Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

Let me know where you live and when you're trying to watch TV. I will come round and constantly ring your doorbell and then unplug your TV. And as its a non-violent protest you'll have to respect me and my right to protest.

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

Your house isn't a public area is it? ;)

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

Hardly comparing like with like. A completely pointless analogy.

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

On a strictly proportional basis, this is roughly what the result would have been:

Tories: 234 (on 36.1% of the vote)
Labour: 188 (on 29% of the vote)
Lib Dems: 149 (on 23% of the vote)


However that is not the type of PR favoured by the Lib Dems.

The Lib Dems have not dreamed up "dozens of systems".

The Lib Dems want to see the UK use the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system. This is the same system preferred by the Electoral Reform Society, & also by Conservative Action for Electoral Reform.

More info on the system is here:

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=48

http://www.conservativeelectoralreform.org/STV.htm

---------- Post added at 16:58 ---------- Previous post was at 16:54 ----------

Agreed.

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

The biggest problem with that system is that by and large the public are idiots and asking them to do anything more complex than scrawl an X leads to all manner of issues.

The system was used in the last elections up here and caused over 100,000 spoiled papers (about 1 in 20 of all votes cast)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/com...cle1756280.ece

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

I think this is a little unfair. Having just followed the links, Im not quite clear what STV is. I am not an idiot.

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

As the article states It was not the basics of STV that were at fault it was as highlighted above. In a fair and transparent system it is perfectly comprehensible. Were this not the case, Germany, Greece, Ireland and all the others would now have FPTP. It is very unfair to insult the intelligence of the voters by claiming any thing but FPTP is incomprehensible.

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

That link doesn't really back your point up. The specific problem in 2007 was the use of two different systems of PR, in two different elections (Holyrood and Council) both being held at the same time.

My degree-educated missus (rather more highly qualified academically than me, I should add) made a mess of it herself, getting her Xs and numbers in the wrong place.

I am willing to bet that neither council nor Scottish Parliament elections will suffer anything like the same level of spoilt papers next time round, and the reason will not be that the voting systems are changed - because they aren't being changed - but that the elections are no longer going to be held on the same day.

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

Indeed.

Although the method for counting in an STV election is more complicated than counting in an FPTP election, the actual voting itself is fairly simple:

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/d...20is%20stv.pdf

Marking the candidates in preference using a "1", "2", "3" etc. seems fairly simply to me, even if it isn't as simple as a single "X".

The Republic of Ireland & other countries seem to manage with STV. We could have actually had STV & AV in the UK nearly a hundred years ago if it hadn't been blocked by the House of Lords.


Any change in the voting system would also (should also) surely be accompanied by voter education on how the new system would work: leaflets in the post, stuff on TV/newspapers/etc., clear instructions in polling stations & on ballot papers.

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

14 year old votes in the election: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politi...nd/8670022.stm

Not sure about his political opinions (and dressing like a Tory) but it's a shame as sounds more intelligent that BNP voters and the feckless who can't be bothered to vote.

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

I'm fine with STV my only concern is how it translates to the current constituencies. It would need to be done by borough, county or a similar administrative division and would cause upset among some constituencies - there would be a number of MPs without one or constituencies that have been assigned one.

Overall not a bad idea and not actually massively different from FPTP so long as it's done that way - each of the enlarged constituencies electing directly via FPTP then across the area a 2nd MP being assigned to each of those larger constituencies based on STV results across the administrative area would ensure local accountability and if the electorate weren't happy with who they were assigned a robust process to remove them democratically would be a prerequisite as part of the reform.

As a compromise STV could even be used alongside the current system to elect a second house if election to the Commons via it were so unpalatable.

I must admit the more I think about it the more I like it. It's all kinds of democratic.

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

Just after the election and the following story gets printed in The Sunday Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7120750.ece

Why not last week?? ;)

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

You seem to be thinking of the system used for Holyrood and for the Senedd in Cardiff, but that isn't STV. In the top-up list system used in Wales and Scotland, you elect a representative for a constituency by FPTP, then you clump a number of constituencies together into a region and elect representatives for that region by asking voters to choose a single party via an X. The seats in the region are allocated proportionally, also taking into account the seats already won at constituency level.

It delivers reasonably good proportionality overall, and it retains a close link between a constituency and an individual representative, but the major drawback is the use of a list of candidates drawn up by the Parties to top up at regional level. In practice, what happens is, all the constituency candidates are also on their party's regional list. So even if they don't win their constituency contest, they stand a pretty good chance of getting elected, if they are high enough up their regional list (seats being allocated to the first name on the list, and then on downwards until the allocation for that party in that region is filled).

Under this system, the likes of Jacqui Smith, Neil Hamilton and Lembit Opik are almost impossible to get rid of, no matter how personally unpopular they may have become to their local electorate, because as prominent members of their party they are always going to get a prominent place on their regional list. They lose their constituency seat, but they still get in as a regional top-up.

The only way to mitigate this is to either make the party list open - so that you don't just mark your X for a party, but for a named individual from that party - or else dispense with lists altogether and go for full-blown STV, which gives voters in a given area a list of names and a requirement to rank them in order of preference. This is the system used in local council elections in Scotland, and was a precondition of the LibDem coalition with Labour in Scotland way back when the Parliament was first founded.

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

I get all that, but how does it fit into 650 constituencies? If electing 5 ministers to each constituency you'd need to reduce that to 130 constituencies so there'd need to be some allocation to individual areas in the constituency or a bit of a loss of identity of your representative.

Just a small concern.

Re: 2010 General Election: The Cable Forum Exit Poll
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/elect...tuency/c17.stm

The guy who came last here didn't even vote for himself!