Priti Patel wants more first-past-the-post elections

[Cambus731]

I'm not going to pretend to entirely understand AMS but I remember doing Politics GCE and it did seem to be the most sensible form of PR.
I used to be in favour of First Past the Post, but not anymore.
In reality very few people's votes really matter in FPTP and it does tend to create governments with large majorities,which can the effect of giving the party in power a sense of arrogance. As happened with both Thatcher and to a lesser extent Blair.
People say that PR would create weaker governments, but I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing as it would have a moderating effect on policies. where extreme left or extreme right ideas would have little chance of getting a look in.

 

[GusB]

I'm not going to pretend to entirely understand AMS but I remember doing Politics GCE and it did seem to be the most sensible form of PR.
I used to be in favour of First Past the Post, but not anymore.
In reality very few people's votes really matter in FPTP and it does tend to create governments with large majorities,which can the effect of giving the party in power a sense of arrogance. As happened with both Thatcher and to a lesser extent Blair.
People say that PR would create weaker governments, but I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing as it would have a moderating effect on policies. where extreme left or extreme right ideas would have little chance of getting a look in.

We have two ballot papers. On the constituency paper you vote for an individual candidate and it is counted the same way as they are for Westminster elections - ie, first past the post. On the second, regional, paper you vote for a party (or an individual candidate if they're standing as an independent). The d'Hondt method is used to calculate how the regional seats are allocated, taking into account how many seats each party has already won in the constituency vote. The party lists are pre-determined and the top-ranked candidate(s) will be the ones elected.

 

[notlob.divad]

Additional Member System?


Again I’d point to AMS.

I have just looked it up and apparently not. Here is what it says:

All 460 members are elected by proportional representation, distribution of seats being effected on the basis of the modified Saint-Lague method; parties win seats according to the aggregate vote for their candidates in a constituency, and then allocate them to those with highest totals.
- At least 35 per cent of candidates on party lists must be women and another 35 per cent men.
- There are thresholds for participation in allocation of seats: 5% of the total votes cast for party list; 8% for a coalition list. National minorities' lists are exempt from thresholds requirements.
Vacancies arising between general elections are filled by the individual who is "next-in-line" on the list of the party which formerly held the seat.

http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2255_B.htm
So it is more like the European Parliamentary system, but you put your vote next to an individual on the party list, not just the party itself.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

My thoughts on Priti Patel have evolved from "She gets on my tits but it's nice to have a fellow Keelite in the cabinet" to "Priti Patel really gets on my tits".

Whassat?

 

[ainsworth74]

Whassat?

She is an graduate of Keele University and I assume @mikeg is as well. Hence they are Keelites.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

She is an graduate of Keele University and I assume @mikeg is as well. Hence they are Keelites.

Ah OK thanks

 

[JamesT]

Arguably it's more because it benefits rural states which tend to lean more towards a certain party. After all the Democrats have won the popular vote in every presidential election since 1992 bar one, if it wasn't for the electoral college the Republicans would only have won in 2004 and that probably wouldn't have happened if GWB hadn't become President in 2000 to begin with.

It's supposed to act as a balancing act. Many of the proponents of PR point to the fact you need to get at least half the population onboard, rather than just concentrating on getting your core out and hoping they're bigger than the other guy's core. Likewise with the electoral college, you can't ignore the more rural states and just pitch at the cities which a pure popular vote would tend towards.
Although some states may tend to lean in particular ways, that does change over time. e.g. the Democrats were the party of Southern racists until the 60s when Nixon decided to target those votes.
I'd say if you're going to replace the electoral college, the next system should at least try to provide for the fact the US is a collection of states and a president should be representative of most of them as well as most of the population.

It's noticeable that the most controversial vote of recent times was done on a simple majority over the entire population. Although the counting was done locally which allows politicians to claim things like "Scotland voted to Remain". Possibly something that looks more like the Electoral College and weighted in the votes of the constituent nations of the UK might have been a better idea?

 

[notlob.divad]

It's noticeable that the most controversial vote of recent times was done on a simple majority over the entire population.

There is a false equivalence there. The vote you are referring to was a binary vote. Yes or no. There was no 3rd, 4th or 5th option. General elections in the main are not binary, we thankfully still have multiple choices. (although that is somewhat limited in the US.)
However FPTP just like said referendum has the habit of forcing complex political matters into a binary either/or, which is no good for anyone, and creates the tribal politics of today.

