Lib Dems get 80% the number of votes Labour have, yet 20% the number of seats. Care about electoral reform? Let's do something about it.
labs.38degrees.org.uk/wall/reformPosted May 7, 2010, 3:39 PM UTC
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labs.38degrees.org.uk
The Lib-Dems should make electoral reform the key condition for cooperation with the Tories. It shouldn't be too hard of a sell, since the current system is also disadvantageous to the Tories.
40
I'm an American, but from what I've heard the Tories would be the biggest losers if first-past-the-post were abolished. Over 50% of the country voted for parties considerably to the left of the Tories (Labour, Lib Dem, Green), yet under the current system the Tories have a shot at forming a government.
23
This is true, but, the Lib-Dems are not Labour, and do not particularly like Labour, not much more than the Tories. Labour gains the most by far of the parties directly, they are the party that can most easily form a government on their own. It takes a disproportionate swing towards the Tories to allow them to form a government. Any loss for Labour is a win for the Tories. As the situation stands, the Lib-Dems can choose to form a government with Labour (they will not do so this time around), and that will not change, but the Tories will have a greater chance after electoral reform of being able to form a government on their own after a later election. As it stands, Labour has such an advantage that they can form a government without even having a plurality. They are very unpopular now and yet have still managed to hold on to enough seats to deny the Tories the chance to form a government. Also, the difference between the liberal (read: centre right, I know that is confusing for Americans) wing of the Lib-Dems (Nick Clegg is one of these) and the moderate wing of the Tories (David Cameron) is greatly exaggerated. David Cameron and Nick Clegg are a much better fit than Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg. What electoral reform will do is give the Tories the opportunity, if they are mature enough to accept it, to form a government on their own (they are mature enough right now but that is by no means guaranteed to last, there is still a very bitter, mean-spirited wing in their party).
10
What I've gathered from other UK redditors is that, though traditionally centre-right, the Lib-Dems are now the left-most major party, mainly due to "New" Labour's rightward drift. If this is true, it seems to me that the Tories would lose most from any sort of proportional representation. If it were proportional based on the current vote, two "left" parties would have a majority of the seats.
8
Don't be fooled by the word "liberal" in their name. If the Tories asked them to join in a collaboration, they will do so at the drop of a hat,
5
I don't think so. Certainly the party with the most to gain from proportional representation is the Lib-Dems, no doubt about that. But where you go wrong is here: the Lib-Dems may seem more left wing than Labour at times, on certain issues (mostly social/cultural issues, civil liberties, pro-Europe, Gay rights, pro-immigration etc). However, they are in fact a centrist party at heart, with a center-left wing, and a centre-right wing (emphasis on center). They are unlikely to ever replace either major party, and will always (probably) be the junior partner in any governing coalition. If they hold the balance of power, they will use it to choose a governing partner, but will not be loyal to either major party. This means that they will probably choose to govern with the Tories as often as they choose Labour. Therefore, just because proportional representation will mean that a majority of people vote for parties that are left-of-center, does not mean that the resulting government will be left of center. And (perhaps counter-intuitively), this will not upset Lib-Dem voters very much. If given the balance of power, they will usually choose as a governing partner the party that shows the clearest public mandate, and will always (I think) be more likely to use their power to try to prop up the major party with the freshest ideas and the least staleness. In this election, this is definitely the Tories.
So the Tories cannot change the fact that the Lib-Dems may become a permanent fixture as a large centrist party that often holds a balance of power, but they can change the fact that Labour is currently the party most likely, through the quirks of the system, to be able to take advantage of that. The Lib-Dems are the biggest winner from electoral reform (and will probably make this a part of any deal to form a government now), but the Tories do not lose out, Labour does.
3
Lib dem is left of the tories? how so?
-2
Hint, they're also called the Conservative Party.
5
I was asking because I was under the impression their economic policies are very much to the right.
0
No matter how it is reformed, there will be some voting pattern that is declared as "unfair" to someone or some group. It's a tough one to fix.
2
It is very difficult indeed. I'm from Australia originally, and I think that there are a few good features of our system that might be usefully adopted over there. Our Upper House is elected through a PR system. This avoids the potential mess that a PR system can bring to the formation of government, since the government is formed by the party in charge of the Lower House. So the Lower House, with a fairly traditional Representative structure, is dominated by the two main parties, making the formation of a government quite straightforward. Meanwhile, the upper house contains all of the messy special-interest parties you expect from a PR system (Greens, Christian conservatives, an anti-gambling senator, etc). This means the government runs effectively, but has to horse-trade a little in the upper house to pass legislation, so peoples special interests get a fair shake without crippling the government.
3
The Australian senate is only proportional insofar as the senators from each state are elected proportionally, but each state has an equal amount of senators which means that the most populous state (NSW) has the same amount of senators as the least populous state (Tasmania). This allows smaller states to have more senate power per head of population than larger states, and is similar to the US Senate.
4
Ahhh, good point.
3
They have an equal amount of senators because each state gave up an equal amount of power when Australia became a federation.
1
The question is - if the Tories don't accept the offer of having electoral reform, and neither do Labour, what do the Lib Dems do then? Personally, this should be the key issue in forming a coalition and would cause a hell of a lot of an uproar if both of the major parties decline a reform.
1
From what I heard from the first debate, both the Tories and Labour conceded that electoral reform is necessary. Far be it from me to assume that they would follow this through though.
The Lib Dems do have allies on electoral reform in Parliament and they are the other minor parties and independents, who also stand to win more influence from a more proportional system. If neither Tory nor Labour support reform then the minor parties led by the Lib Dems could create a voting bloc to block any legislation they want until their demands are met. The only way for legislation to pass would be if the Tories and Labour voted together on it, which would be amusing.
3
since the current system is also disadvantageous to the Tories
Since when is getting 47.1% of the seats with 36.1% of the popular vote disadvantageous?
1
[deleted]
-1
Or they could prop up a 13 year old, extremely unpopular party that ruined Britains economy and sent it into 2 wars, and has arguably failed on nearly every pledge they have given. The Lib-Dems are a centrist party, not necessarily a left-wing one. They promised the country change, promised they would support the party that got the most votes, and promised they wouldn't help Gordon Brown (an extremely unpopular premier) "become a squatter in No. 10". The results of the election are a little ambiguous, but Britain obviously prefers the Tories to Labour, and the Lib-Dems need to support what more Britons want. In any case, no matter how much you hate the Tories, governments change! It will always happen, far worse would be a single party running the show indefinitely.
3
You cannot be fucking serious about labour ruining Britains economy. A poorly regulated, overly greedy, reckless international banking system caused a crisis crippled almost every industrial and post-industrial economy in the world. You can hardly blame one polotical party.
To be fair labour may have fucked up on a good few fronts but the tories are gonna give tax cuts to the richest and lay the bill for rescuing the banks onto those least responsible for the problems, while simultaneously ripping the heart out of the public sector.
You're forgetting (or possibly you aren't I don't know your politics) that there is still a nasty far right streak in the tory party who would be happy to see the NHS and welfare system totally destroyed, despite the bleatings of love for the NHS from the sleazy little "tony blair 2.0" they have as a leader.
P.s I, like many people, foolishly voted Lib Dem as a protest against Labour leadership thinking that liberal democrats would also help keep the tories out. If there is another general election in a few weeks, as the news says there might be depending on what happens, I can see a lot of people like me who will vote labour rather than Liberal knowing that a vote for lib dem is a vote for david cameron as prime minister.
5
Gordon Brown may not be to blame for the crisis itself (he is hardly the only one to be blindsided by it), but he is definitely at fault for spending so recklessly in the good years that Britains finances were hardly ready for the crisis when it came. Britain would be in much better fiscal shape today if he had tightened the nations belt over the last decade.
