AV then. Yes or No?

greg66_tri_v2.0

Asprilla wrote:

if I vote green in Surrey and my vote and the votes of other green voters evenly distributed around the country leads to number of green MPs that reflects the percentage of people who voted for them than how can you possibly argue that this isn't more representative of the voting population and therefore 'fairer'?

It is more representative of the voting population. At some point in PR one assumes that a party who has gathered the votes sufficient for one or two seats must put forward their MPs, who get assigned to a constituency. So somewhere gets a Green MP who may not have stood there, or who stood there and was beaten into fourth or fifth place, over and above the candidate who polled the most votes in that area. So, "fairer"? Rather depends who you ask (which is the problem with Clegg's focus on "fair" - it's too subjective).

But none of that makes FPTP unfair (or, more specifically, unrepresentative when working with constituencies, as we do).

thegibdog

Greg66 wrote:

If you want to get rid of constituencies and go full PR, that's a very different proposition. But nothing like a majority (or even a sizeable minority) want that, and so you have to ask: if no one wants it, how can it be so much fairer?

Really? Pretty much all polls that I've seen show the majority are in favour of proportional representation. Unfortunately it's not in the interests of the Conservatives or Labour so we're unlikely to be given a chance to vote on it.

greg66_tri_v2.0

DonDaddyD wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

Hasn't the adenoidal prefect said it? Unlike him not to jump on a passing bandwagon.

I now understand why you dress up like a smurf. Flying the flag wot wot.

Does she (Chancery Lane burd) come with the blue vote?

I work in a very broad Church of political beliefs.

All the shades of blue are catered for.

Agent57

rjsterry wrote:

The constituency link thing needs some work, but I think this aspect gets overplayed; hands up who's actually been to see their MP. If you want a local issue sorted, your local councillor is the one to speak to, not your MP.

My previous (Labour) MP was good at answering my emails, and did get involved in local matters, and support local causes. I have yet to get a response to any emails from my new (Conservative) MP, but I've seen him speak about local issues in the Commons, too. I wouldn't want to lose the constituency link.

I think AV+ would be a better system than AV, but I think a "No" vote today will kill the prospect of any sort of reform in the forseeable future. I think it will be interpreted as "British public don't want electoral reform", even if a lot of the "No" voters are voting No only because they don't want this particular reform.

The referendum may have been better in two parts, the first being FPTP vs. "Something else", and a second one asking which "Something else" to use if FPTP lost the first referendum. (Although I guess it's likely that it'd be difficult to sell just the idea of "change" without examples, and all the possible alternatives would confuse people, so they'd just vote for "FPTP" in the first one anyway).

greg66_tri_v2.0

thegibdog wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

If you want to get rid of constituencies and go full PR, that's a very different proposition. But nothing like a majority (or even a sizeable minority) want that, and so you have to ask: if no one wants it, how can it be so much fairer?

Really? Pretty much all polls that I've seen show the majority are in favour of proportional representation. Unfortunately it's not in the interests of the Conservatives or Labour so we're unlikely to be given a chance to vote on it.

I would bet my house that a referendum on PR would sink like a brick in a gravity well.

jamesco

Agent57 wrote:

The referendum may have been better in two parts, the first being FPTP vs. "Something else", and a second one asking which "Something else" to use if FPTP lost the first referendum.

That's pretty much what happened in NZ in the '90s and PR was the choice. To the surprise of some, the sky didn't fall in, and there's even a Tory government in power today

asprilla

Greg66 wrote:

Asprilla wrote:

if I vote green in Surrey and my vote and the votes of other green voters evenly distributed around the country leads to number of green MPs that reflects the percentage of people who voted for them than how can you possibly argue that this isn't more representative of the voting population and therefore 'fairer'?

It is more representative of the voting population. At some point in PR one assumes that a party who has gathered the votes sufficient for one or two seats must put forward their MPs, who get assigned to a constituency. So somewhere gets a Green MP who may not have stood there, or who stood there and was beaten into fourth or fifth place, over and above the candidate who polled the most votes in that area. So, "fairer"? Rather depends who you ask (which is the problem with Clegg's focus on "fair" - it's too subjective).

But none of that makes FPTP unfair (or, more specifically, unrepresentative when working with constituencies, as we do).

I personally think that constituency representation is irrelevant. I don't actually care which party my local MP represents; I care about representation at a national level. Given that I'm voting based upon national policy rather than local (as most people do) I want to see the voters represented according to their votes, not influenced by geography, something which is outside the control of the voters themselves.

thegibdog

Greg66 wrote:

I would bet my house that a referendum on PR would sink like a brick in a gravity well.

If there is ever a referendum on PR please PM me.

wgwarburton

Greg66 wrote:

Asprilla wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

FPTP is not inherently unfair in practice or in principle.

