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Post by carolus on Sept 10, 2020 17:59:51 GMT
One thing to bear in mind is that the forthcoming Westminster boundary review is going to cut the number of constituencies in Wales quite significantly. So, unless there's a willingness to cut the number of Senedd constituencies similarly, the Senedd boundaries are going to diverge from the Westminster ones anyway. Given the number of STV constituencies we're talking about, would there be any sense in aligning them to the council areas? I'd think it would require some constituencies to have different numbers of seats, but at the very least it would avoid creating another completely new set of boundaries. That's an interesting idea, but if you want 80 seats, it would give a range of constituency sizes of 2-9 (using Local Government Electors from December 2019 and the Huntington-Hill method of apportionment): 9 – Cardiff 6 – Swansea, Rhondda Cynon Taf 5 – Carmarthenshire 4 – Caerphilly, Flintshire, Newport, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Powys 3 – Wrexham, Vale of Glamorgan, Pembrokeshire, Conwy, Gwynedd, Denbighshire 2 – Monmouthshire, Torfaen, Ceredigion, Isle of Anglesey, Blaenau Gwent, Merthyr Tydfil Some of these also average some pretty awful deviations from average constituency size: Powys: -11% Caerphilly: +13% Vale of Glamorgan: +14% Isle of Anglesey: -14% Blaenau Gwent: -14% Wrexham: +15% Denbighshire: -15% Torfaen: +18% Monmouthshire: +24% Merthyr Tydfil: -24% If you want everywhere to have at least 3 seats, Merthyr Tydfil finally goes up to 3 at a house size of 132, by which time Cardiff has 15 members, Swansea and Rhondda Cynon Taf 10 apiece, and Carmarthenshire 8. I think that's sufficient to convince me that it wouldn't work in practice - thanks for looking at the numbers! I think to get anything reasonable on those numbers you'd start needing to merge the small ones with neighbours, or subdividing the larger ones (or just deviating from the distribution to push up the smallest councils to 3, I suppose). But at that point I suspect you're tinkering so much you may as well just start your boundaries from scratch, and have done with it. |
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Harry Hayfield
Green
Cavalier Gentleman (as in 17th century Cavalier)
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Post by Harry Hayfield on Sept 10, 2020 18:12:02 GMT
(And who says that Alexa is a waste of time)
"Alexa, what are the factors of 80?" Answer: 1 2 4 5 8 10 16 20 40 48
"Alexa, what are the factors of 90?" Answer: 1 2 3 5 6 9 10 15 18 30 45 90
With the suggestions that Wales would go down to 32 Westminster constituencies you could easily have 16 electing 5 members without any problem at all by pairing constituencies.
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Sept 10, 2020 18:33:32 GMT
That's an interesting idea, but if you want 80 seats, it would give a range of constituency sizes of 2-9 (using Local Government Electors from December 2019 and the Huntington-Hill method of apportionment): 9 – Cardiff 6 – Swansea, Rhondda Cynon Taf 5 – Carmarthenshire 4 – Caerphilly, Flintshire, Newport, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Powys 3 – Wrexham, Vale of Glamorgan, Pembrokeshire, Conwy, Gwynedd, Denbighshire 2 – Monmouthshire, Torfaen, Ceredigion, Isle of Anglesey, Blaenau Gwent, Merthyr Tydfil Some of these also average some pretty awful deviations from average constituency size: Powys: -11% Caerphilly: +13% Vale of Glamorgan: +14% Isle of Anglesey: -14% Blaenau Gwent: -14% Wrexham: +15% Denbighshire: -15% Torfaen: +18% Monmouthshire: +24% Merthyr Tydfil: -24% If you want everywhere to have at least 3 seats, Merthyr Tydfil finally goes up to 3 at a house size of 132, by which time Cardiff has 15 members, Swansea and Rhondda Cynon Taf 10 apiece, and Carmarthenshire 8. I think that's sufficient to convince me that it wouldn't work in practice - thanks for looking at the numbers! I think to get anything reasonable on those numbers you'd start needing to merge the small ones with neighbours, or subdividing the larger ones (or just deviating from the distribution to push up the smallest councils to 3, I suppose). But at that point I suspect you're tinkering so much you may as well just start your boundaries from scratch, and have done with it. Oh you can definitely improve that with combinations. Specifically the following six: 1) Rhondda Cynon Taf + Merthyr Tydfil 2) Caerphilly + Blaenau Gwent 3) Conwy + Denbighshire 4) Powys + Ceredigion 5) Monmouthshire + Torfaen 6) Gwynedd + Isle of Anglesey That then gives: 9 – Cardiff 8 – RCT+MT 6 – C+BG, Swansea, C+D 5 – P+C, Carmarthenshire, M+T, G+IOA 4 – Flintshire, Newport, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend 3 – Wrexham, Vale of Glamorgan, Pembrokeshire The only bad malapportionments then are: Vale of Glamorgan +14% Wrexham +15% If you then increase the house size to 90, no county borough or pair of county boroughs is more than 10% out – this gives: 10 – Cardiff 9 – RCT+MT 7 – C+BG, Swansea 6 – C+D, P+C, Carmarthenshire 5 – M+T (worst at +9%), G+IOA, Flintshire 4 – Newport, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Wrexham, Vale of Glamorgan, Pembrokeshire If you want a range of 4-7 seaters, you then have two subdivisions to do; but really with Cardiff you can pretty much draw a line along the A48 to bisect it, and Rhondda Cynon Taf + Merthyr Tydfil is not an impossible 4/5 split. So you could make it work if you wanted to. I would not remotely favour this method of election, but this is a plausible way of implementing it. |
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nodealbrexiteer
Forum Regular
non aligned favour no deal brexit!
