Electoral Reform

[dune]

This has been discussed on another thread but it deserves a thread of its own.

 

I can't make my mind up about it without knowing exactly how it'd work. Of course it's easy to understand in principle e.g you have a 100 seat parliament (number chose because it's easy to work out the %ages) Tories win 35% = 35 seats, Labour Win 30% = 30 seats, Liberals win 20% = 20 seats, BNP + UKIP + Greens + Others make up the rest = 15 seats. Extrapolate this to a house of 300 and Tories have 105 seats, Labour 90, Liberals 60, Others 45.

 

But how exactly would it work in terms of local representation. Would local constituencies still exist or would it be regional constituencies? Or would there be constituencies at all?

 

There's many more questions i'd need answering but this get's the discussion started.

[Joensuu]

There are various different types of PR, each with benefits and disadvantages

 

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/PRsystems.htm

 

I'd opt for the 'Single Transferable Vote' method... which would allow people a lot more control over who they want to elect. The obvious downside is that the complex voting slips might result in less votes being eligable (and as a result less votes for the BNP).

Edited 20 April, 2010 by Joensuu

[dune]

There are various different types of PR, each with benefits and disadvantages

 

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/PRsystems.htm

 

Can't be arsed to read all that, what is the system the Liberals want? I'm not a Liberal supporter so up until now have taken no interest, but surely they have proposed the system they want given they've been banging on about it for years?

[bungle]

Can't be arsed to read all that, what is the system the Liberals want? I'm not a Liberal supporter so up until now have taken no interest, but surely they have proposed the system they want given they've been banging on about it for years?

 

STV.

[dune]

STV.

 

Means absolutely nothing to me.

[bungle]

Means absolutely nothing to me.

 

http://www.google.co.uk

[Joensuu]

STV.

 

Means absolutely nothing to me.

 

I'd opt for the 'Single Transferable Vote' method... which would allow people a lot more control over who they want to elect. The obvious downside is that the complex voting slips might result in less votes being eligable (and as a result less votes for the BNP).

 

If you'd only read the thread you might get the answer!

[dune]

http://www.google.co.uk

 

You're the Liberal canvasser. Imagine you're knocking on my door and i ask you to explain how Proportional Representation would work if your party got it's way.

 

Saying STV and go on google isn't really selling the idea. If PR is so important to you i'd have thought you'd have jumped at the opportunty to platform your proposals.

[dune]

If you'd only read the thread you might get the answer!

 

Mate, no disrespect and shout me down for saying this but a lot of that is gobledigook unless you really study it all. Take the STV section it clarifies how it'd work thus:

 

As the name "single transferable vote" implies, this systems involves a process of transferring votes. To understand how the transfer process works, it may be best to start out with a simple analogy. Imagine a school where a class is trying to elect a committee. Any student who wishes to run stands at the front of the class and the other students vote for their favorite candidates by standing beside them. Students standing almost alone next to their candidate will soon discover that this person has no chance of being elected and move to another candidate of their choice to help him or her get elected. Some of the students standing next to a very popular candidate may realize that this person has more than enough support to win, and decide to go stand next to another student that they would also like to see on the committee. In the end, after all of this shuffling around, most students would be standing next to candidates that will be elected, which is the ultimate point of this process.

 

So does PR need several votes?

[badgerx16]

Mate, no disrespect and shout me down for saying this but a lot of that is gobledigook unless you really study it all. Take the STV section it clarifies how it'd work thus:

 

As the name "single transferable vote" implies, this systems involves a process of transferring votes. To understand how the transfer process works, it may be best to start out with a simple analogy. Imagine a school where a class is trying to elect a committee. Any student who wishes to run stands at the front of the class and the other students vote for their favorite candidates by standing beside them. Students standing almost alone next to their candidate will soon discover that this person has no chance of being elected and move to another candidate of their choice to help him or her get elected. Some of the students standing next to a very popular candidate may realize that this person has more than enough support to win, and decide to go stand next to another student that they would also like to see on the committee. In the end, after all of this shuffling around, most students would be standing next to candidates that will be elected, which is the ultimate point of this process.

