What’s more important to voters? Coherent policy or the chance to ‘send a message’

What are you doing when you vote? Much of the discussion about elections assumes – implicitly or explicitly – that voters are making a judgement about policies being put forward by the parties; that they would only vote for a party which had policies with which they broadly agreed; and, moreover, that these policies will have to form a vaguely coherent programme, and be realistic and affordable. Even allowing for that fact that we know that many voters don’t know the details of the various policies proposed, it is still widely assumed that they would care if they knew.

This is why there is so much discussion of policy proposals as elections approach (‘but how will you fund x, Minister?’), and this seems to be especially the case when discussing parties that are beginning to break through and be serious political players: ‘You’re going to vote for [insert new party here]? Do you know that they support [insert ludicrous idea here]?’ This was seen most recently in Natalie Bennett’s less-than-assured