 

[102 fan]

Usually the winning party favours the voting system that put them in power, and the loosing party argues against it, until the opposition gets voted in with the system they wanted changed, then it's quietly forgotten about.

 

[hexagon789]

It's supposed to act as a balancing act. Many of the proponents of PR point to the fact you need to get at least half the population onboard, rather than just concentrating on getting your core out and hoping they're bigger than the other guy's core. Likewise with the electoral college, you can't ignore the more rural states and just pitch at the cities which a pure popular vote would tend towards.
Although some states may tend to lean in particular ways, that does change over time. e.g. the Democrats were the party of Southern racists until the 60s when Nixon decided to target those votes.
I'd say if you're going to replace the electoral college, the next system should at least try to provide for the fact the US is a collection of states and a president should be representative

Personally I don't think that's ideal, every vote should be equal and whomever wins the most votes (ideally a majority, so you'd maybe split over two rounds as in France and others or use ranked preference voting) would win regardless of how many states or electors backed them.

It's noticeable that the most controversial vote of recent times was done on a simple majority over the entire population. Although the counting was done locally which allows politicians to claim things like "Scotland voted to Remain". Possibly something that looks more like the Electoral College and weighted in the votes of the constituent nations of the UK might have been a better idea?

Definitely not, every vote regardless of locality should carry equal weight.

Whatever your opinion of the result of the EU referendum more voted leave than remain and so the UK left, that as I see it is the democratic result of the referendum as should be, as any referendum should be.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

A reminder today that no electoral system is perfect - news of Alex Salmond's new Alba party whose electoral strategy is very clearly to manipulate the Additional Member system used in the Scottish Parliament so as to make it produce an unrepresentative result. From The Guardian

Explaining that the party would only stand candidates on the regional lists, he said that “we wish the SNP well in sweeping the country on the constituency ballot”, but argued that voting for Alba would avoid wasting pro-independence votes. “At the last election there were nearly 1 million wasted SNP votes on the regional list. Only four SNP MSPs were elected in that way. In yesterday’s Survation poll the SNP would elect no regional seats at all from a million votes on the list.”

The point here is that the regional list seats are allocated after taking into account how many seats each party won in the constituency section. The SNP normally virtually sweeps the board in the constituency section, meaning that it already has almost all the seats it requires to match its % of the vote - so it doesn't get allocated many regional seats. Alba will stand only in the regional lists, not in the constituencies, and Alex Salmond is suggesting that people who would normally vote SNP vote for Alba instead in the regional lists. That way Alba - standing on the same independence platform as the SNP - can pick up seats that would normally go to Labour/LibDems/Tories/Greens.

To be fair this is being done without the support of the SNP - but nevertheless as far as I can see it effectively amounts to duplicating the SNP's platform - he's not trying to compete with the SNP: Rather, what Alba are doing is more akin to creating a copy of the SNP for electoral purposes, so that the Alba (=SNP-clone) candidates can be elected by disregarding how many seats the SNP already have in the constituency section. Whatever you think of independence, this can't be good for democracy - it's basically deliberately trying to manipulate the electoral system to make sure that pro-independence MPs are elected in higher numbers than the % of votes they get. I would imagine that if he succeeds, it will basically spell the death-knell of the additional member system as a respected way to produce reasonably representative results.

 

[Gareth]

FPTP isn't perfect, although it's much simpler to understand than some of the fudge halfway house methods we've experimented with in London, Scotland & Wales.

The problem with PR is that you can end up with massive constituencies with a poor link between the electors and the elected. I also hate it when they're massively different sizes, like the EU constituencies were. If we were to go down this path for the House of Commons, I'd prefer PR constituencies with between 3-5 seats in them. It would still favour larger parties but it would still discourage rotten boroughs, whilst ensuring constituencies weren't too big or had representatives elected on very little of the actual vote.

They could pilot this in local elections. Where I live, we have three councillors per ward and elect one each year, with no election in the fourth year. You could just have a 3 seat PR constituency elected every 4 years.