 

So does PR need several votes?

No, you rank the candidates in order of preference.

 

Example on WiKi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote#Voting

Edited 20 April, 2010 by badgerx16

[dune]

No, you rank the candidates in order of preference.

 

 

So how many seats do the Liberals propose nationally?

 

How many seats do the Liberals propose for each region?

 

What is the threshold they propose?

 

And what are the regions?

Edited 20 April, 2010 by dune
added another question

[IamLeGod]

Mate, no disrespect and shout me down for saying this but a lot of that is gobledigook unless you really study it all. Take the STV section it clarifies how it'd work thus:

 

As the name "single transferable vote" implies, this systems involves a process of transferring votes. To understand how the transfer process works, it may be best to start out with a simple analogy. Imagine a school where a class is trying to elect a committee. Any student who wishes to run stands at the front of the class and the other students vote for their favorite candidates by standing beside them. Students standing almost alone next to their candidate will soon discover that this person has no chance of being elected and move to another candidate of their choice to help him or her get elected. Some of the students standing next to a very popular candidate may realize that this person has more than enough support to win, and decide to go stand next to another student that they would also like to see on the committee. In the end, after all of this shuffling around, most students would be standing next to candidates that will be elected, which is the ultimate point of this process.

 

So does PR need several votes?

 

I'll give you that, it does sound like nonsense.

 

Basically Dune, you get multi-seat constituencies formed, so that each constituency is represented by several winning candidates. Each voter casts a vote in their constituency from a given list of candidates (as you would expect in FPTP), however they list in order of preference a number of candidates instead of just one.

 

When a certain candidate receives enough votes to meet the quota to gain a seat, the remaining surplus votes are transferred to the next preference on electors ballot papers.

 

Sorry, not trying to be patronising at all - just set it out as simply as I can.

[Joensuu]

Mate, no disrespect and shout me down for saying this but a lot of that is gobledigook unless you really study it all. Take the STV section it clarifies how it'd work thus:

 

As the name "single transferable vote" implies, this systems involves a process of transferring votes. To understand how the transfer process works, it may be best to start out with a simple analogy. Imagine a school where a class is trying to elect a committee. Any student who wishes to run stands at the front of the class and the other students vote for their favorite candidates by standing beside them. Students standing almost alone next to their candidate will soon discover that this person has no chance of being elected and move to another candidate of their choice to help him or her get elected. Some of the students standing next to a very popular candidate may realize that this person has more than enough support to win, and decide to go stand next to another student that they would also like to see on the committee. In the end, after all of this shuffling around, most students would be standing next to candidates that will be elected, which is the ultimate point of this process.

 

So does PR need several votes?

 

Not going to shout you down!

 

No, only one vote is held. In that vote you select not just your preferred winner, but also your other preferrences. So you for example might select:

1st) BNP

2nd) UKIP

3rd) Tory

 

 

'Party A' gets more first choice votes than 'Party B', but neither party gets enough first choice votes to pass the threshold for gaining a seat. The second choice votes are now added in, and 'Party B' gets more second choice votes than 'Party A', enough for 'Pary B' to win a seat (despite not winning enough first choice votes).

 

Basically, your second and third choice votes can also change the result.

[dune]

Looking at it for PR to work you'd need a South East region, South West, E Mids, W Mids etc etc. Surely this system takes away having a truely local representative in parliament?

[Thedelldays]

for a general election...it should be nationwide..just vote for the leader of the party (which is what people do I guess)

 

the one with the most, wins...simple

[dune]

Not going to shout you down!

 

No, only one vote is held. In that vote you select not just your preferred winner, but also your other preferrences. So you for example might select:

1st) BNP

2nd) UKIP

3rd) Tory

 

 

'Party A' gets more first choice votes than 'Party B', but neither party gets enough first choice votes to pass the threshold for gaining a seat. The second choice votes are now added in, and 'Party B' gets more second choice votes than 'Party A', enough for 'Pary B' to win a seat (despite not winning enough first choice votes).

 

Basically, your second and third choice votes can also change the result.

 

I see so i'd probably just vote BNP because any other vote would dilute the vote i want?