The problem is, you cannot have a functioning democracy in which only one party is fit to rule. There needs to be change, a swing back and forth across the political spectrum. You are correct that there is a nasty streak in the Tory party (there's one in Labour too), but Britain needs a mature second major party to function correctly. You should be hoping for a Tory/Lib-Dem coalition because this would be a chance to forge a successful Tory government on a moderate platform. If David Cameron successfully holds together a Tory government for a few terms, and washes some of the dirt off the reputation of the party, then the moderate wing of the Tories will have proved to the hardliners that theirs is the only way to get elected. The hardliners will still be there, but powerless, as they are political poison (much as the old-school socialists in the Labour party were powerless during New Labours ascendancy). If David Cameron can remold the Tories into a mature, moderate party, Britain will be better off. He deserves a chance, Gordon Brown is unpopular and incompetent, and to a great measure to blame for much of Britains current mess. That's my two cents, I think that Nick Clegg will go over to the Tory side, and if he doesn't, it won't be because Labour enticed him, it will be because the Tories foolishly rejected him. If they do that, they deserve to languish.
4
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer... A conservative govt is pretty much the only solution, so we may as well get a little libdemness out of it (hopefully PR) then make the position so unusable that we get another vote ;)
1
I take it you voted Labour?
0
Nope, I foolishly voted liberal as a protest vote against the current labour leadership. The labour party has slipped too far to the right for my liking under brown and blair's leadership.
3
VoteForChange and others having rally 2pm tomorrow in Trafalgar Square to demand PR.
26
A coalition of just about every major campaign for electoral reform, with even Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the New Economics Foundation joining in. Shame OPs link is to the one group not joining.
12
Canada Has similar problems. See here, look at the popular vote results and the seats awarded. (top right of the page). We feel your pain.
Edit - included link this time.
20
Canada, UK, USA still have the ancient first past the post system
disgusting
23
Unfortunately the United States is completely unaware of the issue. Not sure about Canada, but a good amount of the UK seem to be aware its a problem.
13
Especially the part that voted Lib Dems and got screwed. 23% of the votes -> 8.8% of the seats.
No wonder people are disillusioned by the system.
11
Hey, compare that to the US. In the 2000 presidential election, the losing candidate got more votes than the winning candidate. If I could find a good way to parse the data (can't script for shit), it could probably be shown that it's possible for the party to win the majority of the votes for the House of Representatives but not win the majority of the seats. I'd be interested in seeing exactly how low of a percentage of the votes one party could get away with.
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Yah, our lower house works like there's does, then our upper house is first-past-the-post on steroids. It was designed specifically not to be proportional.
1
There was a referendum on electoral reform in Ontario but the entire campaign was badly done and as result people were confused about what they were voting about...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_electoral_reform_referendum,_2007
2
In the United States it's endemic, not only does our house have the issue, both our houses hold equal power. The Senate is the worst distortion of our constituency. You have huge states like California (which has an equal GDP to Canada) with equal power (2 seats for each) to tiny little states like Delaware, or land large states like Utah with a population consisting 10 crazy mormons and a goat on equal footing with New York State, whose largest city has a population on par with Australia. It would take a large third party coming to power like the Lib Dems did in the UK for our country to take notice of the problem. Even then, our right wing is obsessed with our individual states sharing power with the national government, so at most we could only get the lower house into a more nationally proportional system.
-3
Canada is only quasi-aware. In British Columbia we have major problems with the FPTP system and twice have tried to implement the STV system for provincial elections and twice people were scared of by special interest groups that claimed it was "too complicated" along with some outright lies about the system. Once it causes a major problem in a federal election maybe things will change, but I have my doubts that the masses can master simple mathematics in order to vote.
2
people were scared of by special interest groups that claimed it was "too complicated"
John Cleese (lifelong Liberal/Lib Dem) did a party political broadcast for the Liberals back in the '80s about proportional representation. Their favoured method of PR is STV in multi-member constituencies - you would vote by ranking the candidates you like best from 1 to 5. He mentioned the "too complicated" objection and conceded that "it will be too complicated for those people who can't count to five".
5
Well at least you guys are smart enough not to have the parties draw you're district line or give your Senate excessive levels of power.
1
I have nothing to back this up, but I think there is a growing awareness for this problem. As long as everyone gets their political information from the commercial media, though, it'll never become a national issue. The two-party system is just as valuable to the media as it is to the Republicans and Democrats.
1
Israel has straight up representation and it totally sucks. It basically gives every small fringe party power to break-up the government.
In a totally related note, Israel has had 5 elections in the past 10 years.
5
Most of Europe it proportionally represented. They don't have that problem, or found ways around it.
It basically gives every small fringe party power to break-up the government.
Not in most cases. But it does give every small group a voice.
6
Israel has had 5 elections in the past 10 years.
The US has national elections every other year too, why does that matter?
1
An official term for a PM in Israel lasts 4 years. The past ten years governments in Israel have averaged 2 years before falling apart. The US has a completely different system - It's very difficult for the parliament to impeach a president, as the president gets his mandate directly from the US people, and not from congress/senate.
1
I don't understand, how does this work? Are votes broken down to individual districts? Or are they using some kind of bonus modifier for being first, second, or third?
3
Are votes broken down to individual districts?
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Broken down into electoral districts. The districts do not do a good job reflecting the population anymore. Quebec has a large over-representation.
9
Ah, so it is all gerrymandering.
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If you are from the United States, take our Senate for instance... the tiny state of Delaware gets 2 votes as does California (which has a similar GDP to Canada). Additionally, in the House the federal district lines are drawn by whoever the current party in power is, to the advantage of that party. Our two houses combined are a twisted misrepresentation of the actual electorate.
-1
The Senate is not the best example of the problem, since non-proportional representation is the entire reason it exists. A better example would be to look at the number of third-party candidates that have seats in the House (or in state governments) compared to the percentage of the total popular vote that third-parties receive.
2
It was a simple way to explain it. Personally I'd like that we have a regional influence in our upper house, to a degree. I think our uber-large population states should get an extra seat, and uber-small states have one taken away, maintaining some regional influence. Then do a proportional lower house. I think a lower house reform might be accepted eventually but definitely not what I said about the Senate.
0
This isn't an issue of how much voting power an area has in a legislative body, but of how many votes are required to elect a politician in an area.
Consider the following situation with 3 parties, A, B and C. In a riding, let's say party A gets 40% of the vote, while B and C each get 30% of the vote. Party A wins the seat in first past the post voting, despite 60% of people voting against that party. Repeat this vote in hundreds of ridings, and suddenly you have a "majority" government that the majority of people voted against.
There isn't really a parallel to this in the American system; it only really comes up when there are 3 or more political parties that receive a significant portion of the national vote.
1
There isn't really a parallel to this in the American system; it only really comes up when there are 3 or more political parties that receive a significant portion of the national vote.
Our lower house works exactly the way you described - so occasionally you see 3rd party or independent candidates. Our upper house, the Senate, takes the problem even further, completely eliminating third party chances in our upper house. Its all the same problem, we just have the problem on steroids, discouraging any 3rd party from flourishing like your lib dems.
0
The number of seats in the House are determined by census numbers. While some districts are gerrymandered to hell, it generally evens out in the end to represent the population fairly as a whole.
The Senate, whose main purpose was to ensure that low-population states weren't drowned out by the power of big states, is where things kinda went to hell in the last several years.
1
You are right about the Senate, but our lower House has the exact problem they are having, it is the same system. For instance: If 10 percent of the US is Socialist or Libertarian, but they are all sprinkled across districts in every state, and never win a single district, they are underrepresented. The Senate just takes that distortion to a whole new level, and was in fact designed that way - to favor regional interests over national proportional interest.
1
the tiny state of Delaware gets 2 votes as does California
Yeah, that's kind of the point of the Senate. Read a history book.
1
I understand why it was designed that way - it was a part of the power sharing of states vs national government. Times have changed. The federal government is more powerful and the country 10 times larger, and with telephone and internet many groups have formed sans geography which was never the case before. This exacerbated the distortive effect of the non-proportional representation the founders originally intended. And don't tell me to read a history book, I obviously understand both the history and the effect on the electorate.
1
Those bars on the top right are really misrepresentative. I'm no fan of the Conservatives, I voted Green, but the visual grossly overestimates the seats the Conservatives have and under represents the number of votes they got.
Visually the top bar shows the conservatives having over half seats, when they don't, they have a minority government. Also the bottom bar shows the Conservatives having about a quarter or the votes, where in reality they had a third.
There's no need for this kind of deception, it only hurts the cause for vote reform.
