So you'd prefer a system
in which the BNP the Greens and UKIP hold the balance of power? You, sir, FAIL.
Voting chaos in not-fit-for-purpose electoral system
As the dust cleared on a strangely uneventful election night, two aspects of the supposedly cast-iron British electoral system may finally have been found to be "not fit for purpose". First up is the antiquated and now thoroughly discredited way in which we, the electorate, express our views about our would-be politicians …
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Friday 7th May 2010 12:30 GMT Cynical Observer
Democracy
@ Chris Miller.
This sir is the price of democracy.
Full disclosure - I was not born in the UK, I think that a strong EU is a good thing and I crave full and open examination of the scientific evidence offered in support of Global warming. So I have no affinity with any of the aforementioned parties.
BUT - If those parties offer themselves for election and are chosen in sufficient quantity by the electorate then they have aright to attend parliament as a duly elected MP. Organising an electoral system to deliberately disenfranchise voters of a particular persuasion starts this country on a slippery slope that is best avoided. (What next? Ban Ginger headed people form voting? As they seem to be the only minority that we can pick on today without fear of censure!)
Do you have so little faith in the major parties as to believe that they will compromise their principles and for example yield to BNP demands in order to hang onto the reigns of power! For if they were to do so, are they not as morally bankrupt as the BNP itself?
Time for real change!
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Friday 7th May 2010 13:51 GMT Anomalous Cowherd
@ Cynical Observer / @ @ Chris Miller
Reluctant as I am to wade in on this already busy thread, it's not.
PR systems that use MMP have a lower threshold where a party needs to get X% to be represented - NZ was 5% from memory, or in that order. STV systems don't have this issue as the votes transfer to candidates that are more "generally acceptable".
Having seen both in action I think STV is a better system, mainly as it requires less MPs :-)
@ Chris, if this weren't the case you'd be correct. Israel, notoriously, has no lower limit set in it's constitution, which is why it's political system is always being held to ransom by single issue groups.
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Friday 7th May 2010 13:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So you'd prefer a system
"in which the BNP the Greens and UKIP hold the balance of power?"
According to the percentages, any two of the big three could command a majority. You, "sir", hold the *balance* of FAIL.
And yes, there are countries where minor parties get into coalitions and start to make demands in order to uphold the deal, but in fact there isn't even a necessity to make deals in some of these systems of representation: you can have a minority government if you think you'll get support on a vote-by-vote basis. The trouble is, various parties tend to get petulant and vote stuff down that they actually agree with in order to spite the minority government, mostly because they couldn't form a coalition and have a larger party accept some special interest cause or other.
Oh, and when you mention pandering to minor parties, I guess you're just not old enough to recall the last days of the Major government and the Unionist parties propping up the Tories. Again, the balance of FAIL returns to haunt you.
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Friday 7th May 2010 14:58 GMT Chris Miller
Why PR gives power to bigots (to borrow an adjective)
It's true that many PR systems (but by no means all) set a lower bar to keep the loonies out of power (the German* system is 5% or 3 constituency 'wins'). But look at the numbers kindly provided by Magnus: UKIP 3%, BNP 2% and Greens 1%. Yet this is on the basis of their having contested only a minority of seats (~200 for the BNP) - under the FPTP system there's no point in them going for every seat, including those where they don't have a hope. Under a PR system** they'd contest every seat and there's every chance that one or more would exceed the lower limit.
Now look at the numbers of seats that the main parties would have under a PR system. The only two-party coalition commanding an absolute majority would be Labour and Conservative (how likely is that?) or Liberal-Conservative (which looks to be where we're heading anyway). But this is a very even result compared to most recent UK elections (admittedly having PR in place would doubtless have altered those results), but I remain convinced that the most likely outcome of a PR election is the biggest party picking up a few loonies to give them a majority, rather than teaming up with the natural opposition, which is why I believe that there's a large chunk of fail involved in PR.
*Deliberately set high to keep the neo-Nazis out. If they ever look like getting more than 5% of the vote, look to this system to change, sharpish.
**Actually there are hundreds of PR systems, and which one might be offered to the electorate in a referendum would be a lively debate.
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Friday 7th May 2010 10:15 GMT Richard 81
What a mess
Britain basically bottles it and votes the Lizardmen into being the biggest non-majority.
Lib Dem have LESS power than they started with, despite their (supposed) increase in popularity. Bloody fair weather voters.
Apparently polling stations have been complaining that students are to blame for the queue fiasco. One polling station (that I know of) even tried to segregate them by forming a separate queue for locals.
The one I went to was just staffed by two orange slappers who couldn't give two s**ts about the electorate. The very fact that I'd entered the building an given them something to do, other than chat, meant they despised me.
If anyone suggest I'm a 'Libtard' and just bitter... YES I BLOODY AM.
I need a cup of tea.
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Friday 7th May 2010 10:15 GMT Magnus_Pym
Damn you Register...
