Column My view of the Vote John Hughes 24/08/2007 7comments | Jump to last I?m finding it hard to come to terms with the vote? deep down I knew it was going to be a Yes. Usually you can gauge which way the vote is going to go. Look at Toffeeweb and Bluekipper and you can tell straight away that the votes was a lot closer by the amount of comments posted by both camps. My question is why didn?t nearly 10,964 vote? And why aren?t the club concerned about that figure. In effect the club have only the opinions of 2/3 of their support. And even that is split. Is 70% of the eligible fan base voting enough to carry on. Here?s another way of looking at the vote. Even now you would assume that the 10,964 who didn?t vote were ?undecided?... So the positive analysis of the vote from the clubs point of view is 59.27% said ?YES? and 40.73 said ?NO? a vast majority gives them the mandate to proceed. So let's look at the not so positive analysis of the vote from the club perspective: 36,662 votes were sent out 25,698 valid votes were returned 10,694 did not vote Either they don?t care or are undecided, due to the emotions in this case; the ?I don?t care? argument is not realistic. So for the purpose of this, they will be classed as undecided votes. Now the percentages ? based on the full amount of dispatched ballot papers: Yes = 41.5 % No = 28.5 % Undecided = 29% Invalid = 1 % How would I read this ? well for starters nearly 58% of the voters are not sure about this move. This does not make for a positive mandate for the club to be pursuing it?s YES vote. I would look very hard at the club and the spin it?s putting on this vote. It?s an un realistic vote. Surely anyone who wants to do this fairly will turn around and say look there are 21,432 eligible votes out there who are not sure about this move. Because that?s what the real figures tell us. Not that 60% of the voters want to move. I hope the club realises this and that it?s in danger of damaging even further a relationship with a huge number of supporters if they use this vote as a mandate to carry on. They owe it to themselves and to all the supporters to examine the other possibilities. I for one hope they do. Reader Comments Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer Dan Mckie 1 Posted 24/08/2007 at 14:05:48 Report abuse It doesnt matter about unreturned vote slips,whoever had them chose not to vote for whatever reason so are therefore no part of it! At the end of the day its votes counted that matter and this was in favour of the ’Yes’ vote! Pete 2 Posted 24/08/2007 at 14:32:03 Report abuse The board can’t win...If they had not gone with the supporters vote and made their own decision (like every other club in the land!!) they would of been criticised. They went with a supporters vote and are now been criticised for putting a spin on things.We can’t always have a 100% turnout, we wouldn’t have a bloody government if we followed that belief.At the end of the day the people who didn’t vote had their own reasons for not returning the slip. FACT: The vote returned with a 59% vote in favour. Time to move on and accept the ’supporters’ decision! Chris Wilson 3 Posted 24/08/2007 at 15:37:19 Report abuse I live in Denver, Colorado so I did not get a chance to vote, but I honestly think that the whole voting process was farcical. They had no other options on the table, in fact they shot down every option feasible, and Wyness already declared the inevitable death to the club if we don’t move rhetoric. Even though the final word was with the fans, does anyone really believe that? Whether you voted "yes" or "no", the result was always going to be YES. But I will support them wherever they play, and hope to get to Goodison before it goes. Now let’s put it on Blackburn! Rupert Sullivan 4 Posted 24/08/2007 at 16:33:06 Report abuse No Pete, the Board can’t win... why therefore did they have a vote at all. Not for one minute do I believe that it was for the sake of the fans since we were not provided with any information of substance about any option - let alone the ones which were negated due to an exclusivity agreement. This vote was so that the Board could wipe its hands of the responsibility in this decision - now the fans only have themselves to blame and cannot blame Kenwright et al... Fred Bentley 5 Posted 24/08/2007 at 17:32:49 Report abuse OK,I’ll confess- I didn’t utilise my vote.Not because I couldn’t be arsed but because I am one of a very large number of Evertonians who are happy to leave it to the Board to decide ALL issues affecting the club.I can see both sides of the arguement-and boy, aren’t Evertonians the very best at arguing amongst themselves !But it’s Kenwright’s job to LEAD the club-surely that’s why he took control-and be accountable if it all goes tits up.I, for one, aint gonna be anybody’s fall guy! baz 6 Posted 24/08/2007 at 18:17:50 Report abuse It was a democratic vote in which i voted yes ,so get over it and move on Tom Hughes 7 Posted 27/08/2007 at 10:33:55 Report abuse A democratic vote:Kirkby or die!? are you sure!Just because we had a vote doesn’t necessarily make it an even and fair democratic process. How many elections have you voted in were there was only one loaded option?This was more in the realms of the double-glazing salesman’s hard sell..... take this bargain now or you’ll never get this offer again, except with us the alternative was even worse..... we will die!!!Why did it go from a stadium for nothing to more recently £50m or more cost to the club? where was that on the one-sided brochure that accompanied the voting slip? Where was the glossy brochure showing redevelopment options that we could have for that amount? Why was there so much propaganda given this was supposed to be the obvious choice? Why didn’t the club do more work on looking at the Loop site, which they have known about it since March? Where was the feasibilty studies of all the options that were supposedly exhausted? Truth is there was no real feasibilty studies for redevelopment of GP.The vote was a farce that was rushed through because EFC’s chief Exec said there was no plan B, and he knew he was about to be proven glaringly wrong.As far as whether fans should get a vote..... people should remember that we are the club. Without us this club does not exist, end of. Hence,isn’t it prudent to gauge fan’s feelings, we can’t really afford to lose fans as we’re hardly packing them in as it is. © ToffeeWeb