2
Not deception, just bad code. :-s
1
Wow, you're right:
<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" width="100%" class="datatable">
<tr>
<td align="center" width="143%" class="con" id="large">143</td>
<td align="center" width="77%" class="lib" id="large">77</td>
<td align="center" width="49%" class="bq" id="large">49</td>
<td align="center" width="37%" class="ndp" id="large">37</td>
<td align="center" width="2%" class="oth" id="large">2</td>
</tr>
</table>
They should really fix that.
2
<td align="center" width="143%" class="con" id="large">143</td>
wat
0
We complain about this kind of problem here in the States every four years due to the electoral college...then another four years go by and we don't complain about it until the election again.
13
any change to the electoral college would require a constitutional amendment. that is not going to happen. sometimes i wonder if there will ever be another constitutional amendment with the way politics are so fractured in the united states these days.
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Actually, if a handful of the biggest states agree to abide by the results of the national popular election, there would be no need for a constitutional amendment.
14
not according to the constitution.
-5
His idea is that the electorial college from CA, Texas, etc. would ignore their voters and as a group decide who will win.
This is 100% legal. The electorial college doesn't even have to pick someone who is running. Or they can withhold their vote entirely like Washington DC likes to do.
The only safeguard we have is that the winner of the general election in any given state also picks the electorial college for that state.
2
any change to the electoral college would require a constitutional amendment. that is not going to happen.
You would rather stick with a historical anachronism created before parties and which was crafted given the fears at the time rather than fix it? The Constitution isn't the Bible and the founding fathers weren't infallible; in fact they would find that attitude ridiculous given that they were themselves overturning the received wisdom of the time.
2
i agree entirely. the constitution is not a sacred document. the founders were not saints. it is perfectly reasonable to change the constitution. however, there are clear procedures that need to be completed. that is settled law.
as a side note: the founders clearly recognized that there would be a need to change the constitution, and they even did so when the first batch of amendments were passed. however, there are reasons that the procedures to change the constitution were constructed in such a manner.
3
Yes. The reason amending the constitution is hard is because it is supposed to be hard. The governing document itself is supposed to be somewhat stable. You don't want it changing with every single election.
3
You're assuming he has a say in fixing it. See... to pass a constitutional ammendment that would make elections fairer to third parties and the populous you would have to get a lot of people who are only in power because of the way the system is now to decide to do it. And why would they change it-- the system works perfectly fine for them.
1
There is this, which would effectively make it a popular-vote system.
1
At least a few states are starting to divide up their votes. That's a positive movement I think.
2
Right... now we just have to fix there part where a party can get 20% of the vote spread evenly across the country and get 0 seats in congress.
2
Exactly. That is not only a problem in the House, but its a problem on steroids in the Senate. The Senate was designed that way, as a compromise. The design of the House was intended to be proportional. It fails in practice because political groups are no longer only in the same geographic area like in the 1800s. We have the phone and internet now.
1
Actually it's a different issue. We could institute a PR system in the US house without a constitutional amendment (although not in the states that have fewer than two house seats).
2
True, but keep in mind that since 1789, there have been only 4 times when the winner of the electoral college has not been the winner of the popular vote. At least with the two-party system it reflects that pretty well most of the time. (I do think the electoral college should be abolished though)
Also, when you add a third-party candidate into the mix, the electoral college sucks way hard. In 1992, you 19% of Americans cast a ballot for Ross Perot. Ross Perot then gets a whopping 0% of the electors. Likewise, Bill Clinton got only 43% of the popular vote, but got 68% of the electors. Look at the election of 1912 and it's even worse...
1
Our problem isn't representation, it's strategic voting. "Every vote for Nader is a vote for Bush." We need a Condorcet method to break the two-party system. I'm partial to Schulze largely because it's simple enough to explain to old people: rank everyone you like and leave the other jerks blank.
A congress without a majority isn't as big a problem here as in other countries because the President is elected directly - and let's be honest, an eight-party congress that can't ally long enough to decide what day it is compares favorably to the last year of bickering nonsense over healthcare.
1
UK independence get 12% of the votes Lib Dems have, yet 0% the number of seats.
13
That's precisely the argument being made.
26
Yeah, its just a more extreme example.
1
it's a less extreme example really, 12% isn't much. You can't have a continuous number of seats...
12
I personally think that any party who manages to get over 5% of the vote should get at least one MP in parliament.
Then everyones views will be represented.
5
It's a threshold. Many countries with a parliamentary system require that a party get at least x% of votes before being allocated any seats. For example, Germany requires 5% in its federal parliament: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundestag_%28Germany%29#Election
4
Meanwhile, in Poland, young activists dissatisfied with the current political system are trying the exact opposite -- to change the proportional voting system to first-past-the-post. Isn't that funny? Here's why many of us in Poland are sick and tired of PR:
- We haven't had a single single-party government since 1990. This has meant stalled reforms (just try to get two parties to agree on something like the health care system) and diluted responsibility (each party in a coalition government blames the other one for whatever went wrong). It can get real ugly.
- I don't care about some academic ideal of proportional assignment of seats in the parliament. I care about efficient government that can actually execute on their plans. If this means giving 50% of the seats to a 35% party, that's fine. Anything that saves us from the endless quabbles of coalition governments is good in my book.
- Those of you who are worried that a party that got 25% of the vote gets 10% of the seats: Seats don't mean squat. If the party I voted for is not in power, I don't care whether they have 10 or 40 seats. It doesn't matter.
- We have had really poor quality people (such as uneducated alcoholics, convicted felons) elected as MPs. Why? PR has to have huge voting districts (say, 10 MPs are elected in each district). This means that in each district, there are 50-100 candidates. This in turn means you don't even know who these people are -- there's just too many to keep track. By contrast, when you go to vote in the UK, you know who the candidates are in your district.
- "Who is your MP?" In PR, this question has no answer because voting district are large and there can be 10 MPs from your district. As a result, MPs don't give a rat's ass about their constituencies.
- Suppose you know the "list leaders" from the major parties in your district. You pick your favorite candidate and vote for him/her. Unfortunately, because of the way PR works, your vote can give this candidate's party an extra seat in your district, which may mean that some idiot who was #4 on that party's list gets elected. But you didn't vote for the #4 guy. You don't even know him. And now he's in the parliament, passing three strikes laws because of your vote. :) In FPTP, this #4 guy would have to win in his own district to get into parliament. He would actually have to beat an opponent in an election. PR allows him to ride on the popularity of the #1 guy.
12
To be honest, it seems like you're doing proportional representation wrong.
14
This. Party list systems are ultimately corrupt, and it is a particularly severe case in Poland. The solution isn't to step backward and lessen democracy; it's to step forward, increase democracy and eliminate the party list system.
4
[deleted]
1
If proportional representative government doesn't work, clearly the solution is to go back to districted representative government that also doesn't work.
Maybe we should be voting for people instead of parties?
5
I rather like the proportional representation system we have in the Netherlands. Coalition governments in the Netherlands aren't that stable, but at least I have more than 2 or 3 parties to choose from in elections, increasing the chance there is a party that I agree with. And because some parties will have to work together in a coalition after an election it is, I believe, a break on polarizing rhetoric. A first past the post system in my mind is risky as it could result in a polarized two party system.
The Dutch center-right D66 party (it's somewhat like the UK lib-dems) has been advocating (for decades) a moderate district system in elections here as part of their long-standing electoral reform program, with the idea that this would create a better connection between politicians and who they are representing. I'm not sure how it's supposed to work. Presumably they have a plan that would keep a party like them in existence - a pure district system wouldn't make it easy for them to be represented.
2
So you're telling me that the two-party American political system -- which in my opinion needs to be broken up and expanded with additional parties -- is a bad thing?
In America, when voters are tired of the people in office, they simply vote the other party in. The winning party plows forward with their agenda, regardless of the objections of the opposition party. And the cycle repeats itself.