[Johnny Bognor]

I'll give you that, it does sound like nonsense.

 

When a certain candidate receives enough votes to meet the quota to gain a seat, the remaining surplus votes are transferred to the next preference on electors ballot papers.

 

Sorry, not trying to be patronising at all - just set it out as simply as I can.

 

 

I understand the basics of STV, but there are some parts with which I am not clear.

 

Say I vote for candidate X, he needs 2500 votes to win, but actually gets 3000 votes. This extra 500 (or wasted votes) then go to the next candidate. This to me seems absurd, as you could have the following scenario:

 

Party A gets 3000 votes, so 500 then get redistributed. On what gounds do they get redistributed as there may be many different second choices? Would my vote be counted as one contributing to my elected choice or would this be reallocated (against my will)....and who decides this? I guess the option is that my 'wasted vote' could automatically go to the second most popular candidate, who was not necessarily one of my choosing. This would not be PR, it would be proportional misrepresentation.

 

So the question I have, is do you have to rank all of the candidates?

i.e. If there are 8 candidates, can I opt for only the one that I like and therefore my votes won't be given to someone who I oppose?

Edited 20 April, 2010 by Johnny Bognor

[stevegrant]

I understand the basics of STV, but there are some parts with which I am not clear.

 

Say I vote for candidate X, he needs 2500 votes to win, but actually gets 3000 votes. This extra 500 (or wasted votes) then go to the next candidate. This to me seems absurd, as you could have the following scenario:

 

Party A gets 3000 votes, so 500 then get redistributed. On what gounds do they get redistributed as there may be many different second choices? The only option is that my 'wasted vote' could automatically go to the second most popular candidate, who was not necessarily one of my choosing.

Looking at the graphic above, I don't think that's how it works.

 

If a candidate polls enough first-choice votes to win the seat outright, they do so and that's it.

 

If no candidate has reached the winning threshold, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated from the process and all first-choice votes for that candidate are put back in the system - the second-choice votes from those votes only are then allocated, to see if that then gives any candidate enough votes to win. If not, the candidate with the next lowest number of votes is eliminated, etc etc.

 

I think...

[Joensuu]

Herein lies the weakness of PR.

 

The bigger the region of scope, the more the parties are able to guarantee certain MPs get their seats (unless we can find a way of determining the order in which MPs gain seats within a party?). I.e. if the public were to vote on whether John Prescott should be allowed in parliament there would be resounding 'No', but unfortunately under neither the existing system nor PR can we stop him being ushered in...

 

The smaller the region of scope, the less proportional the system is. If it used the current constituencies it would produce essentially the same results as the current system.

[dune]

I understand the basics of STV, but there are some parts with which I am not clear.

 

Say I vote for candidate X, he needs 2500 votes to win, but actually gets 3000 votes. This extra 500 (or wasted votes) then go to the next candidate. This to me seems absurd, as you could have the following scenario:

 

Party A gets 3000 votes, so 500 then get redistributed. On what gounds do they get redistributed as there may be many different second choices? Would my vote be counted as one contributing to my elected choice or would this be reallocated (against my will)....and who decides this? I guess the option is that my 'wasted vote' could automatically go to the second most popular candidate, who was not necessarily one of my choosing. This would not be PR, it would be proportional misrepresentation.

 

So the question I have, is do you have to rank all of the candidates?

i.e. If there are 8 candidates, can I opt for only the one that I like and therefore my votes won't be given to someone who I oppose?

 

You've lost me here.

 

This sounds completely crackers. 1 vote for 1 party is the common sense way, why the need to jot down a list? Surely for each region you assign say 10 seats. 10% wins a seat. What's so wrong about a simple system like this?

[Joensuu]

I see so i'd probably just vote BNP because any other vote would dilute the vote i want?

 

Only if you objected to all the other partys equally!

 

Otherwise, if the BNP don't secure enough first choice votes, you might find that Respect win just enough second choice votes to beat the UKIP to the seat... Had you voted UKIP as your second choice you might have given the seat to UKIP instead of Respect...

[dune]

Looking at the graphic above, I don't think that's how it works.

