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Post by Defenestrated Fipplebox on Apr 19, 2020 12:38:59 GMT
The term 'wasted vote' is purely subjective and any attempt to give it an objective meaning fails. Rubbish. In a contest between A and B, a vote for C is wasted. It's why my father, a Labour supporter all his life, could not vote Labour as he knew his vote would be wasted.
Chose not to vote Labour. |
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Post by johnloony on Apr 19, 2020 12:49:02 GMT
The term 'wasted vote' is purely subjective and any attempt to give it an objective meaning fails. Rubbish. In a contest between A and B, a vote for C is wasted. It's why my father, a Labour supporter all his life, could not vote Labour as he knew his vote would be wasted. Don't be ridiculous. A vote for any party, or any candidate, in any election, is never wasted. All votes contribute to the result and make the result different from what it would have been otherwise. |
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Post by Merseymike on Apr 19, 2020 12:50:45 GMT
Rubbish. In a contest between A and B, a vote for C is wasted. It's why my father, a Labour supporter all his life, could not vote Labour as he knew his vote would be wasted. Chose not to vote Labour. But if the realistic outcome of an election is that voting for C would let in A or B who you particularly dislike, then the temptation is to "choose" A or B even though your preference is for C. Negative voting. It's not something I would want to do. When Labour realise they will lose the next election ( not win a majority) I expect this issue to return, because they can't actually afford a fifth defeat. Options could range from a full scale pre-election arrangement with other parties through to the promise of a referendum. |
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Post by lbarnes on Apr 19, 2020 13:44:09 GMT
Rubbish. In a contest between A and B, a vote for C is wasted. It's why my father, a Labour supporter all his life, could not vote Labour as he knew his vote would be wasted. Don't be ridiculous. A vote for any party, or any candidate, in any election, is never wasted. All votes contribute to the result and make the result different from what it would have been otherwise. No they don't. |
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Post by Defenestrated Fipplebox on Apr 19, 2020 15:03:04 GMT
Don't be ridiculous. A vote for any party, or any candidate, in any election, is never wasted. All votes contribute to the result and make the result different from what it would have been otherwise. No they don't.
They do in Psephological percentage terms.
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Post by lbarnes on Apr 19, 2020 15:05:37 GMT
They do in Psephological percentage terms.
That's the score rather than the result. |
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Post by Defenestrated Fipplebox on Apr 19, 2020 15:10:38 GMT
They do in Psephological percentage terms.
That's the score rather than the result.
Ok, Sir Man Tics, play that game if you want to.
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Post by lbarnes on Apr 19, 2020 15:22:49 GMT
That's the score rather than the result.
Ok, Sir Man Tics, play that game if you want to.
It's nothing to do with semantics. Under the present system very few votes effect the result. |
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Post by No Offence Alan on Apr 19, 2020 15:25:54 GMT
Ok, Sir Man Tics, play that game if you want to.
It's nothing to do with semantics. Under the present system very few votes effect the result. By reductio ad absurdum, if the runner up gets X votes, the only votes that matter are the first X+1 votes case for the winner. |
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Post by lbarnes on Apr 19, 2020 15:29:16 GMT
It's nothing to do with semantics. Under the present system very few votes effect the result. By reductio ad absurdum, if the runner up gets X votes, the only votes that matter are the first X+1 votes case for the winner. Quite. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2020 15:32:52 GMT
"A majority of one is a win; anything more is showing off."
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Harry Hayfield
Green
Cavalier Gentleman (as in 17th century Cavalier)
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Post by Harry Hayfield on Apr 20, 2020 6:47:01 GMT
"A majority of one is a win; anything more is showing off." Although I was not around at the time, I do not recall Sir Cooper Rawson apologising for his 62,253 majority at the 1931 election in Brighton. |
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Post by islington on Apr 20, 2020 14:02:29 GMT
Well, having been the one to ask the question, let me offer my own answer: in my view, the only 'wasted vote' is one that is not cast.
Take the case of a FPTP election for a single seat that is assumed to be a close contest between candidates A and B. I personally, however, may happen to prefer candidate C, who is reckoned to have no chance.
Given that I am indifferent to B but actively dislike A, then I have a choice. I can either cast my vote to show my support for C (a positive vote), or I can vote for B in the hope of blocking A (a negative vote). Either of these options is a perfectly reasonable way of using my vote, and I don't see how either of them can be described as 'wasting' it; I'm simply deciding how to make best use of it, surely the essence of what democracy is about.
And this brings me to a further point, which is that the function of voting is not only the positive element (which everyone talks about) of trying to elect candidates one likes, but also the negative element (much less often acknowledged) of seeking to block candidates one dislikes. When I vote, I am not only voting for a particular candidate; I am also voting against all the other candidates - and this latter function of my vote is very important to me. Here follows what some may think a shameful confession: I've reviewed my own voting behaviour, as a veteran now of thirteen UK general elections, and I'd say that not more than twice or thrice have I voted mainly in a positive sense because I actively supported the candidate or party. On all the remaining occasions, my chief motive was to try to block or exclude from office a candidate or party I opposed.