...and you de-tabulating forum text controls. It looked quite nice in the edit box.
Still the point is that Labour and The Conservatives get enormously more power out of the first past the post system and the border reforms they have both introduced over the years than the voters actually give them.
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Friday 7th May 2010 10:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Rubbish.
"Near riot" in some of our city centres? I'd like to see your source for that claim. Many (rightly-so) angry people at a number of places but that hardly justifies calling a "near riot".
You question why we don't all visit a website to vote? Perhaps because many people haven't sussed computing/Internet and/or don't have easy access to a computer.
"You must turn up... carrying a piece of paper...proclaiming your right to vote"? Have you ever participated in a UK election? There is no requirement to turn up with any such piece of paper.
"Failure to arrive on time will see you barred from voting"? Oh right because it's still possible to vote in the 2005 election is it? Or perhaps it's kind of good to have a time by which you have to vote?
What on earth does "reliance on physical processes" mean? Physical processes as opposed to...virtual ones? If what you mean is relying on paper and manual counting... well there are many articles on ElReg criticising the processes in other countries (and this one) which rely on electronic measures for either voting itself or counting votes.
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Monday 10th May 2010 09:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Physical trail required
I agree strongly that a physical vote be made that is independently auditable.
It is naive to believe that the process of voting electronically is not corruptible. But once the electronic vote has been (competently) corrupted, there is no way to tell that it has been as there is no physical trace.
An hour of "inconvenience" every several years is a very small price to pay for democracy. Of course, you don't get it if you only spend that hour on it. It's then just lip-service; a pretence.
Democracy requires that you give your MP hell when they vote the "wrong" way in Parliament. They need to be fearful ofhow voters will react, not just during elections, but every day that they are in office.
Paris; because that's how democracies "work".
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Friday 7th May 2010 10:37 GMT Sorry that handle is already taken.
Here I was, sitting on my crack...
...thinking that the UK had tossed out its antiquated and ridiculously unrepresentative first-past-the-post electoral system years ago.
Shows how much I know. Why the hell haven't you guys switched to either an instant runoff system, or better still proportional representation yet?
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Friday 7th May 2010 11:48 GMT Robert Carnegie
We don't have PR because up to now the existing system has suited every government.
Labour made a belated move towards PR shortly before the election, and they may be interested now, because they don't look like getting popular again any time soon. And it's what the Liberals are all about. This is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So expect a Conservative-Liberal deal and no change in the next fifty years.
You can intimidate the more vulnerable and less intelligent voters in the system we've got. Or just send somebody else to the polling station pretending to be them.
As for electronic voting, which can still be done in the schools and public libraries (not so dingy either), machines that count votes aren't adequate, whatever coonting machine manufacturers tell you. Each vote should be an electronic document in itself, signed and encrypted. I should be able to take my vote home and prove to my satisfaction that it is my vote and has been counted. Counters should be able to read the vote and who it is for but not that it is mine. Oh, and it needs to be blind/deaf/otherwise accessible.
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Monday 10th May 2010 09:45 GMT Graham Marsden
Who do we vote for?
The job of an MP is supposedly to represent the views of their constitutents to Parliament.
Unfortunately what we actually get is someone who, most likely, does what the Party Whip tells them to do and then says to their constituents "This is what the Party Leadership says, like it or lump it".
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Friday 7th May 2010 11:59 GMT Jason Bloomberg
That 15 hour of voting opportunity
Seems a lot, but not in practice. For those in employment it's vote before or after work and most cannot afford to hit morning delays and be late for work so it means voting after work.
You get home at 18:00-19:00, drag yourself down the polling station with just a 3-4 hour window. If the queues are really bad ( they weren't this time ) then you lose out. Maybe people did leave it until later, until too late, but we don't have a history of two hour plus queues at voting.
The best solution is to make general election day a public holiday.
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Friday 7th May 2010 12:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Disenfranchised Moi?
According to the BBC Election Results page (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/), with results from 27 seats still outstanding, the results are this: Conservatives got 36.1% of the votes to control 45.2% of parliament, Labour got 29.2% of the votes to control 38.6% of parliament, and the Liberal Democrats got 22.9% of the votes, but will control just 8% of parliament ... In what way does that represent what the people voted for?
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Friday 7th May 2010 13:53 GMT Ross 7
Misunderstood
FPtP is used because YOU ARE NOT VOTING TO CHOOSE THE GOVERNMENT!!!!!1111!!! People really need to understand that. Ofc you can choose to use your vote as if you were voting for to choose the government, but that's not what is intended and so you don't get the intended effect from your vote.
You vote for YOUR MP to represent your needs in Parliament. The fact that the political party with the most representatives happens to form a government is really a seperate issue. You don't need to worry about such details generally as it really doesn't matter, until that is you're deciding on an electoral system.