1
interesting
0
The problem with proportional representation is that of how you do local MPs. UK elections are not done inherently to elect 'a leader' like in the US but for local people in each constituency to pick a local representative in parliament. If you simply split the number of MPs by the vote percentage, how do you decide which MPs represent which local areas? As others have noted as well, it can lead to some parties who stand in every seat but win none, getting some seats. Of course this could be fixed by a 5% vote rule, but then it could become hard for some specialist local parties like those in Ireland to gain any seats, since they will not have over 5% of the vote.
Further to that point on local specialist parties, they are likely to actually lose out since while they may be very popular in one area, their split of the national vote is smaller and so they will end up with fewer seats.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for electoral reform, but pure proportional representation isn't the best way forward in my view. Instead, the Alternative Vote (AV) should be used since it keeps local representation but dispenses with the concept of 'wasted vote' because you can vote for smaller parties like Green as first choice but choose bigger parties as your other choices if Green end up doing badly. It also forces all MPs to be elected by at least 50% of the local vote. It is this system by which parliamentary candidates for each party are elected.
The problem with this system is that it is much harder to count and counting would take much (much) longer. It would have to be coupled with the introduction of electronic voting in my opinion unless we want to wait days for the results. There is another problem which can throw up odd results, explained here but it seems like this kind of problem is rare.
Although, I'd still take PR over FPTP, it's just I prefer AV (at least in the UK) to PR.
10
The problem with proportional representation is that of how you do local MPs.
I think the biggest problem we have in this debate is the implicit assumption that the only thing we could change is how we elect MPs.
Today, our MPs serve at least four distinct roles:
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They vote on legislation.
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The largest group of MPs determines who forms the government, i.e., the ministers and secretaries of state with executive powers.
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While most laws are proposed by the government, MPs can also introduce private members' bills.
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MPs may act as an official representative for any member of their constituency.
There is no reason that we could not have a new system that did not conflate all of these roles. To give just one possibility:
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Elect a President whose responsibility is to lead the (executive) government. There is inherently one winner only in this election, perhaps chosen using some sort of Condorcet method.
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A Lower House of perhaps 100 members is responsible for proposing legislation. Its members are elected proportionally, and each group in the House gets to propose a proportionate number of bills for debate. The detailed wording could be worked out using a combination of all-in debates and smaller specialist groups, much as we have in Parliament today. When whoever proposed a bill is happy with the details as worked out in the Lower House, it is sent to the Upper House for approval.
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The Upper House is also elected proportionately, out of phase with the Lower House, and its primary role is to approve or reject any proposals from the Lower House on a straight yay-or-nay vote.
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Local decisions and representation are provided through elected mayors and local councils, perhaps with a mayor having a mechanism for pushing local issues caused by national policies up to the Houses.
I would combine something like this with a proper, written Constitution to define (and limit) the powers of each component and a Constitutional Court to go with it. Finish with a reasonably potent mechanism for the electorate to speak between elections (X people calling for a vote forces a binding referendum on a proposal, Y people can force a confidence vote in their area's representatives, etc.) and you have a system of government with far more effective checks and balances than we have today, yet always with a clear decision on who holds the executive roles and who may bring forward legislation.
5
That sounds great and all, but is that kind of heavy reform really that likely to happen? It's much more likely they'll reform how to vote for MPs, rather than change the entire basis of government in the UK (for example, electing a president and reducing the size of the lower house drastically).
It's arguably a better solution, but not a realistic one.
1
I doubt something like I described could be reached in a single step. Indeed, it's probably best that it isn't; what happens if we change everything and then find that the new system is flawed in practice?
I'm just trying to show that there are other options. We've already had talk about an elected second chamber, reducing the number of MPs, changing the way MPs are elected, giving voters a power to recall bad MPs, more elected mayors, elected police chiefs, and introducing a written constitution. We've already seen some reform in the House of Lords and the complete separation of the judiciary from the legislature with the formation of the Supreme Court. It's not a huge jump from all these things to what I was suggesting: the only really major change left is the separation of powers between the executive and the legislature as well, which may become a much more prominent issue after the obvious uncertainty with the current hung parliament.
1
UK elections are not done inherently to elect 'a leader' like in the US but for local people in each constituency to pick a local representative in parliament. If you simply split the number of MPs by the vote percentage, how do you decide which MPs represent which local areas? As others have noted as well, it can lead to some parties who stand in every seat but win none, getting some seats.
4
You could do this fairly simply using the existing system, just merging the boundaries a little. Take five neighbouring constituencies merge them into one constituency that elects five MPs, run the vote as normal and then elect the seats proportionally and then assign each MP to an original constituency.
That should take care of proportionality amongst major parties, you'd then have to have a separate top up list for minor parties, not sure what these would add up to in seats but maybe allow up to 20 extra seats in parliament to be allocated from the top up list, probably a couple of BNP a couple of UKIP and a couple of Greens.
I'm pretty sure that system could be implemented within one election since there's only a small bit of boundary redrawing required.
3
The question with proportional representation is the size of electoral constituencys. If they are too large, independent/small candidates cannot afford to campaing effectively throughout the whole area. Larger constiencys causes proper campaigning to be only possible for major candidates of major parties. Or with "support" money from companies or huge personal loans. Keeping the constituencys small (say, round 5 MPs) prevents corruption.
1
Yea, you need a system more like we have here in the USA. You can win the presidency even while having fewer votes, and you need 60% of congress to get ANYTHING done.
6
and you need 60% of congress to get ANYTHING done
A fact that US representatives seem almost shockingly comfortable with.
13
This wasn't the case until just recently, though. I mean, theoretically it was but people who tried to abuse it got the boot. Now it seems like nobody cares. People are starting to take this stuff seriously, though--look for the Senate to adopt some slightly modified rules for the next session.
2
| look for the Senate to adopt some slightly modified rules for the next session.
Only if the democratcs don't get fucked up in the mid terms.
1
If the economy magically turns around they will be fine...
1
They will probably not lose the senate. See 538 for analysis.
(Edit: of course, if the Republicans do win the Senate look for the filibuster to be stripped entirely, as well as the rest of the minority protections...)
1
I hope they do, the amount of holds on appointees is disgusting.
1
I'd rather it be 80 or 90 per cent. I'd also support reform to make it possible for third parties to hold more seats. My ideal government has no party with more than about 30% of the seats and no bill passing without 80% or so of the people there agreeing.
Because you know what would get done then? Things that need to get done. You know what wouldn't get done? All that other shit.
0
You sir deserve a soap box and a beer
1
You know what would get done? Nothing.
Absolutely
nothing.
Increasing the amount of democracy in elections is a wonderful thing, but it won't necessarily lead to the fragmentation in parties you describe. Furthermore, requiring 80% of the vote is undemocratic; a simple majority is a perfectly acceptable line.
1
I am pretty sure that the candidate with the most electoral votes wins. If you're still mad about John Quincy Adams beating Andrew Jackson in 1824 you really need to get over it.
11
HEY FUCK YOU MAN, OLD HICKORY FOR LIFE. ADAMS CAN SUCK MY JACKSONIAN DEMOCRATIC DICK!
13
I'm still mad about the whole Rutherford B. Hayes debacle
5
Actually, the Bush / Gore thing was much more upsetting.
0
Ya, because Gore would have totally saved the world. He is such a visionary. Did you know he invented the Internet?
0
Umm... were you around when Bush was president? He didn't set the bar very high... lying to the world, trampling rights, and botching disasters, just to start.
0
The 60% is for the senate and they make their own rules. They can change that at the start of a new session with a simple majority vote.
Also it's a hung parliament. No one party has the 326 votes needed to pass anything. England is about to experience their equivalent of the 60 vote rule. Right now nothing can be done in parliament by either party alone.
You can win the presidency even while having fewer votes
Explain that one. We have an electoral college system and the winner needs a majority of electoral votes. If there is no majority, congress picks the president and vice president.
8
Theoretically it is possible to lose while still receiving more votes. Imagine Candidate A winning majority of the electoral college, but only winning 51% of each state they carried. Candidate B however wins 90% of the votes in every state they carried (and 49% in the states they lost). A will be president, but more people voted for B.
I think Gore won more votes then Bush in 2000 but still lost.
2
Yes. There is nothing wrong with that, it is the system we created.
2
Technically no one alive today actually created that system, and there are many who want to change it. Even if you agree with it, you can't deny that it does allow for someone to win the presidency while actually receiving less votes.
