With a hung parliament looming and the most likely out come being a coalition government with the Lib Dems being the king makers, what will the Lib Dems expect for their support? Gordon Brown has already offered the Alternative Vote System, which isn’t a proportional representation form of voting system and is unlikely to be […]
Continue Reading Proportional Representation : The Single Transferable Vote
All of these proposed “reforms” are just the political parties jockying for position. For example, the only reason ther Lib Dems want proportional representation is to grab more seats. None of them are motivated by a desire to give more power to the people or to make government more representative of the people.
“Government without the vote is more or less a form of tyranny. Government with the vote is more or less representative according to the extent to which the vote is given.” (Emmeline Pankhurst, 1908)
25% of our population (under 18) has no vote and is not represented in elections. That is unfair and undemocratic and it needs to change.
Proxy voting should be extended so that all people are represented regardless of age and capacity. Parents should vote on behalf of their children, and carers should vote on behalf of relatives suffering from Alzheimer’s Syndrome and other conditions.
Lib Dems want proportional representation is to grab more seats
There’s a reason why under 18’s are not allowed to vote and it’s the same reason why they’re not allowed to drink either. Voting is a responsibility. To allow children who haven’t fully matured into self aware responsible adults (and one could argue that most 18 year olds don’t even manage that) a say on who runs the country would be irresponsible.
As for extending the proxy system to allow guardians to vote on behalf of others that would be a misappropriation of the system. It would just be handing extra votes to individuals with no guarantee that those votes are being made according to the opinions of the original owner of the vote.
I for one wouldn’t agree to handing my vote over to my parents as I know that my vote is likely different to theirs.
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I disagree with the claim that 16 is too young to vote. At 16 a person is deemed mature enough to serve their country, why are they not mature enough how to vote? There is a very important issue that no party can claim true legitimacy on, and that’s the issue of further and higher education. Why shouldn’t a 16 year old not have a say in something which greatly affects their future?
As for STV, even if there’s an ulterior motive behind it, the result would still be more democratic. Yes, there’d be a possibility of more fringe parties gaining seats, but if they get votes surely they deserve representation? Furthermore, there’d undoubtedly be their dialectically opposed counterparts (socially, economically, or both) represented too. As for “bargaining”, is that really a bad thing? It’d prevent things like Labour’s fast erosion of civil liberties, or Conservative’s rapid and counter-productive privatisation.
As far as complexity goes, the act of ranking isn’t THAT complex. Granted, the intricacies of the system may be harder to grasp, but ANY voting system becomes more complex when the mechanics are examined, as opposed to the actual act of voting.
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It’s a good system if one can’t make ones mind up who to vote for as it will be transfered anyway! somethings just don’t run well on a comity – like countries, they flounder around with no clear mandate as everyone argues and discusses instead of governing, see the current news, all talk and no action! Even worse under STV/PR!
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“At 16 a person is deemed mature enough to serve their country, why are they not mature enough how to vote?”
Perhaps it’s the other way round – they shouldn’t be deemed mature enough to serve their country, because they’re not old enough to vote.
True, but that’s life. PR will come and when it does it needs a 10, maybe 20 year, transition period where we explore the best system for the UK. That means starting with ATV. It is important to get the balance between a fair distribution of MPs and having your own MP.
Never should anyone be allowed to vote on behalf of anyone else. This is an invitation to corruption. Compulsory voting, as in Australia and Brazil, is another matter. Personally, I think this is one area where people should be forced to be free.
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I note that the lib dems are proposing extending the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds too.
Great!? So if I vote for someone and they don’t get the numbers required my vote then goes to someone else I didn’t vote for until eventually someone is voted in!!! Unlike others I can actually make my mind up and only vote for one candidate closest to my personal views. How is passing my vote on to another candidate a fairer system than we have now?? If I vote for my chosen candidate and they don’t get in then thats just how it is – we don’t all get what we want – I certainly don’t want to ‘support’ any other candidates!
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Although some minority political parties may get some influence in government, they will not get total control. Our present system allows a political party which can get as little as 27% of the vote to have total control over the majority 73% who rejected it. Under First Past The Post, our present system, when politicians talk about “majorities” they are actually talking about totally fake majorities – as an example my current MP polled some 30% of the vote, yet he speaks of a “majority” (the majority actually rejected him). This distortion of the popular vote suits politicians, but I would suggest that it is as fraudulent as all the bogus expense claims which MPs of ALL parties have been claiming. I would suggest that our current system has bred complacency, corruption and dishonesty on a grand scale – it disenfranchises millions of people and deprives us of a real democracy It urgently needs to be changed.
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Agreed! I just do not understand how anyone who believes in democracy can justify the current system. Only about 190 of the new MPs polled over 50% of the votes cast and therefore considerably less than a third of those who voted will be represented by an MP of their choice. I believe that those who do not vote should not be taken into consideration – though I accept that a small proportion of these could not vote for valid reasons and probably significant numbers in ‘safe’ seats do not vote because they cannot see the point. I am sure that there would be a higher turnout if people thought that every vote counted.