 

[Journeyman]

A reminder today that no electoral system is perfect - news of Alex Salmond's new Alba party whose electoral strategy is very clearly to manipulate the Additional Member system used in the Scottish Parliament so as to make it produce an unrepresentative result. From The Guardian



The point here is that the regional list seats are allocated after taking into account how many seats each party won in the constituency section. The SNP normally virtually sweeps the board in the constituency section, meaning that it already has almost all the seats it requires to match its % of the vote - so it doesn't get allocated many regional seats. Alba will stand only in the regional lists, not in the constituencies, and Alex Salmond is suggesting that people who would normally vote SNP vote for Alba instead in the regional lists. That way Alba - standing on the same independence platform as the SNP - can pick up seats that would normally go to Labour/LibDems/Tories/Greens.

To be fair this is being done without the support of the SNP - but nevertheless as far as I can see it effectively amounts to duplicating the SNP's platform - he's not trying to compete with the SNP: Rather, what Alba are doing is more akin to creating a copy of the SNP for electoral purposes, so that the Alba (=SNP-clone) candidates can be elected by disregarding how many seats the SNP already have in the constituency section. Whatever you think of independence, this can't be good for democracy - it's basically deliberately trying to manipulate the electoral system to make sure that pro-independence MPs are elected in higher numbers than the % of votes they get. I would imagine that if he succeeds, it will basically spell the death-knell of the additional member system as a respected way to produce reasonably representative results.

I'm really, really concerned about this. It's a blatant attempt to game the system, and feels extremely unfair indeed to the significant chunk of the Scottish population that does not want independence. It reduces yet another election in Scotland to being a proxy referendum and ignores every single other political issue that affects us right now. It means there will be an unrepresentative pro-indy landslide, and those of us who think independence will be a disaster will be ignored yet again.

I'm English and have lived in Scotland for eleven years. I'm starting to have serious concerns about whether I want to stay here.

 

[xotGD]

For me, I would prefer multi member constituencies elected by d'Hondt for Parliament and local councils. AV when electing to a single role such as a mayor (or elected Head of State).

 

[scotrail158713]

I'm really, really concerned about this. It's a blatant attempt to game the system, and feels extremely unfair indeed to the significant chunk of the Scottish population that does not want independence. It reduces yet another election in Scotland to being a proxy referendum and ignores every single other political issue that affects us right now. It means there will be an unrepresentative pro-indy landslide, and those of us who think independence will be a disaster will be ignored yet again.

I'm English and have lived in Scotland for eleven years. I'm starting to have serious concerns about whether I want to stay here.

I’ve got to agree. As I’ve said previously, I’m generally a fan of AMS as a voting system and find it pretty fair. When I read into this though, I found it frustrating. Although I suppose it’s just the independence supporters doing what the unionists are doing with All for Unity. (Doesn’t make it right though)

Maybe the way forward is to make it compulsory for parties stand in both constituencies and regions? It might not be perfect but would go some way to solving a situation like this.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Maybe the way forward is to make it compulsory for parties stand in both constituencies and regions? It might not be perfect but would go some way to solving a situation like this.

That sounds like a good idea. I'd also suggest that when allocating regional seats, the % should be calculated from each party's combined % in the constituency + regional vote, not the regional vote alone. That would make it harder (although not impossible) to game the system the way Alex Salmond is trying to do.

 

[Cloud Strife]

I’ve got to agree. As I’ve said previously, I’m generally a fan of AMS as a voting system and find it pretty fair. When I read into this though, I found it frustrating. Although I suppose it’s just the independence supporters doing what the unionists are doing with All for Unity. (Doesn’t make it right though)

Maybe the way forward is to make it compulsory for parties stand in both constituencies and regions? It might not be perfect but would go some way to solving a situation like this.

The problem is that the regional elections have evolved as a way for smaller parties to get some representation, so taking that away from them would cause a lot of trouble. It's actually one of the strengths of the Scottish system that parties like the Greens and the SSP were able to make a breakthrough into national politics.

But at the same time, the SNP don't need or want Alba. The Greens are doing a good job as the junior pro-Indy party, whereas Salmond will almost certainly demand unrealistic concessions as his price of support. The Greens are content to pick a headline issue that they want implemented in exchange for their support of the Budget, so we have the benefit of a stable minority government without endless drama. Does anyone believe that Salmond will be content to simply sit by and let the SNP rule without him having a say so?

Having said that, I'm surprised at this point that we haven't seen the creation of two big electoral blocs based on the independence question.

 

[317 forever]

I completely agree with the last point you make here. While I detest UKIP and all it stands for, it is perverse that the views of 3.8m voters are essentially ignored.