1
Congressionally: Imaging party C getting 20% of the votes in every district. Imagine the other 80% of the vote going to either party A or B.
Now answer me: how many seats did party C get in congress?
1
you are talking about the FPTP system, being criticized all over the thread here.
1
If there is no majority, congress picks the president and vice president.
Specifically, in such a case the House chooses the President with each state delegation getting one vote (CA being counted the same as WY), and the Senate chooses the VP.
1
Wow, one state one vote. That is extremely bad. In our current layout republicans automatically win.
1
Gore won the popular vote in 2000, but lost the college.
The electoral college is based on the number of representatives and senators in congress. While representatives are based on the population in their states, senators are not, there is one for every state. The purpose of this was to appease the smaller states that would have less national influence, so the senate was made to give each state equal representation. This means that smaller states actually have more voting power proportionately to big states. Because the electoral college is based on both, the vote is skewed, but only slightly. If a state had 1 representative, it would have 2x it's voting power in terms of population, and if a state had 200, it would have 1.005x it's power in proportion to its population.
Even if the college was a 1 to 1 representation to population there would still be some problems. Say state A and state B have equal electors and population. In state A 51% of voters vote for candidate 1, while in state B 100% of the voters vote for candidate 2. Even though the college is split 50-50, the votes are actually split 74.5-25.5.
Technically, an elector could even vote against their constituents in their state. Of course doing this would be suicide. In fact by the 12th amendment an elector could vote for a President on one side, and a Vice President on the other side. This wouldn't ever happen of course, but it would make for a great sitcom. "It's Gore and Cheney! After a crazy mixup where an elector died mid vote, Gore got elected but had to take Cheney with him!"
1
Why do you keep posting. Do you not know the US has an electoral college?
-2
... What?
2
Bush/Cheney 2004. Enough said. In the end it was the supreme court that decided.
-5
The supreme court decided nothing.
5
2004's election was 284 to 251. It wasn't even close. The only two states that voted Red that could've swung the election to Kerry were Texas and Florida, and those were pretty heavy Bush.
You're thinking about the 2000 election, where the electoral votes for Florida were under question. In that case, the Supreme Court specifically did NOT decide what happened; they relied on the good ol' Constitution (remember that document?)
Yes, Bush had fewer popular votes, but that's not how the United States works. As mentioned above, it's an electoral vote process. This was designed specifically to give power to the smaller states, and you should be happy for it lest you don't want your vote to matter (which is how I feel anyway being a non-Democrat in Illinois and now California)
2
You're thinking about the 2000 election, where the electoral votes for Florida were under question. In that case, the Supreme Court specifically did NOT decide what happened; they relied on the good ol' Constitution (remember that document?)
Ummm, they most definitely did decide what happened. The florida supreme court ruled that a statewide recount needed to be conducted. The US supreme court stayed the recount before arguments were even heard. The only reason they can give for a stay is that somehow the action would cause "irreparable harm" to bush.
A couple days later, in the actual supreme court case, Bush v Gore, The supreme court ruled that recounting the votes was a violation on the equal protection act because there was no uniform standard that the votes would be counted under, and that there was no remedy that could be completed before the deadline.
And, for the first time ever, the supreme court declared that a ruling would set no precedent (god forbid states should actually reform elections).
Finally, after the election was all said and done, the Florida Comprehensive Ballots Review project came to the conclusion that had a full statewide recount been done, Gore would have received more votes than Bush.
Anyways, I just wanted to make the point that saying the supreme court "didn't decide what happened" shows a large lack of understanding. Bush v. Gore is one of the most controversial supreme court cases in the past half century, and saying that it did nothing is glossing over a large part of the 2000 election.
1
They stopped the counting of votes which would determine the number of electoral college votes. Point out the part of the Constitution where votes aren't supposed to be accurately counted, please.
0
...they relied on the good ol' Constitution...
Some pretty tortured logic, here. They said that, because there wasn't a state-wide standard for ballot recounts (even though there weren't statewide ballots) the individual recounts did not meet the equal protection standard and thus ordered the recounts stopped. Katherine Harris (whose dirty tricks deserve a book of their own) had certified Bush the winner and everyone basically said "Bush wins unless you want civil war 2". (Let me throw in a reference to the rent-a-riot here, for good measure.)
Of course, the SCOTUS also said that the whole thing was just a one-off and that nobody else could use this reasoning and that, despite being fundamentally broken, nothing should change. Even ignoring how awful the decision itself was, they also made sure nothing would be improved by the whole ordeal!
Everyone is all "Well, they didn't LITERALLY say that Bush was the winner", but that's sure as hell what they effectively did. Rehnquist and O'Connor were both (by their own admission) waiting for a Republican President to retire and Bush, as it turned out, was their last chance. (Rehnquist died, O'Connor's husband became ill--although she doesn't get much sympathy from me about that.)
And had the situation been reversed (with Gore ahead--not that Harris would have let that happen, but hypothetically here) nobody is doubting that... well... in Bill Clinton's words:
...the same Supreme Court would have voted 9 to 0 to [re]count the vote and I would have supported the decision... Bush v. Gore will go down in history as one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court ever made, along with the Dred Scott case.
The 2004 election, although the SCOTUS didn't make an appearance, but it was (if anything) even dirtier than 2000.
0
** Cough ** Ohio ** Cough **
0
You were thinking the 2000 Bush-Gore election. Not the 2004 Bush-Kerry election.
1
Downvoted for bringing up the American system. Come back and talk to us about proportional representation when you have more than two political parties.
Love, Canada
0
Dear Canada,
There are quite a few Canadians pissing and moaning about under-representation in your system as well. Once you guys figure your shit out we'll start a third party.
Thx, USA
0
I came here to say that New Zealand has had proportional representation since 1994. To me it makes FPTP systems look... undemocratic.
There are people in NZ who would like it ditched though, largely the two main parties.
6
Yeah, this sucks balls. We need electoral reform BADLY.
5
So what's being proposed to "fix" the system?
Aside from doing away with local elections completely (which could be a nightmare) the only other thing I can think of is run-off elections when one candidate does not receiver 50%+ of votes cast.
The question is, would that change anything? Obviously it can in situations where you have two popular candidates splitting the vote, but I doubt it would be a significant difference. How many candidates didn't receive a majority vote, and how many of those would have likely lost in a run-off?
Maybe I'm missing some other solutions.
3
Mixed member proportional representation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_member_proportional_representation
In my opinion the best system out there and it's already used by
* Scottish Parliament
* National Assembly for Wales
* London Assembly
5
Thanks for that. I learned something, although it gives me a bit of a headache trying to figure it out.
2
Aside from doing away with local elections completely (which could be a nightmare) the only other thing I can think of is run-off elections when one candidate does not receiver 50%+ of votes cast.
You can have mixed systems (for example, half of MPs are elected in the current way, and the remainder are made up from party lists to obtain proportionality). This way everybody still votes for "their MP", but you have actual majority rule.
1
God no. Please, not a list system. The parties have enough power already.
1
Well, exactly. The parties are in control anyway, we might as well have the parties we voted for in control.
2
For sure, but I'd still rather weaken than strengthen their hand. STV is the way to go.
1
The only other thing I can think of is run-off elections when one candidate does not receiver 50%+ of votes cast.
The single transferrable vote does that without the need for run-off elections, and while it isn't perfect it does prevent minority parties from gaining seats even if they have widespready, though low, support across the country - ie it isn't perfect democracy, but comes close to PR.
1
Damn UK, You politics scary!
3
[deleted]
3
What? And I thought it was bad when Gore lost to the electoral college.
2
Your opinions: Do you think proportional representation will encourage more people to vote?
2
The conservatives say they want to do the best for the county yet they are not in favour of Proportional Representation - that is democracy.
They are putting their self interests first.
2
I'm more upset that Al Gore got 51% of the vote, but the guy who got 49% of the vote became President of the U.S.!
2
If in each district party B gets 99% as many votes as party A, it still means that party A wins every contest and gets 100% of the seats. Or am I substituting american practices in for my ignorance of UK ones?
2
No, that's correct. The difference is, the British apparently don't like that.