By my reckoning, if the seats had been simply proportionally distributed the outcome would have been:-
Cons – 225; Lab – 181; LibDem – 144; Others – 74
as opposed to:-
Cons – 306; Lab – 258; LibDem – 57; Others – 28!
How undemocratic is that!
Incidentally, to give a breakdown of a few of the ‘Others’, we would have had 6 Green, 11 SNP, 4 Plaid, 19 UKIP, 12 BNP.
Now you and I may not like BNP or UKIP or any of the above but in a true, strong and assured Democracy can we deny that proportion of the population representation? I would suggest thet if we had a more representative and accountable parliament there would be less likelihood of the ‘protest’voting that tends to spawn these small parties. What is more, how many of you can honestly say thet there were not some aspects of all these party’s manifestos that you did not have some sympathy with?
Bring on change asap. It seems to work alsmost everywhere else in the EU and many democracies around the world. Sorry to be so wordy but I really care about this.
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My understanding of the single transferable vote system would not result in the numbers you’ve posted. I didn’t check, but assume you’ve looked at the popular vote % and divided that into the number of MPs (650).
STV doesn’t work that way.
If for example the BNP gained 5% countrywide they’d probably gain zero seats, since there’s a certain % (depending on the exact system used) to achieve a seat. Each constituency is different, but gaining a seat on 5% 1st choice votes is highly unlikely.
Picture a new constituency under STV where 3 seats are available, if there’s 6 candidates and the BNP had just 5% of 1st choice votes, it’s highly unlikely they’ll gain enough votes to gain a seat.
So the % of the popular vote isn’t as important as you might think in STV. Basically there needs to be a certain level of support in an area to get a seat, if a party has 5% countrywide they will not achieve 5% of the seats, they might get 0%.
What STV helps is parties like the Lib Dems that though not as popular as Labour and Conservative countrywide, they do have enough support (around 20%) countrywide to gain 2nd and 3rd seats in an area. So you might have a 3 seats constituency with 2 Conservative MPs and 1 Lib Dem or another with one Labour, one Conservative and one Lib Dem, really all depends on the local support for each party and which system is used.
I’m FAR from an expert on proportional representation/STV, but it does sound like a much better system than the first past the post system when there’s significant support for more than two parties countrywide.
David
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Harry,
I on the other hand, understand the basis of our parliamentary system – it is parliamentary representation. Let me explain.
When I cast my vote, I was NOT voting for PM or for the whole nation – I was voting for a local representative. The representative with the largest bloc of support wins (“simples!”).
It is the makeup & expressed will of PARLIAMENT that decides the Prime minister (subject of course, to the invitation of the Monarch).
There have been several times in the last 100 years that parliamentary parties have been split in who they chose to support during a parliament. David Lloyd George for example, at one time lost many of his liberal colleagues to opposition, but enjoyed wide support amongst conservatives (who have also split in the past, as have Labour – even to this day there is still Socialist Labour & another small Labour “flavour” out there).
It is only because in the post-war period, the big parties have held together in large part, that we are lulled into thinking that a vote for a local candidate wearing a particular badge is anything more than a vote for him or her. The electorate has little or NO CONTROL over a supposed monolithic national party; all you & I can hold to account is our MP. If we don’t like the way they act in parliament, we vote them out at the next election!!!
Our present FTTP system means there is a clear representative mandate that allows any number of candidates to put up in every constituency of our land. It also allows voters the freedom to be engaged, apathetic, or even tactical(!). It has been pointed out elsewhere that if the non-voters all voted, there would be no safe seats at all!
But more importantly, under this system a parliamentarian is free, and can in theory drop the party whip & support whoever (s)he pleases – as long as he remembers he is “being framed” if he does something stupid, & will have to face his electorate again!
End the tinkering talk, & let’s finish up House of Lord’s reform instead.
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The author of this article has said the STV system is “complicated”. As it is successfully used by many countries around the world to suggest the British electorate can’t understand it is rather insulting. The STV system of Proportional Representation isn’t rocket science, it prevents one party after getting only 30% of the vote having the distorted effect of a huge parliamentary “majority”, and it enables proper checks and balances on governments and helps to prevent them from ignoring overwhelming public opinion – an example would most probably have been the Iraq War. It would bring our arrogant politicians down off their self-imposed pedestals and make them listen to the ordinary much more than they do at present.
Once we have PR in the House of Commons we can then start on the totally unelected, half hereditary and half appointed, House of so-called Lord.
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I didn’t mean the electorate actually using STV is complicated, I meant the system is complicated.
A commenter above has misunderstood how STV works in believing we’d get 12 BNP MPs when under STV it could still be zero if the BNP only gain below 5% of the popular vote.
It’s not exactly rocket science to teach the British electorate the difference between putting an X against your party of choice and ranking the candidates in order of preference 1, 2, 3 etc…
David
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STV is used for elections to the Church of England’s General Synod : but some of that body’s decisions have been regretted by many!
An improvement in the education system would be needed to ensure sufficient levels of literacy and numeracy for people to participate in this system in an informed way.
It is a fairer system, ensuring that people’s views are more accurately reflected in their elected MP’s/