So a voting system needs to accommodate the wish of voters to vote against particular candidates. On of the reasons I like FPTP is that it is rather good at this.
Incidentally, by no means all of my votes were for successful candidates. But I don't consider any of them to have been wasted.
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Post by Defenestrated Fipplebox on Apr 20, 2020 14:09:29 GMT
They do in Psephological percentage terms.
That's the score rather than the result.
I have never thought of political results in terms of results and scores seperately like I would football. Everything has always been the result in elections so every vote counts to me. Just shows how looking at something differently brings one to a completely different conclusion.
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Post by greenchristian on Apr 20, 2020 14:10:07 GMT
So a voting system needs to accommodate the wish of voters to vote against particular candidates. On of the reasons I like FPTP is that it is rather good at this. It is significantly worse at this than pretty much any preferential system, though because under FPTP a voter who wishes to vote against particular candidates has to know what most of the other voters are going to do in order to cast their vote effectively. |
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Post by Defenestrated Fipplebox on Apr 20, 2020 14:33:27 GMT
So a voting system needs to accommodate the wish of voters to vote against particular candidates. On of the reasons I like FPTP is that it is rather good at this. It is significantly worse at this than pretty much any preferential system, though because under FPTP a voter who wishes to vote against particular candidates has to know what most of the other voters are going to do in order to cast their vote effectively.
Only if it is based only on constituency candidates.
National List candidates, you get get the *************
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Post by lbarnes on Apr 21, 2020 8:39:38 GMT
That's the score rather than the result.
I have never thought of political results in terms of results and scores seperately like I would football. Everything has always been the result in elections so every vote counts to me. Just shows how looking at something differently brings one to a completely different conclusion.
FPTP is probably even worse than football in its scoring system. At least in football there might just be an advantage in losing 10-1 rather than 10-0 in that it might be fractionally but significantly important in goal difference at the end of the season. |
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Post by islington on Apr 22, 2020 11:30:10 GMT
So a voting system needs to accommodate the wish of voters to vote against particular candidates. On of the reasons I like FPTP is that it is rather good at this. It is significantly worse at this than pretty much any preferential system, though because under FPTP a voter who wishes to vote against particular candidates has to know what most of the other voters are going to do in order to cast their vote effectively. Greenchristian, how do you make that out?
I still wince at recalling that back in 2008 the PR system in use for London Assembly elections resulted in the return of Richard Barnbrook of the BNP. So for the next four years this far-right fantasist was entitled to go around saying that he represented me.
Now, I know it's part and parcel of democracy that candidates to whom I'm opposed sometimes get elected. Such is life. I may not like it, but I can swallow it if they got most votes. But Barnbrook didn't: the BNP got 131,000 votes in the election, compared with 836,000 for the Tories and 665,000 for Labour (for completeness, LD 253000, Green 203000). So the BNP lost the election; and while I'm not going to say which party I voted for (I have a politically sensitive job), I'm giving away no secrets when I say I was very definitely voting against the BNP.
So there you have it: I voted against the BNP and almost 95% of my fellow Londoners did the same. Yet will still ended up with the BNP man seated in the London Assembly as our supposedly democratically-elected representative.
This was twelve years ago and I still can't recall it without a deep sense of shame.
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Post by No Offence Alan on Apr 22, 2020 11:32:25 GMT
It is significantly worse at this than pretty much any preferential system, though because under FPTP a voter who wishes to vote against particular candidates has to know what most of the other voters are going to do in order to cast their vote effectively. Greenchristian, how do you make that out? I still wince at recalling that back in 2008 the PR system in use for London Assembly elections resulted in the return of Richard Barnbrook of the BNP. So for the next four years this far-right fantasist was entitled to go around saying that he represented me. Now, I know it's part and parcel of democracy that candidates to whom I'm opposed sometimes get elected. Such is life. I may not like it, but I can swallow it if they got most votes. But Barnbrook didn't: the BNP got 131,000 votes in the election, compared with 836,000 for the Tories and 665,000 for Labour (for completeness, LD 253000, Green 203000). So the BNP lost the election; and while I'm not going to say which party I voted for (I have a politically sensitive job), I'm giving away no secrets when I say I was very definitely voting against the BNP.
So there you have it: I voted against the BNP and almost 95% of my fellow Londoners did the same. Yet will still ended up with the BNP man seated in the London Assembly as our supposedly democratically-elected representative.
This was twelve years ago and I still can't recall it without a deep sense of shame.
Did the person you voted for get elected? |
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Post by greatkingrat on Apr 22, 2020 11:36:11 GMT
By your logic, presumably you wanted the London Assembly to consist of 25 Conservative members, as every other party "lost" the election?
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