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Post by timrollpickering on Jun 11, 2020 10:35:04 GMT
One thing you could do is get rid of the separate vote for the list and use the constituency results instead - IIRC this was the system recommended by the Hansard Society back in the 1970s though I forget where it's used. This would cut down on confusion, remove the distortions of split ticket voting and the potential for mischief and also require parties to stand in pretty much every constituency to have a chance (IIRC in 2008 the BNP only stood in City & East) which would be a reasonable deterrent against the fringes. The issue I'd have with this is that people might have an entirely valid reason to vote for different parties in both ballots - say they support a small party but want to have a stronger say in who their local member is, or they don't like their local member but want to vote for their party. There's also the issue that some parties stand only on the list and not in constituencies and how do you account for that; how do you design your ballot paper to make it clear that your vote for a named candidate isn't just a vote for them but for everyone in their party; how do you account for Independents running in constituencies - do voters for Independent candidates just throw away their list vote? - and probably other reasons why I think that would be a significantly worse way of doing things. If a party doesn't stand in a constituency then it will not be able to collect votes for that constituency. Only candidates and parties standing in constituencies would be eligible for list seats. I suppose Independents could be allowed to stand in multiple seats and/or band together for the list - I'm not convinced this is an insurmountable hurdle. Yes some people might want to split their vote. But what is an "entirely valid reason" and what is "tactically manipulating the system"? You can't always have the perfect options available to you. As for ballot paper design that shouldn't be so much of a problem. The London AMS ballot papers don't include the candidate list on the paper itself. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Jun 11, 2020 10:39:06 GMT
One thing you could do is get rid of the separate vote for the list and use the constituency results instead - IIRC this was the system recommended by the Hansard Society back in the 1970s though I forget where it's used. This would cut down on confusion, remove the distortions of split ticket voting and the potential for mischief and also require parties to stand in pretty much every constituency to have a chance (IIRC in 2008 the BNP only stood in City & East) which would be a reasonable deterrent against the fringes. The issue I'd have with this is that people might have an entirely valid reason to vote for different parties in both ballots - say they support a small party but want to have a stronger say in who their local member is But that's where the AV component comes in. Your minor party first preference gets eliminated, and then your vote goes to your next preference. |
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Post by timrollpickering on Jun 11, 2020 10:45:36 GMT
I may be mistaken but recall that Jack Straw was 'sold' upon AV plus a few more Labour bigwigs. A 1999 referendum on AV may have produced a different result than 2011. Yes, the inescapable fact is that in 2011 Clegg (not least due to his previous dismissal of the proposal) toxified AV for many. Despite the Lib Dems having privately agreed to this compromise first step and been making moves towards it for a number of years? Of course this was hardly the only area where the public and private faces of the Lib Dems were pushing in opposite directions. |
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nodealbrexiteer
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Post by nodealbrexiteer on Jun 11, 2020 19:14:01 GMT
Then nobody would have been happy, just as nobody wanted it in 2011. I may be mistaken but recall that Jack Straw was 'sold' upon AV plus a few more Labour bigwigs. A 1999 referendum on AV may have produced a different result than 2011. I thought I heard he was relaxed on AV but not AV+. I remain a staunch first past the poster myself but wonder if for tactical reasons the non Tory parties led by Labour might eventually agree to sign up to PR without a referendum. |
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Post by hullenedge on Jun 11, 2020 19:38:09 GMT
Should have worded better AV and a few more Labour bigwigs. JS gave an interview to The Observer praising AV.
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Post by Andrew_S on Jun 11, 2020 21:22:49 GMT
Off topic.
From looking at Australian election results it seems that very few seats "change hands" as a result of the AV system they use. Therefore it would make sense for a party like the UK Conservatives to support its implementation IMO since they'd win almost the same number of seats as before but get a big boost in terms of legitimacy from getting the endorsement of at least 50%+1 of voters in each constituency. The fact that they don't consider it tends to support the criticisms of someone like Peter Hitchen who always says the party is more interested in office itself than anything else.
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Post by IceAgeComing on Jun 11, 2020 21:49:20 GMT
that's more because Australian politics is a solid two-party system (for their House of Representatives and state lower houses anyway; the upper houses are a lot more diverse) and generally when you have a two party system and FPTP you have a lot of safe seats since there isn't a Lib Dem equivalent to challenge the major parties there. You have the Greens in a lot of urban seats now and One Nation in some rural Queensland seats and scattered Independents all over the place but its always going to be a minority of seats. Its a political culture thing rather than a voting system one - in the same way that Canada uses FPTP but their political history (massive turnover of seats at a lot of elections, long history of minority governments, parties rise and fall in extreme ways) don't match up with the UKs political history (well, until recently, there are parallels in recent elections that perhaps people ought to familiarise themselves with to be ready for possible future developments in the UK) despite us using the same voting system.
The Liberal Democrats always thought that they'd benefit because they'd finish second in a lot of places and then use preferences from the other major party to get ahead and win; and because at that time most seats where the Lib Dems were second were Tory held seats then they'd be the big losers. I always thought that short time that would have been right but long term it probably would have trended towards a two party system and so might have hurt the Lib Dems; or at least make it harder weirdly for them to try and break through in places. Had the UK somehow voted for AV in 2011 nothing would have realistically changed in 2015 I think: the Lib Dems would have lost out from a lot of Labour voters just not preferencing them and letting their votes exhaust because they were part of the coalition; and UKIP votes weren't helping them out. In 2019 you'd have probably had the reverse situation where Lib Dem voters let their votes exhaust over going either for Labour or the Tories which would have probably hurt Labour slightly more. Of course its a bit of a folly to try to analyse this since we don't know how voter behaviour would change under AV; we don't know how campaigns would change and all these things.
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mboy
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Post by mboy on Jun 12, 2020 7:14:03 GMT
Blair himself might have done. But he knew his party wouldn't wear it. He wasn't daft. No chance of AV+ but if Jenkins had recommended AV... The remit of the commission was explicitly to include some proportionality, which AV doesn't do. |
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Post by therealriga on Jun 12, 2020 9:53:48 GMT
Then nobody would have been happy, just as nobody wanted it in 2011. I may be mistaken but recall that Jack Straw was 'sold' upon AV plus a few more Labour bigwigs. A 1999 referendum on AV may have produced a different result than 2011. That just highlights the short-sightedness and partisan blinkers of politicians on issues like these. As I remember, projections for 1997 on AV would have given Labour even more seats due to the ABC (anyone but Conservative) wave in that election and 1992 would also have benefitted Labour. However, subsequent elections, especially post-Iraq, would have reversed that and helped anti-Labour tactical voting. |
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