What right about UK's voting system

What’s right about our voting system is that it requires local depth of support rather than breadth, as it relies entirely on persuading electors in generally quite small areas to vote for you in order to win a seat.

This generally prevents cranks from gaining undue influence by forming and winning representation for niche parties with limited policy platforms and incentivises the politically ambitious to pursue their interests through one of a limited number of ‘broad church’ parties (mostly Labour and Tory) where they may contribute to internal party debate but not dominate it. If you personally have to persuade people face to face to support you, you don’t as easily get away with being a fringe nutter.

In proportional systems there is less incentive for people to work within parties with broad appeal either on the left or the right. It is much easier to set up your own fringe group, knowing that no party will get an outright majority and whichever one is the largest is going to have to make concessions to your bonkers agenda in order to secure your support for theirs. If you think I’m overstating it, consider how much bat-crap the SNP/Scottish Greens coalition inflicted on Scotland. It produced an unworkable bottle deposit-return scheme that has cost a fortune to develop whilst never actually going live, it threatened to decimate the Scottish fishing industry by declaring no-go zones in waters depended upon by some of our most fragile fishing communities, and it fought - and lost - all the way to the Supreme Court *twice* because of its insane gender identity policies.

[Sephiroth]

I'm also not in favour of proportional representation because it is a recipe for political chaos.

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

I'm also not in favour of proportional representation because it is a recipe for political chaos.

C.f. Germany right now, where the only viable candidate for Chancellor still required 2 votes and hours of horse trading to get elected today, even after weeks of negotiations putting his coalition together.

And to cap it all, the coalition’s legislative plan will not be anything voters voted for, but whatever they cobbled together behind closed doors after the election. Which means they can’t be judged against a manifesto or held to account in any meaningful way at the next election.

[tweetiepooh]

I don't like PR at a large level as it tends to the least unpopular rather than the most popular. It sort of can work at a more local or specialised level where differences are lesser.
I do like our unelected, reforming, second house of unpaid peers. Being unelected means that they don't have to worry about being unpopular so can hold the elected once to account and ensure proposed legislation is fit for purpose (at least that is what they are supposed to do), and the hereditary peers provided that consistency where PM's can't (eventually) stuff the house with peers they like.
I think that whatever system we have, some group will be (or feel to be) disadvantaged.


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Bacon - ideally thick middle cut (back and streaky), dry cure and smoked cooked with some crisp. I prefer wholemeal bread but white is OK but needs to be good quality and brown sauce. (Bacon, onion and cheese all melted in ciabatta bread - mmm! Cheese melted not the bacon and onion!)

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by tweetiepooh

I don't like PR at a large level as it tends to the least unpopular rather than the most popular. It sort of can work at a more local or specialised level where differences are lesser.
I do like our unelected, reforming, second house of unpaid peers. Being unelected means that they don't have to worry about being unpopular so can hold the elected once to account and ensure proposed legislation is fit for purpose (at least that is what they are supposed to do), and the hereditary peers provided that consistency where PM's can't (eventually) stuff the house with peers they like.
I think that whatever system we have, some group will be (or feel to be) disadvantaged.


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Bacon - ideally thick middle cut (back and streaky), dry cure and smoked cooked with some crisp. I prefer wholemeal bread but white is OK but needs to be good quality and brown sauce. (Bacon, onion and cheese all melted in ciabatta bread - mmm! Cheese melted not the bacon and onion!)

I agree. It's important to have scrutiny by people who don't have to worry about keeping the electorate happy.

There is also the wisdom and experience that older people usually obtain with age. I do think that the House of Lords should be drawn from more varied people though and Prime Ministers shouldn't be able to stuff it full of their own party supporters and use it to reward people, regardless of their suitability.

[Itshim]

Simply but also could well be hell on earth. To get elected you need to get 50.01% of the total available vote

Originally Posted by Itshim

Simply but also could well be hell on earth. To get elected you need to get 50.01% of the total available vote

PR systems are rarely that accurate, and in fact even to get reasonably close to accurate you can end up with serious over-representation in your legislature. The Scottish Parliament has one MSP for every 42,000 constituents because on top of the 73 constituency MSPs there are a further 56 drawn from regional lists, with seats allocated so as to make the representation more proportionate to the overall vote.