 

If a candidate polls enough first-choice votes to win the seat outright, they do so and that's it.

 

If no candidate has reached the winning threshold, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated from the process and all first-choice votes for that candidate are put back in the system - the second-choice votes from those votes only are then allocated, to see if that then gives any candidate enough votes to win. If not, the candidate with the next lowest number of votes is eliminated, etc etc.

 

I think...

 

I can just see it now. Are they going bring Lancelot and Guinever out get Draw Master John Willan to make sure all the balls are present and correct. **** it let's go the whole hog and get Dale Winton to announce the results.

 

In short this is a bonkers idea from a bonkers party.

[dune]

I'll give you that, it does sound like nonsense.

 

If it barks like a dog and looks like a dog it's a dog.

[Johnny Bognor]

Will we get a referrendum on electoral form, similar to the one we had on Europe in the last parliament?

[dune]

So what happens to local representation in parliament under this system?

 

What are the regions that the Liberals propose?

 

Isn't this alienating politics further from the people?

[benjii]

Nah, it's good.

[dune]

Nah, it's good.

 

Is it good that the Welsh nationalists and Scottish nationalists would be king makers in coalitions and would get preferenential treatment for their "countries" over and above what we get in England?

[toofarnorth]

You've lost me here.

 

This sounds completely crackers. 1 vote for 1 party is the common sense way, why the need to jot down a list? Surely for each region you assign say 10 seats. 10% wins a seat. What's so wrong about a simple system like this?

 

I barely want to vote for one let alone 3.

[badgerx16]

Is it good that the Welsh nationalists and Scottish nationalists would be king makers in coalitions and would get preferenential treatment for their "countries" over and above what we get in England?

Not with a Lib/Lab coalition they wouldn't be.

[Lord Duckhunter]

Is it good that the Welsh nationalists and Scottish nationalists would be king makers in coalitions and would get preferenential treatment for their "countries" over and above what we get in England?

 

They've got that already.

 

Why have we a devolved parliament in Scotland but not England? When talking about reform, let's look at the total package, not just the bits that are best for Lib/Dems and Labour.

 

Would it have been fair if Mrs Thatch had set up an English Parliament and not a Scottish one. What would the outcome have been if English MP's could vote on Scottish health matters, but Scotts couldn't vote on English health matters.

 

 

From a personal point of view, T think we need to maintain a link with a constituency style of Govt. Party lists are completely and utterly a no no as far as I'm concerned. The sight of Michael Portillo (who I greatly admire) being kicked out, was a very powerful message and showed the constituency based system at its best.There are constituency based PR systems that can be used.

 

The Electrol Reform Society explains all the different systems and their pros and cons.

 

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/votingsystems/systems2.htm#AV

[dune]

Not with a Lib/Lab coalition they wouldn't be.

 

Well I think this is what would happen and hope It would happen too. The public would then see both parties (liberals and labour) as one and the same and the choice would be beween them on one side and the Conservatives on the other. Effectively you'd be back to a two party system with Tories pehaps allying with Unionist parties from NI and UKIP which would do well. Under these cisumstances there would be a real choice between left and right. But there will be times when Welsh and Scottish Nationalists will be needed and that is not a good thing.

Edited 20 April, 2010 by dune

[Joensuu]

Well I think this is what would happen and hope It would happen too. The public would then see both parties (liberals and labour) as one and the same and the choice would be beween them on one side and the Conservatives on the other. Effectively you'd be back to a two party system with Tories pehaps allying with Unionist parties from NI and UKIP which would do well. Under these cisumstances there would be a real choice between left and right. But there will be times when Welsh and Scottish Nationalists will be needed and that is not a good thing.

 

Fortunately the two parties would remain distinct, you'd instead get more diversity of opinion. I for one don't want a choice between left and right. I want to be able to select a liberal government without any authoritarian tendancies.

[benjii]

Is it good that the Welsh nationalists and Scottish nationalists would be king makers in coalitions and would get preferenential treatment for their "countries" over and above what we get in England?