At present, under the AMS system that the Scottish Parliament elections use, I essentially have eight representatives. The constituency MSP is SNP and they have one further list MSP. Of the other list MSPs, three are Conservative, two are Labour and we have one Green. The only party without representation is the LibDems. Under this system if there was significant enough support for UKIP (or offshoots thereof) they'd have some sort of representation. I wouldn't like it, but that's democracy.

Likewise, had the European elections still been under FPTP and Scotland had 6 Euro constituencies, it is unlikely that the Brexit party would have won a seat. The good thing about multi-member constituencies is that people can vote for their genuine choice of party with a greater chance of that party having at least 1 candidate elected rather than fearing their vote "wasted".

 

[Lucan]

Not surprising that the Tories want to expand the use of FPTP, as without it they'd not win in anywhere near as many ballots as they do with FPTP.

To be fair I'm sure Labour are quite happy retaining it in many areas as well.

There are implicit assumptions that people would vote in the same way under a different system as they do now (as far as the new system allows them to). I certainly wouldn't.

 

[hexagon789]

There are implicit assumptions that people would vote in the same way under a different system as they do now (as far as the new system allows them to). I certainly wouldn't.

Depends very much on the system employed. Certainly with most PR systems there's no need/point in tactical voting as there may be in a marginal FPTP constituency.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

There are implicit assumptions that people would vote in the same way under a different system as they do now (as far as the new system allows them to). I certainly wouldn't.

I think it's a very fair assumption that some people will vote differently - there's considerable evidence for that too: Partly anecdotal - the numbers of people who say that they would vote for X except that X has no chance of winning in their constituency - and partly from comparing actual election results. Look for example at the Green vote in the Scottish Parliament elections in 2016. They got 0.6% in the constituency vote (where the Greens had no chance of getting seats because it was FPTP), but 6.6% in the regional vote (where voting Green could translate into Green seats). In the general election the following year - held under FPTP - they got 0.2% in Scotland.

 

[Revilo]

FPTP is by far the best voting system. Having worked in poling station, people just don’t understand voting systems other than ‘you vote for the person you want to win’. PR means messy coalitions between parties after the vote whereas FPTP is clear and much more decisive.

 

[XAM2175]

Having worked in poling station, people just don’t understand voting systems other than ‘you vote for the person you want to win’.

Well then, it's a good thing that under a party-list PR system the uninformed punter in the polling booth needn't do anything different to what they do now.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

FPTP is by far the best voting system. Having worked in poling station, people just don’t understand voting systems other than ‘you vote for the person you want to win’. PR means messy coalitions between parties after the vote whereas FPTP is clear and much more decisive.

I'm intrigued there - if it's possible for you to say, have you worked in polling stations in non-FPTP elections and are a lot of people really confused?

I would worry that the danger is, if you use FPTP because (you believe) some people can't understand anything more complicated, then you're denying those people who are more politically aware and happy to do things like vote in different sections or express their 1st/2nd/3rd preferences of the right to do so. It's probably not going to be good for democracy if you design the voting system around the least politically aware people.

Well then, it's a good thing that under a party-list PR system the uninformed punter in the polling booth needn't do anything different to what they do now.

Well, under a lot of systems, they do have to vote twice - in the 'constituency' and the 'list' sections.

 

[notlob.divad]

FPTP is by far the best voting system. Having worked in poling station, people just don’t understand voting systems other than ‘you vote for the person you want to win’.

That tells me more about the electorate than it does about the method the votes are counted.

The biggest problem with FPTP is that most of the time you are not voting 'for the person you want to win' you vote for the party policies, you vote for the leader, you vote against the person you want to loose etc etc.

 

[daodao]

FPTP is by far the best voting system. Having worked in poling station, people just don’t understand voting systems other than ‘you vote for the person you want to win’. PR means messy coalitions between parties after the vote whereas FPTP is clear and much more decisive.

Well said. Just look at the mess following the recent GE in Israel - it looks as if they are going to need a 5th GE there.

More complicated systems, such as the d'Hondt system employed in Scotland, are difficult to understand, and while currently legal, the Green Party and the new Alba party there are gaming the system by just standing for the regional lists. Even if one wanted to retain the additional member system, it would be simpler if electors just had 1 vote and the top up seats were distributed on the basis of the % of the party votes for the constituency seats.

 

[GusB]

Well said. Just look at the mess following the recent GE in Israel - it looks as if they are going to need a 5th GE there.