PR is about electing a national government. So, you have to decide between someone that will (hopefully) support you and your local area, and some party that will (hopefully) support your country. The problem with PR is that the wannabe MPs don't worry about annoying the locals, whereas an MP elected under FPtP can't afford to ****-off his/her constituents as they'll be out of a job.
I like some aspects of both tbh, and issues with both. You should be aware however that the ppl pushing PR aren't doing so to help you in your daily life. They're doing so to increase their own power base. Same for those pushing to keep FPtP too.
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Friday 7th May 2010 14:17 GMT Chad H.
and of course...
Those pushing against PR are currently the big winners in a system thats gerrymadered so much to ensure that either the Labour Party, or Conservatives, sit at the top (if not run outright) any government.
There's a simple way to ensure that elected folk are representative... Big regions (maybe the size of an ITV franchise) with a number of seats based on population, elected PR/AV.
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Friday 7th May 2010 14:19 GMT Magnus_Pym
We all know that already...
The problem with FPtP is that an MP elected under FPtP can't afford to ****-off his/her unelected local party officials as they'll be out of a job.
There fixed that for you.
and yes, Iwe know how it is supposed to work. If it wasn't for the party whips, it might have some chance of working too. The MP's can't represent both constituency and party so they stick with the party as that is where the power comes from.
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Friday 7th May 2010 14:56 GMT BorkedAgain
Anecdotal, but...
I know a number of people who WANTED to vote Lib Dem but, being in a seat where the choice was between Labour or Tory, decided to vote Labour as the lesser of two evils.
Leaving aside for the time being the fascinating question of which of those two evils really is the lesser, proportional representation would have made the vote they wanted to cast count more, so they'd have been more likely to vote with their conscience instead of having to adopt a more tactical approach.
Or, to put it another way, the percentage of the Lib Dem vote was artificially low (by a minimum of two votes) because of the inherent unfairness of our FPtP system. It's a disgrace, but while the power keeps being passed between the two sides that the system is biased towards, it's unrealistic to hope for any change.
Perhaps now, with the power in the balance and Clegg's thumb on the scales, we may see some movement... *dreams...*
(I'm not scared of a coalition government. Look what a strong majority brought for the last few cycles...)
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Monday 10th May 2010 04:28 GMT Peter Snow
No to Electronic Voting
The author (Jane Ozimek) appears to be favouring an electronic voting system. I would like to explain why I'm against that.
1) Any system has to be administered by at least somebody, if not somebodies. In order to administer such a system, these people need to have access to it, by means of some kind of authentication. If someone has access to it, it can never be declared as 'secure'. It can always be tampered with and the administrator can then edit the logs to remove his traces. Hi tech is an advantage most of the time, but in an instance like this, 'low-tech' is the solution.
2) The existing system, despite an outrageous failure on this occasion is not significantly broken. It needs some minor adjustments to ensure that elections return to the smoothness that the British electorate have grown to expect.
It should be noted that this system has served the country well for many years and has gained Great Britain a good reputation world wide, for it's smooth elections.
The minor adjustments that I mentioned above, I would suggest include a flexible closure time for the Polling Stations, where they are required to remain open until 10PM or after there has been no voter for at least 5 minutes, whichever is later.
As I see it, this simple rule above could be implemented at a moments notice without any expense or disruption to the existing system and would have solved all of the problems experienced in this election.
An electronic election system would probably cost millions of pounds investment, take many years of planning, be open to corruption and even after all of that, look whats happening here in the Philippines as they try to implement their first ever electronic general election on May 10. I'll be amazed if the Philippine election is not declared a failure (that's if it still goes ahead at all on the day planned a year ago)!
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Monday 10th May 2010 04:32 GMT Allan George Dyer
Intimidation and bribery
In addition to agreeing with everyone who pointed out the dangers of electronic voting without a voter-verifiable paper trail, requiring voters to turn up at a designated, secure location and cast their votes in secret greatly reduces the possibility of vote-buying and coercion. You can always walk out of the booth and SAY that you voted as directed.
Of course, camera-phones are a threat to this, perhaps we should have Faraday cage voting booths?
Plus, it gives a lot of kids a day off school, thus encouraging interest in the democratic process.
Mine's the one with ballot papers stuffed in the pockets.
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Monday 10th May 2010 13:13 GMT Gordon861
PR Hybrid
The system I'd like to see would double the size of the current constituances so we'd have half the MPs, and continue to run these posts using the current voting system. So that would be 325 local MPs.
Then run the other 325 MPs via a pure PR system. The MPs from the list could still be assigned constituances to look by their party, so some areas would have more than one MP people could go to for help.
This way you could still vote for a 'local MP' but you could also vote for a National Party that you prefer, often not the same when you have a good local MP. It would also give the more popular parties a chance to still get a pure majority in Parliment.
I would also add the prison population as a single constituancy with one MP to solve the problem with them not being able to vote.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