1
The problem is that this system means that people don't vote for who they want to win. In one pre-election poll of who the people would vote for if they thought they had a chance of winning the Lib Dems were on 49%. In a genuinely multi-party country, our system punishes the smaller parties.
1
This took me a bloody age so I'm posting it here too (as well as r/unitedkingdom):
Source
These stats might be interesting too. I posted these in r/ukpolitics, but I don't think many people have seen it.
Using the data from the BBC page:
Using the final figures, if the seats were assigned in proportion to the number of votes, we would have:
Very interesting, you have to take into account the mindset of voters in a FPTP system. I mean, ofcourse, the tactical voting. PR would essentially negate this, and you'd probably see the figures differ again.
Edit: As in, possibly a bit more love for the Lib Dems.
That's correct. My impression here in NZ is that it took a couple of elections under MMP before the average kiwi started casting their votes "strategically":
voting for the candidate they felt would be best for their electorate
casting the party vote with the big picture in mind, knowing that a vote for a minority party actually could make a difference to the result.
And the Others.
I'd vote Socialist Labour or something instead of Lib Dem if we had PR.
Ben Linus for PM!
Well, ofcourse. I only said the Lib Dems since this thread is about their short hand in this election. But you're right, the others would benefit too, and more power to them! Even if I do fundamentally disagree with them.
In addition all the parties share of the national and local vote is reported on the basis of a 100% turnout. For example, it is claimed that the Conservatives received 36.1% of the national vote, this is misleading to say the least, as some 30-35% of the electorate did not vote. In other words the Tories received 36.1% of the votes casted by 65-70% of the electorate.
My maths is not great but on that basis about 23-25% of the electorate supported the Tories. And so under a truly reflective electoral system should only be entitled 23-25% of parliament.
When you also take into account the amount of destroyed ballots papers, wasted votes for organisations such as the Monster Rav. Loony Party and the prevalent attitude of 'voting for the better of three evils', one starts to see how deeply unrepresentative and unfair the British election system is.
Frankly those who don't vote deserve no part in our democracy nor should they even be considered. The freedom and democracy in our country was paid for in blood and sweat by men and women far braver than I; anyone who doesn't at least turn up at the polling station and put something on the ballot paper (even if it's just to deface it so it's rejected) doesn't deserve anything from the rest of us, least of all representation. Those who vote for MRLP should get an MRLP candidate, same for the BNP (who most people hold in lower regard.) Those who have their vote rejected should be counted to the total but not factored into the allocation of seats.
So what consideration should my vote for the Lib Dems in a safe Tory seat have? Do I deserve a part in this democracy that I clearly don't have? Am I any different from someone who didn't vote at all?
Frankly, 'those who don't vote' do so because they already do not feel 'part of our democracy'. What do you mean 'our democracy'? And what if I don't agree with any of the pro capitalist parties and consider the whole process a charade, are you saying that the women and men who died for our right to vote did so on the basis I could only vote for capitalist parties even if I don't agree with them, where is the democracy in that? The only way I can register my disgust at free market capitalism and the this pantomime of an election is to withhold my vote or destroy my ballot paper....this is 'our democracy'!
Don't be silly. Imagine you live in a place with a 30% margin. There is no conceivable reason to vote. It doesn't matter what you do with your ballot paper, it doesn't matter what your friends do with their ballot papers, and consequentially the politicians don't give a damn about you.
This is Britain. As the posts preceding yours prove, we don't actually have a democracy.
You should have mandatory voting like us Aussies have.
But this is proportional with all the other parties as well.
So if the Conservatives got 36.1% of the national vote, Labour got 29% and Lib Dems got 23% so do you advocate that they be entitled to 20% and 16% of parliament too? And parliament size be reduced for all those people who did not vote?
I don't think I advocated at any stage that the size of parliament should be reduced in size. What the turnout in the 2010 election clearly indicates is a huge dissatisfaction with all the political parties, you don't get the 30-35% of the electorate not voting because of apathy, this happens because people feel disenfranchised. More needs to be done than just reform the actual system we use to elect our political representatives, we need more than a list of capitalist parties to vote for and debates not based around who presented himself well, hair styles, body language and what colour tie he wore if you want to increase participation in elections.
The electoral system is not just unfair because of the way we count the votes but because it also offers no choice and consequently disenfranchises millions of people. The simple fact is Labour, Tories or Lib Dems do not attract a mandate to govern.
Yes. I support this idea for the USA as well.
Yes, but all parties' support is scaled equally; it's not like any other party received more support.
Would you propose that if the turnout is 65%, then 35% of seats should be left unfiilled?
[deleted]
Wouldn't this cause a likelier chance of a hung parliament?
On the other hand, I do think that the current electoral system is shit.
The fact that it's called a hung parliament in UK electoral terms speaks loads. Many (most?) parliamentary systems in the world are ruled by minority or coalition governments, not single party majorities.
Frankly, the thought of a single party deciding everything is very scary to me - how can someone think this is a good thing? I hope you fix your system.
Our political system is based on conflict, not cooperation. A knowledgeable type told me that the distance between the two front benches in parliament is deliberately just longer than a sword's length to prevent them killing each other.
You don't live in Singapore...do you? I agree, a single party deciding everything is scary, but the chances of it not happening and change taking place is close to zero.
A guy on the BBC said the term "hung parliament" derives from a judiscial process in which the jury can't make a clear decision and said to be a "hung jury." The judge may then call for a retrial.
May be worth checking this up on the tubes, as that was a few hours ago he said that.
The thought of every man and his dog setting up a single issue non-party and managing to succesfully waste Parliamentary time (yes UKIP, Respect, Greens et al, I'm looking at YOU) scares me slightly more.
it would all be a lot simpler if there was just one party. Every now and then we'd vote for which management team gets to make use of national resources to fulfill their sponsors' requirements.
That comes out to only 649 seats. You're one short. Using the Sainte-Laguë method, the numbers I get are:
One constituency didn't vote - a UKIP candidate died, so they have time to find a replacement.
I guess that'll happen a lot with the UKIP candidates :P
I absolutely do NOT want to see 12 BNP MPs in parliament!! First past the post all the way.
Those with extremely nationalistic views have the same right to be heard as their opposition. I would bet a large number of people who swung to the Tories in this election are readers of The Sun, frankly I hold them in roughly the same regard, if not lower. Anyone who thinks The Sun is a newspaper should be put out to sea. :(
When the leader of the BNP was put on the BBC, it became apparent to almost everyone watching that he was not to be trusted. Hiding them doesn't help anyone, exposing them does help. It pushes others closer to the moderate centre. My only concern is that any good ideas they have will be written off because of their source.
I been keeping track of the Suns' front pages the past few weeks. In 20 years I can reflect and have a good chuckle.
Unless we're all dead.
Nice work. The first half of the list has 2 numbers that definitely stick out from the others.
More interesting numbers, thanks to The Guardian:
In other words, 53% of of votes were ignored.
Isn't this to be somewhat expected when you have many more than 2 parties?
E.g.
Candidate 1: 15k votes
Candidate 2: 2k votes
Candidate 3: 5k votes
Candidate 4: 10k votes
Losing votes: 17k
Winning votes: 15k
In a 'first past the post' system, yes, but with proportional representation systems the number of seats match the total percentage who voted for them nationally.
No - the general idea of a parliamentary system is "proportional representation". Basically, if your party got 5% of the vote (and there were at least a total of 20 MPs in parliament), you should expect that at least 1 MP is from your party. The point in Britain is that because of their strange way of counting votes (it actually works out to roughly approximate to the US Electoral College from what I understand), it is very possible for a 3rd, 4th, or 5th party to garner a significant percentage of votes and either fail to get any MPs or fewer than the percentage of votes would lead you to believe that they earned.
Not under PR - every vote counts, and every vote is equal.
Yes, it's to be expected because of the first past the post system.
Well, in the FPTP system your votes are usually somewhat made up for by the fact that someone of your ideological persuasion probably got an unfair amount of representation in other districts as well. That's how it works in the US - although most votes going to losing candidates, the Democrats and Republicans generally get a proportion of seats similar to their vote %. It is, at best, a haphazard system, though.
i'm pretty sure people that are aligned with ron paul (even if they don't know it) amount to more than 0.23% (1/435) of the population.