 

Give them what they want and let them go off on their own if that happened. I don't see why a couple of tiny little countries like those should stop the English form having a fair parliamentary system.

[Saintandy666]

By the way, multi member constituencies make sense. I am talking not about massive constituencies like say the whole of the south east or something, but something like Hampshire being a constituency or maybe even just South Hampshire. This would mean there are several MPs, probably from different parties representing the same people. Why is this good?

 

Under the current system, if one MP from say Labour gets 40% and one MP from say the Lib Dems gets 39%, the large proportion of people who voted Lib Dems loose their representation. It also means there is more likely to be someone in your constituency who is sympathetic to your problems.

[Thedelldays]

apparently, foreign students are able to vote once they have been here for 12 months..

 

erm...odd

[buctootim]

By the way, multi member constituencies make sense. I am talking not about massive constituencies like say the whole of the south east or something, but something like Hampshire being a constituency or maybe even just South Hampshire. This would mean there are several MPs, probably from different parties representing the same people. Why is this good?

 

Under the current system, if one MP from say Labour gets 40% and one MP from say the Lib Dems gets 39%, the large proportion of people who voted Lib Dems loose their representation. It also means there is more likely to be someone in your constituency who is sympathetic to your problems.

 

Thats the system I'd go for. Still not perfect, but a massive improvement on first past the post.

[badgerx16]

apparently, foreign students are able to vote once they have been here for 12 months..

 

erm...odd

Erm, why ?

 

And before we get all Daily Hail about this, this is what the Electoral Commission says

 

http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/who_can_register_to_vote.aspx

[Thedelldays]

Erm, why ?

 

And before we get all Daily Hail about this, this is what the Electoral Commission says

 

http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/who_can_register_to_vote.aspx

call me daft, but I would rather a student who comes over did not vote after being here for as little as 12 months...

 

that is just my opinion

[norwaysaint]

We have PR here, the main result is that every government is a coalition. Nobody can get a big enough majority to take control otherwise, so the smaller/medium size parties pimp themselves around a bit.

Often they can make pretty big demands to get another party in as well. For example Høyre (the conservatives) had to bring in The Christian Democrats a while back to get power. Despit being smaller, the Christian Democrats insisted on and got their man in as prime minister, twice.

Now we've got Labour, the socialist left and the centre party working together. Luckily for now, nobody wants to work with the hard right.

 

We're divided up into counties and each county gets a certain number of seats depending on size. So my county gets 14 or 15 MPs decided by how many votes each party got. There are then 19 "levelling seats" given out across the country to make up for any unfairness of numbers of MPs in relation to percentage of votes.

 

I think.

[trousers]

for a general election...it should be nationwide..just vote for the leader of the party (which is what people do I guess)

 

the one with the most, wins...simple

 

That works for me.

 

And then simply dish out the MPs around the country to represent those areas where they allign with the majority party vote in a given area.

 

Much more agile than this current rigid and disjointed system.

[dune]

We have PR here, the main result is that every government is a coalition. Nobody can get a big enough majority to take control otherwise, so the smaller/medium size parties pimp themselves around a bit.

Often they can make pretty big demands to get another party in as well. For example Høyre (the conservatives) had to bring in The Christian Democrats a while back to get power. Despit being smaller, the Christian Democrats insisted on and got their man in as prime minister, twice.

Now we've got Labour, the socialist left and the centre party working together. Luckily for now, nobody wants to work with the hard right.

 

We're divided up into counties and each county gets a certain number of seats depending on size. So my county gets 14 or 15 MPs decided by how many votes each party got. There are then 19 "levelling seats" given out across the country to make up for any unfairness of numbers of MPs in relation to percentage of votes.

 

I think.

 

Belgiums coalition governments has now collapsed. It just goes show how well hung parliaments work in Europe.

 

I'll give you a guradian link because if i'd given the Daily Mail or Daily Express story clearly it would be untrue.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/22/belgian-government-collapses-party-quits

[Joensuu]

Belgiums coalition governments has now collapsed. It just goes show how well hung parliaments work in Europe.

 

I'll give you a guradian link because if i'd given the Daily Mail or Daily Express story clearly it would be untrue.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/22/belgian-government-collapses-party-quits

 

Nice work Dune, a creditable source for once.