This is where we differ. By fault of geography my vote is worthless; how is that fair?

The false premise is that there is only one fair system (which, based on your grievance, might be PR) and that all other systems are ipso facto unfair.

No, I don't think that's the premise. The assertion is only that FPTP is unfair, as demonstrated by the under-representation of parties which have significant support

I'm not quite sure why you say your vote is worthless though. Under AV, you might vote BNP, UKIP, Con, and live in (say) Camden where you'll only ever see Lab returned. Your votes are just as worthless there.

Yes. A strong argument that AV is little better than FPTP.

Under PR, you might vote Green, and with your fellow voters do enough to get one or two Green MPs in. But those MPs cannot hope to represent constituents - their voters are spread across the country. You get lumbered with (say) a Con MP for your area. What value did your vote really have to you there?

Well, his views are represented, albeit not by his constituency MP. That seems better to reflect the wider wishes of the electorate.

May I refer you to the Scottish election system for Holyrood (I may regret this tomorrow... :-) ), where an MSP is returned for each constituency, their job being to represent those constituents to the best of their ability and their political orientation reflects the majority result there.
The Parliament as a whole is then completed by return of regional MSPs, who represent a wider area and whose numbers are derived from the distribution of votes between parties (and independents) across the region.

At the cost of some complexity, this gives a much closer match between the expressed desire of the voters and the composition of the parliament. Parties which have a small but significant base of support (Greens, for example) are likely to be represented in the parliament, even if they do not represent a specific local contituency... which is fair enough, since they would be unlikely to reflect the politics of it, anyway.

Cheers,
W.

tailwindhome

Greg66 wrote:

Again, therefore, if the current system is unfair, why don't people want to get rid of it?

I thought I'd answered that one

English people aren't smart enough to understand any alternative voting systems

Most of you can just about form a X on a bit of paper.

FACT

DonDaddyD

Greg66 wrote:

thegibdog wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

If you want to get rid of constituencies and go full PR, that's a very different proposition. But nothing like a majority (or even a sizeable minority) want that, and so you have to ask: if no one wants it, how can it be so much fairer?

Really? Pretty much all polls that I've seen show the majority are in favour of proportional representation. Unfortunately it's not in the interests of the Conservatives or Labour so we're unlikely to be given a chance to vote on it.

I would bet my house that a referendum on PR would sink like a brick in a gravity well.

Not in my England it wouldn't. People like me who by their very nature and culture - and the culture that spawned my culture - are in fact quite Conservative (politically).

Thing is Conservatives here don't represent people like me (and its not mainly an ethnicity thing I'm citing). Me and mine (especially in the 80s - mid 90s then came 10 glorious years) desperately want to feel that they are properly represented at the Government/Political level.

If you told 'us' there was going to be a referendum on Proportional Representation (even if the majority of people like me don't truly understand it - and that is the crux of the voting issue IMO) I reckon that we would support it blindly, about as blindly (wrongly IMO) as most of me and mine (aka urban, aka great unwashed aka the working middle lower) vote Labour.

DonDaddyD

Greg66 wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

Hasn't the adenoidal prefect said it? Unlike him not to jump on a passing bandwagon.

I now understand why you dress up like a smurf. Flying the flag wot wot.

Does she (Chancery Lane burd) come with the blue vote?

I work in a very broad Church of political beliefs.

All the shades of blue are catered for.

Cryptic. But I still like you.

rjsterry

Greg66 wrote:

Asprilla wrote:

if I vote green in Surrey and my vote and the votes of other green voters evenly distributed around the country leads to number of green MPs that reflects the percentage of people who voted for them than how can you possibly argue that this isn't more representative of the voting population and therefore 'fairer'?

It is more representative of the voting population. At some point in PR one assumes that a party who has gathered the votes sufficient for one or two seats must put forward their MPs, who get assigned to a constituency. So somewhere gets a Green MP who may not have stood there, or who stood there and was beaten into fourth or fifth place, over and above the candidate who polled the most votes in that area. So, "fairer"? Rather depends who you ask (which is the problem with Clegg's focus on "fair" - it's too subjective).

But none of that makes FPTP unfair (or, more specifically, unrepresentative when working with constituencies, as we do).

I don't see it as a problem that, say, a Green MP is allocated to a mainly Tory voting constituency. When I lived in Putney, my MP was Conservative, and my (actually more Mrs RJS's) dealings with her on local issues were pretty good. MPs should support their constituents regardless of their political allegiance and Justine Greening seemed to be doing a pretty good job on that front.

Agree with the use of 'representative' over 'fair'.