That's the problem, it only works in two party systems. I can't find the quote, but someone said something along the lines of "Eventually every FPTP election system will become a two party system." That's not good for democracy in the UK, and given the state of the US, I'd say it's not good for the US either.
This is why the only real choice was Conservative/Labour. If the Lib-Dems manage to get proportional representation as a condition, they should see more votes in the next election. The downside to this would be BNP getting some power though.
As odious as the BNP are, this is what you have to accept with free speech and free elections.
Could not have put it better myself. They are horrific fascist fucks, but they should be horrific fascist fucks with fair representation, like everyone else.
And why are we so scared of them? No mainstream party would enter a coalition with the BNP as it would be suicide, and none of their elected members are going to hold a cabinet post.
Under a system of STV or AV+ I doubt they'd usually get enough votes in enough districts to gain more than a couple of seats. STV and AV+ make it difficult for extremely fringe parties to gain seats.
Around 1.9% of the voters voted for them as their first (and only) choice, so that is roughly what their representation ought to be.
STV would certainly benefit my party choice (lib dems) since people could at least indicate that if things don't go that way then whether they prefer tory or labour next. Currently people skip the lib dems to ensure their second choice wins. (This also happened in the US with "a vote for Nader is really a vote for Republicans".)
Although STV is easy to understand as a voter in concept, I do worry about the logistics of it. As a current US resident I am amused at how complex elections are here and how long the votes take to be counted, or messed around with by machines with no auditing and lots of vulnerabilities.
Note how in the UK the voting stopped at 10pm and the majority of the votes had been counted by hand and reported a few hours later. The more complex STV ballot plus more complex counting and shuffling votes around could draw that out quite a bit and has far more margin for error compared to the current trivial forms.
STV is much more fair than MMP, but try explaining it voters when they have to decide between FPP & an alternative.
On the other hand, the people voted for them and thus they should be represented. It's not fair to ignore votes you disagree with, even BNP ones :)
It also helps to expose them for who they are, battles of ideas have to be fought out in the open or you're not going to address the reasons people do vote BNP.
Most of the LibDems strongest areas are where they're in second place and people of one party or the other are voting for them as an anti-Tory or anti-Labour vote. In a Tory-Labour marginal district where the LibDems have 5-10% of the vote, yes, it would almost always be a wasted vote unless the LibDems managed to drastically increase their national popularity. But in many districts, the wasted vote would actually be Conservative or Labour.
Can someone explain how this works to me? I thought the UK just had elections for their lower house which is supposed to have proportional representation. Those proportions seem insane!
Uk does not have proportional representation, the lower house is FPTP. The upper house... well probably best you don't ask.
First Past the Post, for anyone not familiar with the FPTP acronym.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_voting is another option.
The whole point is that local people are represented by local MP's, you're not supposed to be voting for a Prime Minister, you're supposed to be voting for who will best represent you in your constituency.
Most of these figures being posted here are horrendously misleading when not viewed in context of what they really represent.
I live out in the country so my constituency only has 100 voters, if we elect a Conservative MP with 60% of the vote - our MP will represent us based on 60 votes. In a London constituency there may be 100,000 voters who vote Labour with 60% meaning 60,000 votes.
Totals Con: 40,060 Lab: 60,040
Now lets add another rural constituency with 100 voters and they also elect a Conservative with 60% of the vote - another 60 votes.
Totals Con: 40,120 Lab: 60,040
In this 3 constituency example the Conservatives win with 2 seats to 1 yet only polled 40% of the vote.
But that's beside the point because each area is represented by who they elected.
The "system" appears broken because we focus too much on the leaders of the parties and not our local issues. If I go into a polling booth I don't see "Gordon Brown" on the paper - that's not an option.
What's supposed to happen is that I elect my local MP, the MP's then take their seats in the House of Commons, each party elects a leader and the party with the most seats elects a leader that becomes Prime Minister. To pass legislation you need a majority, so if this is not the case negotiations happen for different parties to join force.
The point is exactly to NOT have one man in "absolute power", but this has been abused and ignored for years, culminating in Tony Blair doing whatever the hell he wanted.
I like the system in theory. PR isn't the answer in my book, but maybe we need to look at the size and distribution on the Constituencies.
But the MP you voted into office, is going to rule over national problems, not your own counties' problems. This means that with the 60 voters you have, per head!, more power over how national problems should be treated than the people in london who need 60K voters to get their person into office to do the exact same thing.
That's the unfairness in the system: the local person rules on national topics.
Here in the netherlands we have a 3 layer system: counties, who have their own elections, provinces who have their own elections (and which contain a number of counties) and national elections for a parliament. The provinces vote for people in the senate. The parliament elections result in a party which is the biggest and which is then allowed to form a government (always with other parties).
So the local people, in the counties, vote for their local rulers in the county elections. Who they want to represent them on the national level is done in parliament elections, which could be totally different. For example a lot of counties are ruled or have big 'local' parties which only exist in that particular county.
Well essentially yes, this is the problem - it's one of representation on the national stage. But it's not as black and white as people make out...
The actual constituencies are of fairly similar geographical size, so the theory goes that an inner city that needs roads, shops and social welfare is equally represented a single MP as a rural constituency that needs environmental protection and farm subsidies.
This is irrespective of population size because the entire population lives in a region with the same set of issues that need addressing. The issues are not as widespread or diverse as the disparity in population may imply.
We also have layers of local and regional government, we have councillors that sit on a council within the region, city or general locality. These councils reflect the individual population sizes much more closely. So the specifics of individual issues are addressed and looked after, by a suitable number of councillors.
The MP simply represents the issues of the region as a whole (regardless of population) in Westminster.
The problem as I see it is not with the system - but with the fact that people see local governance as not important, or not being able to affect their lives. But it is, it's highly relevant and much more likely to have a direct affect on your life.
We seem to be moving to a more presidential system, people want a direct say as to who is the "President". I think this is moving in the wrong direction entirely.
That's brings up one thing I don't understand about the PR debate. If they divvied up seats proportionally based on national polling numbers then how would regional MPs be decided?
And this is why I like the German system - half of the MPs are elected through single member districts. These people are directly answerable to their constituencies. The other half are pulled from "party lists" so that the overall legislator is in line with how the overall public voted. It's definitely close to the best of both worlds - representation and responsibility.
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The Boundary Commission reviews constituencies every 8 to 12 years to ensure that they represent "population patterns".
Since the last election, 478 of 533 seats in England, 22 of the 40 in Wales and all 18 constituencies in Northern Ireland have had new boundaries.
This doesn't mean the same size, it means (more or less) what it says. It tries to keep geographical areas joined by following natural (or artificial) social/ political/ geographical boundaries.
The smallest constituency is the Western Isle in Scotland (~20k voters) and the largest is the Isle of Wight off the southern coast of the UK (~120k voters). Both exist on a purely geographically basis as the full extent of each island.
My example was exaggerated only to make the point clear.
Your example is moronic as constituencies need to be about same sized or else representation will never be in any way reflective of the true will of the people. PR is the only fair voting system out there and is used by thye Welsh Assembly, the London Assembly and the Scotish Parliament, yet curiously it hasn't been adopted for the House of Commons. Could it be that the major parties just want to keep their power no matter how undemocratic it is ? Also you need to consider when FPTP was introduced it made sense to have local representation as politics was largely local due to lack of communications media, today politics is national and non-proportional representation is disenfranchising a large proportion of people.
Problem is, on a national scale, the government is who ever can get a budget vote through parliament, and that means who ever can have the most MPs behind them. I think we need a way that provides local representation and national steering.
Why not bitch about having Election Districts that differ in size by two or more orders of magnitude? In the US we re-draw Congressional districts every ten years so that they are all roughly the same population that lives in each of them. (currently round 650K people per Congressional district). There is a bit of variation in size, but not by more than a 100K people or-so. This is because every state is guaranteed at least one Congressional District, and rounding issues sometimes (because of the limit to 435 total districts) that occurs.