For comparison, Westminster has 650 MPs, or one for every 106,000 constituents on average.

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by Chris

PR systems are rarely that accurate, and in fact even to get reasonably close to accurate you can end up with serious over-representation in your legislature. The Scottish Parliament has one MSP for every 42,000 constituents because on top of the 73 constituency MSPs there are a further 56 drawn from regional lists, with seats allocated so as to make the representation more proportionate to the overall vote.

For comparison, Westminster has 650 MPs, or one for every 106,000 constituents on average.

Sorry but I don't see what I said as pr . Possibly use transferable vote

Transferable vote is PR…

https://electoral-reform.org.uk/voti...sferable-vote/

[Sephiroth]

Surely Transferable Vote is first past the post - with a >50% result.

Originally Posted by Itshim

Sorry but I don't see what I said as pr . Possibly use transferable vote

Ah right, AV like the system we had a referendum on?

The problem is, that isn’t remotely proportional for a parliamentary election. It’s proportional-ish if you’re just electing one person, like a president, but if your aim is for a national parliament to accurately reflect the votes of the nation it doesn’t work, because the vote is only transferable within an individual constituency.

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Surely Transferable Vote is first past the post - with a >50% result.

If you clicked the link, you would have read it’s not that simple…

What is the Single Transferable Vote?
The Single Transferable Vote (STV) is a form of proportional representation created in Britain. Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Malta, Scotland and Australia use this system for some or all of their elections. In America, it is often referred to as ‘ranked-choice voting in multi-member seats’, in Australia they call it ‘Hare-Clark’.

How does the Single Transferable Vote system work?
Rather than one person representing everyone in a small area, bigger areas elect a small group of representatives, such as 4 or 5. These representatives reflect the diversity of opinions in the area.

On election day, voters number the candidates on their ballot paper. Their favourite as number one, their second favourite number two, and so on. Voters can put numbers next to as many or as few candidates as they like. Parties will often stand more than one candidate in each area.

How it’s counted
To get elected, a candidate needs a set amount of votes, known as the quota. The people counting the votes work out the quota based on the number of vacancies and the number of votes cast.

Each voter has one vote. Once the counting has finished, any candidate who has more number ones than the quota is elected. But, rather than ignore extra votes a candidate received after the amount they need to win, these votes move to each voter’s second favourite candidate.

If no one reaches the quota, then the people counting the vote remove the least popular candidate. People who voted for them have their votes moved to their second favourite candidate. This process continues until every vacancy is filled.

The numbers you wrote on the ballot paper tell the people counting to move your vote if your favourite candidate has enough votes already or stands no chance of winning.

Yes, Single Transferable Vote and Alternative Vote are not the same thing.

STV has multi-member, region-sized constituencies and is proportional within each region. Depending on the size of the constituencies and the numbers of MPs elected within each, it is capable of being reasonably proportional across the country.

AV transfers votes between individual candidates within single-member constituencies. It is reasonably proportional within an individual constituency but can be quite perversely non-proportional across an electorate as a whole.

STV is used to elect councils in Scotland. AV was the subject of a referendum for the Westminster parliament but was rejected. The Senedd and Holyrood use a hybrid system with separate votes for a single-member constituency, and regional lists to create proportionality across regions by adding additional members, taking into account the number of seats a party already won in the constituency ballot.

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by Chris

Ah right, AV like the system we had a referendum on?

The problem is, that isn’t remotely proportional for a parliamentary election. It’s proportional-ish if you’re just electing one person, like a president, but if your aim is for a national parliament to accurately reflect the votes of the nation it doesn’t work, because the vote is only transferable within an individual constituency.

At least that would reflect the person, that most people in that area wanted. As it stands it unlikely that most wanted the MP they got Hence it would be a start