I've been waiting for someone to pipe up with that one. Tony, as I've said before, it's not a straight choice between two or more options like a normal vote or election. You're talking about in excess of 10,000 fans voting against the club's vision for Kirkby, one for which they pulled out all the PR and media-influence stops in order to ensure that it was a "yes" vote.

The ballot question was about Kirkby and Kirkby alone. It wasn't about redeveloping Goodison, it wasn't about the Loop, Long Lane or Speke. In that context, it was about winning a sufficiently large body of support for Kirkby and moving the club away from its roots and onto a retail park in a neighbouring town.

So, it seems reasonable to ask in our poll whether fans think that less than 6 out of 10 is a big enough bloc of support on which to base such an important decision. There is no "mandate" on the flip side because there was only one choice on the ballot.

Well it seems the majority have voted that less than 60% is ok and gives the club an acceptable mandate, given that the result of the clubs ballot was only a smidgeon under 60% too at 59.2% then that in my opinion reinforces the clubs mandate according to the rules of the question set here.

It must be embarassing to the ’no’ campaign that only a quarter of those eligable to vote voted ’no’.

I wouldn?t read too much into that poll, Gerard. It was running 65-35 that 60% wasn?t enough until the ballot results came back saying that 60% was the result.

And I think it?s sad that you regard the "no" campaign in the same terms you would a political party or some team that?s there to be vanquished and then gloated over. These are fellow Evertonians who, were they to be sufficiently alienated to desert the club, could seriously impact the future.

Surely it's just as "embarrassing" that only 41% of those eligible voted yes?

less than 25% don’t make me laugh gerard.

Less than 40% of those eligible to vote voted yes. Consider if this was a company vote we’d need 75% voting yes to move. The vote was in effect a resounding no.

When is a percentage for not a percentage for, when it’s on Toffeeweb. What a load of cobblers you, lot really should be in charge of Everton as you keep moving the goalposts all over the place, the opposition would never score against us as you’ll put them in the top balcony, Anfield, the park then maybe the loop. It doesn’t matter what the none voters did as you’ll never know, they could have gone either way but the best assumption you can make is that they would have been 60/40 split in favour.

And guess what, not a mention of the metropolis and attractive Kirkby
http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_headline=liverpool-s-international-visitor-figures-treble%26method=full%26objectid=19714424%26siteid=50061-name_page.html

Flogging a dead horse, but location, location, location

Jesus wept, have you people any idea how stupendously boring and nit picking this whole stadium business has become. Its on par with the puzzling hatred many of the no voters have for all things Everton.
If they are real supporters they have a very strange way of showing it.

Sidestepping most of the anger that comes into these discussions, whether a yes, no or don’t know voter, if there were only two options, would you prefer Kirkby or Speke?

This subject got boring long before the ballot even took place,but now? At the end of the day it was a fair vote in which ’yes’ came out on top by around 5000 votes (which IS a lot considering only 25000 voted)! I bet if the ’no’ vote had won by a single vote that this issue wouldnt have even arised and instead they would be demanding that BK kept to his word!

Lyndon, the blood-letting and invective that ensued on here and elsewhere in the wake of last week?s ballot result was appalling to behold. It was not a happy day for the broader Everton family.

In the main, IMO, the flow of angry words was principally from the ?no? camp against the ?yes? camp for being unthinking sheep, selling the club and its inheritance down the river. This constituted erroneous, arrogant thinking on the part of the ?no? camp as quite clearly ? as demonstrated throughout the debate ? there was a great deal of deep thought and insightful articles offered from BOTH sides of the divide. Following the result, it was NOT a case, as you try and infer here, of the ?yes? vote ?gloating over the vanquished?. It was an outpouring of anger from the no camp to the yes camp and the seedy, disgraceful name-calling that both camps were guilty of that ensued.

The club should be complimented for having the courage to put the issue to a public vote. The terms and conditions of the vote were clear and unambiguous. The board openly declared their stance ? a recommendation to move to Kirkby. It was not incumbent on the club to campaign on behalf of any ?opposition?. That torch was carried principally by KEIOC.

You say that the club ?pulled out all the PR and media-influence stops in order to ensure that it was a ?yes? vote?. Many supporters resented the perceived ?propaganda war? the club waged to secure a yes vote. However, the very fact ? not opinion, fact ? that so many people from BOTH sides of the side noted that the club conducted a very poor campaign, that people ?saw through? the ?propaganda? ? whether genuinely propaganda or not (and I for one dispute the claim) ? rather negates the idea that the club?s ?campaign? heavily influenced the vote one way or the other.