Why does the system allow election districts with such wide differences in population to exist? Is there some kind of legal rational for it or is it just an accident of history that nobody wants to fix?
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In real life the boundaries follow all sorts of division lines for a range of reasons, some purely geographical and some political or historical.
The smallest constituency is the Western Isle in Scotland (~20k voters) and the largest is the Isle of Wight off the southern coast of the UK (~120k voters). Both exist on a purely geographically basis as the full extent of each island.
Under the current system, both islands elect someone to represent them. It's fair that way. Under a Proportional Representation system the Isle of Wight would have a huge influence over the Western Isle. And who thinks that would be fair?
Looking at the figures the Western Isle voted 45% in favour of the SNP - their MP was elected with 6,723 votes. On the Isle of Wight even the 3rd placed candidate polled 8,169 votes. So under PR the choice of the Western Isle would come 4th, meaning that the Western Isle would have as good as zero chance of ever electing the person that they chose to elect today.
Each State has two senators regardless of population size. Imagine how much easier passing Health Care reform would have been if there was proportional representation.
So you can have one person representing 100 people and one person representing 100,000 people, and these MPs both have equal vote, and you call this fair?
That was a highly exaggerated example. The smallest constituency has 22,000 people.
You live in a constituancy of 100? Bollocks - not unless you live in the 19th century rotten borough you don't.
No. We have a first past the post system. Proportional representation is what people would like to have instead. Indeed it is the very point of this thread.
People on Reddit (Liberals) perhaps. A majority of inhabitants of the UK? Not so sure.
It isn't a partisan issue. I would assume that people would want their votes to count regardless of who they vote for. Half a million people voted for the BNP and yet they have no seats at all. I bet they'd love proportional representation. I suspect all of the people who voted Tory in my constituency are pretty bummed about their votes not counting, too (Lib Dems won here). Indeed, it was just one of the many issues people on all sides of the political spectrum brought up after the expenses scandal, when all of the politicians were clamouring to look as if they were wanted "reform".
Last I checked the polling figures, yeah, a majority of UK inhabitants by a long long way. A majority of inhabitants after the Sun, Mail and Torygraph have had their way? Not so sure.
I too had this misconception.
So brits.. how does it work? how come the proportions come up weird? How does someone actually win a seat? by popular vote?
i think i get it cause of what krunk7 said above.
it is that yall get more votes over all as a party but the indivuals lose the popular vote due to the number of parties yall have?
or is it like the US where we vote for electors which can have the same effect.
It is a "first past the post" system in each seat - basically whoever gets the most votes in that seat wins it. Which was fair enough back in the day when people elected somebody to be their representative in the House of Commons, but the party political process has hijacked that.
Now people vote mainly on national issues, and candidates from the parties who vote along party lines, so you get a situation where the Lib Dems, who are fairly evenly supported throughout the country, struggle to get seats, while the Conservatives and Labour - who have concentrations of support - don't need as much of the national vote to get candidates elected.
Is "first past the post" some kind of Britishism that is equivalent to "majority rules"?
thanks this stuff intrigues me.. especially cause i dont have to fight about it.. But like cricket.. I'm lacking too many details to know what the hell is going on.
The emergence of the party system came long before any talk of electoral reform beyond "the lord of the manor chooses the commoner most amenable to his views."
It is just like the house of representatives. The individual candidate that wins each district wins the seat.
It's not, though. It's plurality winning, not majority winning. in the HoR, you need to win a majority of the vote to win. In this, you just need a plurality.
I'm not sure how this works either. In a proportional system do I no longer vote for my MP, but rather for some "party" who then decides which MP to appoint to represent me?
Cough...Cough...what happened to the Monster Raving Loony William Hill Party?
They're having talks with the Lib Dems, but I wouldn't trust their leader, Mr Cameron as far as I could kick him.
According to them... they had 27 candidates! Seems like an awful waste of money :/
Probably the best money they ever spent. Can you imagine running as a MRLP candidate... dream sequence of Nexxeh wandering street to street, knocking on doors and shaking hands, wearing a safety orange tracksuit, primary green combat boots and a giant comedy ginger wig
Oddly, I've never seen hats like that outside of politics.
I live in Oxford, which is split into two constituencies. The combined votes for the two areas are:
Lib Dems 41,087
Conservative: 33,633
Labour: 27,937
And yet we have one Labour MP and one Conservative MP after the Lib Dems were a close second in each area. Sigh.
Thanks very much for pointing this out, beccaebdon, I've been putting a page together on the election results and have added this to it: http://www.lightrefrain.net/election2010/
I'm glad that it's come in handy! I hadn't ever got properly annoyed about FPTP before this year, but I am currently outraged.
Good fucking work. These are great stats.
Who are the Green party? They seriously got the shaft here.
it's because they only won one seat but they stood in most constituencies. So they got next to no votes in every constituency except the one they won.
This is why IMHO proportional representation isn't good.
Anyone can stand candidates in every single seat and lose in every single seat.
Under the current system, that results in no seats. But under PR, they'd get seats, despite not actually winning anything.
No, that's why FPTP isn't good. A minor party can get a ton of votes, but since they're spread across the entire country, they're dwarfed by more major parties. However, if a regional party got the same number of votes, they are very likely to win several seats due to the concentrated nature of the vote.
If you get 200,000 votes, you should get the exact same number of seats, no matter where the votes come from.
Over 285,000 people voted for the Green Party because they wanted Green Party policies, but only 1 Green Party member was elected to Parliament. If those 285,000 people had lived somewhere different (i.e. closer together), they could have elected 8 Green Party members to Parliament.
Why should the electoral system be dictated by quirks of geography?
I think that you're thinking about it in the wrong way. The candidates won votes, not seats. Under PR, the idea of a single-member seat doesn't apply - you gain entry to parliament based on the number of votes you win. The whole point is to prevent gerrymandering.
Their leader is this guy, so they could physically only have one seat or the House of Commons would have to be rennovated.
it should be law that the mp's relative tallness should be identical to their relative votes/seat.
.. the green party mp would be a towering giantess!
Guardian have released a dataset until the Electoral Commission get round to doing the verified one: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/may/07/uk-election-results-data-candidates-seats
Go nuts geeks.
So far I've worked out that:
68.73% of MPs were opposed by a majority of their constituents (that voted),
52.84% voters went for candidates other than those elected, meaning again that the new Parliament as an institution received less than half the votes on offer.
Neither are particularly good signs of democratic health.
:D http://www.lightrefrain.net/election2010/
How the hell does the BNP get so many votes in your country?
It would appear that there are at least 563,743 racists in our country.
Probably more like 50,000 hardcore racists and c500,000 friends, family and significant others of racists who are too dumb/subservient/ill-informed to decide for themselves.
Deport them to where they came from, now!
We like to see these views out in public, so we know where they are.
There was actually a leak of the BNP membership list a year or so ago. It's probably still out there somewhere.
Because in public many of their policies seem reasonable (see their website) and the British public has become fed up of unchecked immigration and the apparent priority of helping immigrants over natives. Discontent breeds mistrust that the BNP exploit. Who would argue that we need to protect British jobs, spend more money and fix the NHS instead of giving cars and houses to immigrants etc? Hook 'em with the reasonable sounding stuff, save "kill the blacks and jews" for later.
So it's like Arizona except a political party.
It's similar in much of Europe. A few years back in France, the leader of the far right Front National ended up in a two-way run-off for president. He has traditionally run under the slogan "Three million immigrants, three million unemployed."
In Provence, France's deep south (in more ways than one), there are a number of far right mayors. In saying that, where I lived, the mayor had been Communist for 50 years, because the Communists (Italian, I think) liberated the village from the Nazis in 1945. I guess it just kinda stuck.
The Gallagher Index is going to be interesting.
The 1983 UK General election, which produced a similar-sized disproportionality of seats (though with a conservative majority) ended up with a Gallagher index of 20.69, which is pretty bad. By contrast the 2005 election had a result of 16.76, and 2001 was 17.74. Ironically the current situation results in an index of 15.73 which is slightly better but still bad.
you missed the Scottish Jacobite party 290
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Support seems to be growing: http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/c1hh5/clegg_speaks_to_propr_protesters_in_london/?already_submitted=true