Election special: I’ll vote like they’re voting

We go to extraordinary lengths to stop people influencing other voters’ choices – we know that left to our own devices, we’d be easily tempted by experts/authorities advice and example (it’s ok to use “people like us” and other markers of social identity or, rather impossible to stop); equally, we  try and shield people from popularity signals, like opinion polls (people use them like music or movie charts, as a shorthand of quality, or at least a good guide for a good choice).

In terms of our CopyCopyCopy Map, this is all about trying to move voting choices from the East of the Map (Copying) to the West (independent choice) and in particular to the North West (Considered Choice).

In the UK, we ban the publication of exit polls while people are still voting and all the broadcast media are discouraged from publishing opinion polls until the whole show is over. In Germany and India, they are tougher still: the latter days or indeed the whole of the campaign is poll-free.

Here – c/o the Guardian – is the appropriate bit of legislation, 1983’s Representation of the People Act:

“66A Prohibition on publication of exit polls

(1) No person shall, in the case of an election to which this section applies, publish before the poll is closed –

(a) any statement relating to the way in which voters have voted at the election where that statement is (or might reasonably be taken to be) based on information given by voters after they have voted, or

(b) any forecast as to the result of the election which is (or might reasonably be taken to be) based on information so given.

(2) This section applies to–

(a) any parliamentary election; and

(b) any local government election in England or Wales.

(3) If a person acts in contravention of subsection (1) above, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months.

(4) In this section –

“forecast” includes estimate;

“publish” means make available to the public at large, or any section of the public, in whatever form and by whatever means;

and any reference to the result of an election is a reference to the result of the election either as a whole or so far as any particular candidate or candidates at the election is or are concerned.”