9 7y ago

I'm working on https://tacticalvote.co.uk https://tacticalvote.co.uk and volunteered during the 2017 snap General Election too. # Tech Our site handled a lot of traffic at the last snap election. 2.6m unique visitors in the 5 weeks before the vote, a crazy number during the last 48 hours. To accommodate this we have a static site builder, with our data in Google Sheets. We monitor github for changes, Sheets for changes, and auto-generate the site. The site builder translates the Google Sheet into JSON. This then pushes a Cache Purge instruction to Cloudflare. Cloudflare is configured to cache everything at the edge for hours, but in the browser for minutes... meaning we serve virtually nothing from the origin server, and over 99% of reqs from Cloudflare caches. Doing this meant we had to design everything to just be static HTML and JS. It works well. We communicate in Slack, use MailChimp for email mailouts, and have a GSuite account with some alias emails. # What is the org like? No-one is working on this full-time, but we have a team of ~5 people who all do just a little. It's no burden for this to exist, and the costs are virtually $0 outside of the election period. The only cost we have is MailChimp during the election period, so we will be crowdfunding to allow us to keep people informed about changes, etc. We are very much a small group of individuals from wildly different backgrounds and political beliefs who happen to have a common goal but for different reasons. We aren't trying to convince each other about "why" to do this work, only that the goal makes it worth it even though different individuals have different goals. # Why am I involved? It is not as if I necessarily believe that the Tories are vile, Labour is better, etc. (Though some in the team do express this.) What I personally believe is that we should have proportional representation, and that mass tactical voting is an important step towards progressive candidates and progressive parties before we can reach a full PR system. Mass tactical voting applies pressure and encourages progressive behaviour. My contribution then, is towards fairer election systems.

obayesshelton 7y ago
As soon as I saw "UNITE AGAINST THE TORIES" I left the page, regardless of who I vote for this tool is clearly biased.
- buro9 7y ago
  I was at some of the meetings at Newspeak House from where the OP document originated. I would say that not one person who is volunteering, giving up time and skill, or employed to work on anything listed on there... is without bias. There is no person or group working on anything to do with politics and cited in that doc, that does not have an agenda of their own.
- sefrost 7y ago
  I don't understand how you can complain the tool is biased against the Conservatives when the purpose of the tool is to prevent a Conservative win. If it didn't do that it wouldn't do anything. Unless I've missed the point.
- sideshowb 7y ago
  Most people who look at the evidence, inasmuch as reliable evidence can ever exist in the socioeconomic sphere, end up concluding that moving the UK further to the left is not a bad idea. Little wonder that grassroots tech movements look at evidence. Of course the Conservatives claim that the evidence itself is biased. I am not joking.
- n4r9 7y ago
  Counterpoint: the Tories are the largest benefactors of an unfair fptp-based gerrymandered voting system. In 2017 they received 5% more votes than Labour but 20% more MPs. They're the most obvious target for someone interested in tactical voting, regardless of their political persuasion (they're very unlikely to be a Tory voter).
  - marksweston 7y ago
    This is simply not true. FFTP is biased in favour of the party with the largest share of the vote, or perhaps another way of putting is that the relationship between vote share and number of MPs is not linear. And beyond this, the British electoral system has consistently favoured Labour for decades (as Boundary Commission changes fall behind demographic change and population movement) https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/boundaries-review-bias-constituencies-voting-system-labour-theresa-may-dup-a8538971.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/boundaries-review-bias-...
sefrost 7y ago
Hey, thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it. I was about to pick up a new contract, but now the election has been announced I'm quite interested in joining up to help with some projects like this. If I can find some interesting/impactful projects I'm happy volunteering full time up to the election. By the way, how is your site promoted?
- buro9 7y ago
  > By the way, how is your site promoted? Purely organic for the most part. We have 2 or 3 people on the team who work social media, and TBH this is what the majority of the work is. They may draft a press release, and send it via email to a few contacts. But for the most part, this is extremely unfunded and independent work, with a few people manually writing all of the social media posts and replies. This time they're discussing actually cut and pasting templates from Google Docs, so it's improving!
blibble 7y ago
> What I personally believe is that we should have proportional representation, and that mass tactical voting is an important step towards progressive candidates and progressive parties before we can reach a full PR system. Mass tactical voting applies pressure and encourages progressive behaviour. > My contribution then, is towards fairer election systems. if this is the case the site should allow you to select who you want to win, instead of being "UNITE AGAINST THE TORIES"
- mantap 7y ago
  If you want the tories to win you don't need a website to tell you how to vote.
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    It might be more complicated than you realise, depending on where the voter lives. There are plenty of places where voting Tory stands essentially no chance of resulting in a Tory being elected, especially in this election. So then you need to figure out who could win, and what the effect on prospects for a future Tory government would be for those options - and vote for the one most likely to lead to overall Tory victory, not for the Tory on the ballot.