 

So a centre right coalition, which has been trying to pass a nasty peice of anti-muslim law, has collapsed because one of the parties grew a concience and realised it was very much the wrong thing to do... thank goodness for coalitions (wonder what would have happened in 2003 had Blair been in a coalition, would Iraq have been avoided I wonder?).

 

Sounds to me like coalitions can help avoid extreme laws being passed...

[pedg]

Belgiums coalition governments has now collapsed. It just goes show how well hung parliaments work in Europe.

 

I'll give you a guradian link because if i'd given the Daily Mail or Daily Express story clearly it would be untrue.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/22/belgian-government-collapses-party-quits

 

As also it says somewhere else in the guardian there are only a few places in the world which still use first past the past including the paragon on economic stability Greece. Strangely stable coalition government does not make the same front page story as the occasional collapsing one.

 

Coalitions almost always have problems when one large group needs the support of one or more considerably smaller groups to survive. In the case of the UK however its looking more and more likely that any coalition will have to involve 2 of the 3 major parties (in reality LD/Con or LD/Lab). That's to say that given the current polls neither Con or Lab would be able to get enough smaller party (e.g. SNP) to form a majority. If that is the case then I think a coalition of just two relatively equal (in terms of votes anyway) parties will be more stable.

[dune]

Nice work Dune, a creditable source for once.

 

So a centre right coalition, which has been trying to pass a nasty peice of anti-muslim law, has collapsed because one of the parties grew a concience and realised it was very much the wrong thing to do... thank goodness for coalitions (wonder what would have happened in 2003 had Blair been in a coalition, would Iraq have been avoided I wonder?).

 

Sounds to me like coalitions can help avoid extreme laws being passed...

 

The collapse is all about the division between the Flemish and French speaking elements of a non country. Nigel Farage says it like it is.

 

[pedg]

Nigel Farage says it like it is.

 

When viewed from his own unique version of reality....

[Joensuu]

Can't access Youtube at work I'm afraid Dune.

 

Aware that there is a huge division in Belgium based on language. It almost split the country in 2007. This might have underpinned the split. Notheless, the coalition has prevented (for now) some nasty legislation being passed, so can only be a good thing.

[dune]

Can't access Youtube at work I'm afraid Dune.

 

Aware that there is a huge division in Belgium based on language. It almost split the country in 2007. This might have underpinned the split. Notheless, the coalition has prevented (for now) some nasty legislation being passed, so can only be a good thing.

 

President Sarkozy wants it banned in France too.

[Joensuu]

President Sarkozy wants it banned in France too.

 

Says it all..

[TopGun]

Here's a good explanation from Jeremy Vine about why possible LD votes won't translate into seats under our First Past the Post system.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8641361.stm

[Yeovil Saint]

You've lost me here.

 

This sounds completely crackers. 1 vote for 1 party is the common sense way, why the need to jot down a list? Surely for each region you assign say 10 seats. 10% wins a seat. What's so wrong about a simple system like this?

 

There's nothing wrong with such a system and it's already used for European Parliament elections here.

 

In the South East Region there were 10 seats available

Conservatives 34.8% (4 seats)

UKIP 18.8% (2 seats)

Lib Dem 14.1% (2 seats)

Green 11.6% (1 seat)

Labour 8.2% (1 seat)

BNP 4.4% (0 seats)

 

But there's two bad points to such a system, first is the local representation, you have 10 MEPs, which one do you contact if you have a problem? Second is say you don't want Daniel Hannan (who was 1st on the Tory list) to be elected, the answer is basically tough, if the Tories got about 7% of the vote then they probably get Hannan elected, 9.1% would guarantee it. I wouldn't make it a partisan point though, Peter Skinner was top of the Labour list, even as badly as Labour did, he's still got a seat in Brussels.

 

In fact of the 11 MEPs that South East England elected in the first PR Euro Elections, 6 are still in office, 3 have been replaced by colleagues from the same party, 1 lost out when the representation was reduced from 11 to 10 and only 1 seat has changed hands.