Part of the disparity arises from people voting on which party they want/don't want to be in government or even who they want to be PM, when really they should (in theory) just be voting on who they want to represent their constituency. A similar disconnect occurs when people use Euro or local elections to 'send a message', answering a different question than the one that was put in front of them.

wgwarburton

rjsterry wrote:

...Part of the disparity arises from people voting on which party they want/don't want to be in government or even who they want to be PM, when really they should (in theory) just be voting on who they want to represent their constituency. A similar disconnect occurs when people use Euro or local elections to 'send a message', answering a different question than the one that was put in front of them.

A major issue with the current electoral system in this country. People use tactical voting and protest voting to try and achive their objectives because the system prevents them achieving them "properly".
A "protest vote" against the incumbent is then cited as support for the opposition, though that may be far from the voter's intention.

Cheers,
W.

sketchley

The yes vote appears to be improving in the odds. Just shortened to 12 /1 on skybet. Still 50/1 on for a no vote.

Only hope for a yes vote is that the no vote are not bothering to turn out.

CiB

Sketchley wrote:

Only hope for a yes vote is that the no vote are not bothering to turn out.

We're all still hard at work and haven't yet voted. Give us time.

bails87

CiB wrote:

Sketchley wrote:

Only hope for a yes vote is that the no vote are not bothering to turn out.

We're all still hard at work and haven't yet voted. Give us time.

Hard at work whilst posting on forums?

samivel

bails87 wrote:

CiB wrote:

Sketchley wrote:

Only hope for a yes vote is that the no vote are not bothering to turn out.

We're all still hard at work and haven't yet voted. Give us time.

Hard at work whilst posting on forums?

tailwindhome

CiB wrote:

Sketchley wrote:

Only hope for a yes vote is that the no vote are not bothering to turn out.

We're all still hard at work and haven't yet voted. Give us time.

No interest in a pairing arrangement then?

rjsterry

Just checked out the Guardian's blog on the elections/referendum and it seems that in Greater London polling station staff will outnumber voters. Not good.

sketchley

Odds on the turnout being more than 40% are slightly better than less than 40% but not by much.

davmaggs

Kieran_Burns wrote:

So we're meant to use a deeply flawed election system to decide on whether to use another deeply flawed election system that isn't actually the flawed election system the 3rd least unpopular party in power want?

Did I get that right?

+1, sounds about right.


Whatever your views on yes/no I think it is fair to say that both sides have exaggerated their claims to rather silly levels. It won't do any of the things that either group says to any significant level.

The only positive to AV is that for the first election or two (until people learn tactical voting) it could well encourage everyone to vote for the party that they actually want. They will still lose, but for that vote or two there is a good chance that we've see the first preferences and how strong/weak minority parties actually are.

rick_chasey

I got asked in the office what I was going to vote for. I said Yes - I got called a contrarian.

:roll:

CiB

bails87 wrote:

CiB wrote:

Sketchley wrote:

Only hope for a yes vote is that the no vote are not bothering to turn out.

We're all still hard at work and haven't yet voted. Give us time.

Hard at work whilst posting on forums?

I'm not on piece rates.

@TailWindHome - no thanks. I've never not voted, and don't intend to not vote today. Thanks though. Feel free not to bother yourself tho.

Away now, to do my civic duty.

sketchley

Thanks to B3ta.com

SmellTheGlove

DonDaddyD wrote:

However, AV is a step forward and its a step I'm willing to take. So I'm voting yes.

I don't get this "step" argument at all. I don't believe for one second that in the event of a yes vote we'll ever be invited back to vote on another change to the system.

DonDaddyD

If my childrens children vote yes for PR when that referendum comes round then my work some decades ago would be done.

jimmypippa

I think I am one of the few people in this country for whom AV is the system I'd want.

The strength of the constituency system is that each MP is directly elected. In many proportional systems (or AV+) at least some MPs would be chosen from a party list.

This would mean that the prospective MPs would primarily want to get as high up the party list as possible, because then they are almost certainly guaranteed a seat. The constituency that matters is then the party not the voters. This is a recipe for patronage and corruption. Especially if coalitions are more common, so getting sufficientlyh high up the party list in a minor centralist party is a sure-fire route to a minor ministry in government, whichever the hue of the election. This really increases the scope for patronage and corruption.

AV as proposed in the election is different. Each MP is directly voted for by the voters, but unlike the current system, where it is sometimes worthwhile alienating minorities if it makes your supporters more likely to vote, this would not be the case.

The current system is easy to vote *for* an MP, but hard to vote against one.

AV makes it as easy to vote against someone as for someone. In other words it is easier for voters to remove MPs. This is also why the BNP is against it (but they benefit from proportional systems).

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

I got asked in the office what I was going to vote for. I said Yes - I got called a contrarian.

:roll:

Praise indeed.

Nik Cube

Av is fine personally I run everytin through two channel hifi but a full av setup is cool


Wrong sort of av ???