by buro9 7y ago

obayesshelton 7y ago

As soon as I saw "UNITE AGAINST THE TORIES" I left the page, regardless of who I vote for this tool is clearly biased.

buro9 7y ago
I was at some of the meetings at Newspeak House from where the OP document originated. I would say that not one person who is volunteering, giving up time and skill, or employed to work on anything listed on there... is without bias. There is no person or group working on anything to do with politics and cited in that doc, that does not have an agenda of their own.
sefrost 7y ago
I don't understand how you can complain the tool is biased against the Conservatives when the purpose of the tool is to prevent a Conservative win. If it didn't do that it wouldn't do anything. Unless I've missed the point.
sideshowb 7y ago
Most people who look at the evidence, inasmuch as reliable evidence can ever exist in the socioeconomic sphere, end up concluding that moving the UK further to the left is not a bad idea. Little wonder that grassroots tech movements look at evidence. Of course the Conservatives claim that the evidence itself is biased. I am not joking.
n4r9 7y ago
Counterpoint: the Tories are the largest benefactors of an unfair fptp-based gerrymandered voting system. In 2017 they received 5% more votes than Labour but 20% more MPs. They're the most obvious target for someone interested in tactical voting, regardless of their political persuasion (they're very unlikely to be a Tory voter).
- marksweston 7y ago
  This is simply not true. FFTP is biased in favour of the party with the largest share of the vote, or perhaps another way of putting is that the relationship between vote share and number of MPs is not linear. And beyond this, the British electoral system has consistently favoured Labour for decades (as Boundary Commission changes fall behind demographic change and population movement) https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/boundaries-review-bias-constituencies-voting-system-labour-theresa-may-dup-a8538971.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/boundaries-review-bias-...

sefrost 7y ago

Hey, thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it. I was about to pick up a new contract, but now the election has been announced I'm quite interested in joining up to help with some projects like this. If I can find some interesting/impactful projects I'm happy volunteering full time up to the election. By the way, how is your site promoted?

buro9 7y ago
> By the way, how is your site promoted? Purely organic for the most part. We have 2 or 3 people on the team who work social media, and TBH this is what the majority of the work is. They may draft a press release, and send it via email to a few contacts. But for the most part, this is extremely unfunded and independent work, with a few people manually writing all of the social media posts and replies. This time they're discussing actually cut and pasting templates from Google Docs, so it's improving!

blibble 7y ago

> What I personally believe is that we should have proportional representation, and that mass tactical voting is an important step towards progressive candidates and progressive parties before we can reach a full PR system. Mass tactical voting applies pressure and encourages progressive behaviour. > My contribution then, is towards fairer election systems. if this is the case the site should allow you to select who you want to win, instead of being "UNITE AGAINST THE TORIES"

mantap 7y ago
If you want the tories to win you don't need a website to tell you how to vote.
- tialaramex 7y ago
  It might be more complicated than you realise, depending on where the voter lives. There are plenty of places where voting Tory stands essentially no chance of resulting in a Tory being elected, especially in this election. So then you need to figure out who could win, and what the effect on prospects for a future Tory government would be for those options - and vote for the one most likely to lead to overall Tory victory, not for the Tory on the ballot.