More complicated systems, such as the d'Hondt system employed in Scotland, are difficult to understand, and while currently legal, the Green Party and the new Alba party there are gaming the system by just standing for the regional lists. Even if one wanted to retain the additional member system, it would be simpler if electors just had 1 vote and the top up seats were distributed on the basis of the % of the party votes for the constituency seats.

It really isn't difficult to understand. You put a cross on one paper and a cross on the other. The instructions are clearly printed on the ballot papers and the polling station staff explain it when they hand you the papers.

If anyone wishes to find out how the results are calculated, there's a big internet thing out there and I've seen newspapers printing guides to how it all works.

It's fairer to smaller parties which have modest support and perhaps cannot afford to stand in all constituencies, or for whom standing in constituencies would be a waste of time.

As far as I'm aware the Greens do contest certain constituencies, but only in areas where they have a concentration of local support.

 

[ainsworth74]

It is surely the height of paternalism to suggest that voters are "too stupid" to understand an electoral system more complicated than FPTP. Plus, such people must think Scots, Germans, Australians, New Zealanders and so on are far smarter than English people considering they all manage varying forms of electoral systems other than FPTP.

But sure lets continue with a system that has perversions like the SNP winning 1.4m votes and getting fifty-six seats whilst UKIP win 3.8m votes and get one seat. I'm sure that's completely healthy and won't eventually tear the country apart. Oh wait...

 

[adrock1976]

FPTP is by far the best voting system. Having worked in poling station, people just don’t understand voting systems other than ‘you vote for the person you want to win’. PR means messy coalitions between parties after the vote whereas FPTP is clear and much more decisive.

A major downside of FPTP for a long time in General Elections is parts of the UK not getting governments that have been voted for. For example, this what I had posted in one of the Brexit threads a long time ago explains the major flaw with FPTP General Elections since 1979 with the following voting patterns and results for Scotland (and similar to my original neck of the woods of the West Midlands, minus SNP as they don't stand candidates outwith Scotland):

1979 - Mainly Labour, got Conservatives

1983 - Mainly Labour, got Conservatives

1987 - Mainly Labour, got Conservatives

1992 - Mainly Labour, got Conservatives (only just, due to a late swing in the day to the Conservatives)

1997 - Mainly Labour, got New Labour (which were not new, and were most certainly not Labour)

2001 - Mainly Labour, got New Labour (which were not new, and were most certainly not Labour)

2005 - Mainly Labour, got New Labour (which were not new, and were most certainly not Labour)

2010 - Mainly Labour (with the only constituency changing hands was my former one of Glasgow North East from Speaker to Labour), got Conservative-Lib Dem coalition

2015 - Overwhelmingly SNP (with 56 out of the 59 constituencies, with the remaining 3 being 1 each to Labour, Conservative, and Lib Dem), got Conservatives (only just, due to errors in the polling methods)

2017 - Mainly SNP (reduced to 41 constituencies), got Conservatives with some support from DUP

2019 - Mainly SNP (increased to 48 constituencies, including the unseating of the Lib Dem leader at the time Jo Swinson. Her lips moved with every lie she told which explains how Swinson lost her seat), got Conservatives


No matter what the voting pattern of Scotland is at General Elections, since 1979, Scotland has not had the government it has voted for. Although I do understand the reasons how Scottish nationalism has become fashionable nowadays, I do not support the SNP's version of independence. I would like to see the whole of Great Britain (assuming Northern Ireland is returned back to the Irish) having progressive federalism, but this topic would be better in a different thread rather than here.

With proportional representation, at least the results would closely reflect the voting patterns, and regions would actually get the government that has been voted for.

 

[Annetts key]

FPTP is by far the best voting system. Having worked in poling station, people just don’t understand voting systems other than ‘you vote for the person you want to win’. PR means messy coalitions between parties after the vote whereas FPTP is clear and much more decisive.

So was the voting for the previous MEP elections held in the U.K. total chaos then? It certainly did not appear to be a problem whenever I voted.

FPTP is by far the worst voting system where the choice is more than a binary one. As it enables minorities in the country to have a majority in the elected chamber. There is no way that this is anywhere close to being representative of the voters overall intentions.

And decisive is not always good. With many issues there are normally various shades between the extremes.

FPTP is just one small step away from the original rotten system that was first used. Why should we still be using the first mass voting system that anyone came up with? Where else in human society do we ignore progress?