Social media elections – Obama vs the Police Commissioners

As the excitement of this week’s Police Commissioner elections galvanises the nation and sparks heated debate, I thought it would be worth looking at the role of Twitter in the gripping contest.

After all, looking back at the US election we saw a huge online turnout with voters from coast to coast giving their views and the Obama victory photo becoming the most liked and retweeted post ever. Social media was seen as a critical bellwether to who was going to win, with online sentiment analysis adding to exit polls in the data available to the candidates and media. And after the event voters made their feelings known (or were perhaps just fickle), with Mitt Romney’s Facebook page losing fans at the rate of 847 per hour. Go on, click on http://www.facebook.com/mittromney and see the fan count fall.

However when it comes to the Police Commissioner elections, at least in Suffolk, social media isn’t really centre stage. Of four candidates, one (Bill Mountford of UKIP) isn’t on Twitter and the Conservative and Independent candidates boast 242 followers between them. While they are both posting regular updates, only Labour candidate Jane Basham seems to have really been embraced by the medium, with 773 followers and a whopping 2,576 tweets. And the #suffolkpcc hashtag is generating on average 7-8 tweets a day, with none over the weekend. A quick look across the border at Cambridgeshire reveals similar levels of tweeting, so I’m not living in an isolated pocket of disinterest.

Of course comparing a local police election to the US Presidential contest is unfair. But what depresses me are two things. Firstly, we’re continually being told that social media is handing power back to the people, giving us the opportunity to communicate with our elected representatives and get our points across. And politicians have embraced Twitter, even if many just use it as a chance to retweet party propaganda and show off their own importance. But, equally importantly, I believe that the Police Commissioner elections should be about independent candidates as much as those backed by the party machines – social media levels the playing field as it is cheap, accessible and available to all. Everyone should have a view on law and order and, whatever it is, now is the time to get it across to those that will lead your police force in the coming years. Don’t just vote, tweet!

All Twitter figures correct as of 9pm, 13 November 2012