I also do not subscribe to the suggestion that the coverage KEIOC received was unfairly disproportionate to that of the club?s. Their statements and counter-plans were consistently reported in both local, national and I can assure you, INTERNATIONAL media.

Finally, any one can play around with the semantics and percentages of the issue, Lyndon. If you now wish to claim that 41% of the core Everton base has been ?sufficiently alienated to desert the club?, try these for size:

? 29.73% (10,901) of those eligible to vote chose not to do so. It is possible to speculate that:
1) the issue was not important enough for them to vote, that they would support EFC regardless
2) that neither the club, nor KEIOC, ran effective enough campaigns to mobilise and convince these voters to vote
3) if more of the 10,901 non-votes had cast a vote, it would in all likelihood have helped to boost the ?yes? vote, rather than the ?no? vote, given the passions and opposition of the latter
4) that ballot papers were not received by more than 10,000 potential voters. This seems highly likely as if this did occur, it would have quickly been made public by the disenfranchised
? 45.49% MORE PEOPLE (15,230) voted ?yes? than voted ?no? (10,468)
? To these numbers I could add the astonishing public confessions of some of the chief protagonists who supported the no campaign admitting that they did NOT vote ?no? on the ballot paper, choosing to spoil it or not submit it. Explain that one to me, please.

Playing around with numbers in this way makes Steve Fern?s observation that ?the vote was in effect a resounding no? a rather bizarre and misguided one, IMO.

Once again its insane that you could call "NO" voters "not real fans". IMO a real fan would want to keep Everton in the city rather than move it out of its rightful and spiritual home. Thats my opinion though, to me it makes sense.

Jay... show me anyone, anywhere, in this thread who has called ’no voters’ ’not real fans’.

Let me save you the time. You won’t.

Speke is technically ’in the city’, would you rather move there or Kirkby?

Steve Fearns "Consider if this was a company vote we?d need 75% voting yes to move. The vote was in effect a resounding no."

What a loads of bollocks!

I’ve moved locations in my work 3 times don’t remember there being a vote and certainly not one that required 75% of us to vote for it. As for the "The vote being a resoundng no" pure comedy that one mate.

"Less than 40% of those eligible to vote voted yes. Consider if this was a company vote we?d need 75% voting yes to move. The vote was in effect a resounding no."

I didn’t think anyone could come up with a worse argument than what has gone before, but hey presto here it is.

Er a company vote, pardon what on earth is that and if less than 40% voted yes then even lower voted no so pass the cocked hat and I’ll pop that rubbish in there.

Art Greeth: "If you now wish to claim that 41% of the core Everton base has been ?sufficiently alienated to desert the club...?

I didn?t say that. What I was trying to infer was that if that 41% felt alienated enough to stop supporting the club, then we?d have a huge problem. I was talking hypothetically to show that every additional "no" voter was a potential fan slighted whereas I very much doubt that the majority of those who voted yes to Kirkby would vote no to the same proposition closer to Liverpool City centre.

"What I was trying to infer was that if that 41% felt alienated enough to stop supporting the club, then we?d have a huge problem"

And for every sulkpot that drops out others will turn up because it?s easier to get to, the view is better, the toilets are better (esp for the ladies), the availibilty of food etc will be better.
Again it?s just a non argument, swings and roundabouts as they say.
Until someone comes up with a sensible viable and affordable alternative in Liverpool lets leave this argument till then.

Thanks for clearing that up, Lyndon.

Hypothetical, exaggerated scaremongering it was then, would you say...?

;-)

No, Art. What’s to scaremonger after the vote? If 49.9% had voted against Kirkby, do you think the club would be doing the right thing by dragging us all there kicking and screaming?

Lyndon... take YOUR words and continued manipulation of the numbers together: "infer" ... "hypothetical. It doesn’t matter whether your apparent scaremongering is happening now, before or during the vote. You are offering an Armageddon vision of what may happen... in YOUR opinion.

The fact remains 49.9% DIDN’T vote against Kirkby. Extending your own over-reliance on the conditional "if", let’s invert your comment (again) and say IF the (imaginary) 49.9% had kicked up a fuss, would that not endanger alienating the 51.1% who voted for Kirkby which could seriously impact on our future...? All very hypothetical, and ultimately fruitless.

Any way, interesting that you focus on the micro detail of the semantics of my detailed reply to you, but don’t engage with me in the valid numbers I quote. That’s your right of course, but I think there are better ways you could conduct your campaign and apparent continued desire to seek out viable alternatives to Kirkby than sniffing about the ballot result.