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Post by nodealbrexiteer on Sept 10, 2020 18:38:51 GMT
I honestly don't get this current obsession with STV as a possible electoral system for the Welsh Assembly/the Senedd, there's nothing wrong with the current Mixed-Member System implementation. With that, the easiest way to increase the amount of AMs would be to increase the amount of list seats. There's a lot wrong with the implementation, but it is the best system available. This is why I'm seriously reconsidering my support for PR in the UK - even the people who support can't seem to stop fucking it up. I'll' quote William Hague again on AV plus (which may as well apply to all these alternative PR systems too)-a 'dog's breakfast' |
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Post by therealriga on Sept 10, 2020 19:35:00 GMT
May as well have Anglesey protected as a double-member, then divide the rest between 78 seats.
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Post by Penddu on Sept 10, 2020 19:52:01 GMT
There is no justification in any voting system to protect the seats for Ynys Mon
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2020 20:27:23 GMT
The AMS system is perverse, but to have two member STV seats would be too. Either have proper STV with 4+ member seats (which isn't my preference) or stick to FPTP. If people insist on having lists, they should be open lists. Closed lists remove the power of the electorate to boot politicians out. Though that would lead to ballot papers metres long and be confusing for many.I don't see how keeping to linkage to Westminster seats wouldn't work either. Each seat could elect two members. Simple: use separate ballot papers for each party with a list on each paper for people to mark like they do in most European countries |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Sept 10, 2020 20:29:58 GMT
The AMS system is perverse, but to have two member STV seats would be too. Either have proper STV with 4+ member seats (which isn't my preference) or stick to FPTP. If people insist on having lists, they should be open lists. Closed lists remove the power of the electorate to boot politicians out. Though that would lead to ballot papers metres long and be confusing for many.I don't see how keeping to linkage to Westminster seats wouldn't work either. Each seat could elect two members. Simple: use separate ballot papers for each party with a list on each paper for people to mark like they do in most European countries The Dutch system results in much the same thing with less complication. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Sept 11, 2020 9:10:37 GMT
If you wants something AMS-like and don't want closed lists, you can just elect the party candidates who came closest to winning, as they do in Germany.
With all this said, how much enthusiasm for STV is there in Welsh Labour? My impression was that the Senedd electoral system was effectively designed to have a proportional element, but to deliberately limit the number of top-up seats so it fulls well short of full proportionality. I could see how you could achieve something similar with STV, but that tends to be much less stable.
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Post by minionofmidas on Sept 11, 2020 14:44:32 GMT
I think that's sufficient to convince me that it wouldn't work in practice - thanks for looking at the numbers! I think to get anything reasonable on those numbers you'd start needing to merge the small ones with neighbours, or subdividing the larger ones (or just deviating from the distribution to push up the smallest councils to 3, I suppose). But at that point I suspect you're tinkering so much you may as well just start your boundaries from scratch, and have done with it. Oh you can definitely improve that with combinations. Specifically the following six: 1) Rhondda Cynon Taf + Merthyr Tydfil 2) Caerphilly + Blaenau Gwent 3) Conwy + Denbighshire 4) Powys + Ceredigion 5) Monmouthshire + Torfaen 6) Gwynedd + Isle of Anglesey That then gives: 9 – Cardiff 8 – RCT+MT 6 – C+BG, Swansea, C+D 5 – P+C, Carmarthenshire, M+T, G+IOA 4 – Flintshire, Newport, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend 3 – Wrexham, Vale of Glamorgan, Pembrokeshire The only bad malapportionments then are: Vale of Glamorgan +14% Wrexham +15% If you then increase the house size to 90, no county borough or pair of county boroughs is more than 10% out – this gives: 10 – Cardiff 9 – RCT+MT 7 – C+BG, Swansea 6 – C+D, P+C, Carmarthenshire 5 – M+T (worst at +9%), G+IOA, Flintshire 4 – Newport, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Wrexham, Vale of Glamorgan, Pembrokeshire If you want a range of 4-7 seaters, you then have two subdivisions to do; but really with Cardiff you can pretty much draw a line along the A48 to bisect it, and Rhondda Cynon Taf + Merthyr Tydfil is not an impossible 4/5 split. So you could make it work if you wanted to. I would not remotely favour this method of election, but this is a plausible way of implementing it. I very much would. (Though I'm not sure the Senedd needs 90 members. Not until Independence is achieved.) |
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Post by minionofmidas on Sept 11, 2020 14:53:20 GMT
If you wants something AMS-like and don't want closed lists, you can just elect the party candidates who came closest to winning, as they do in Germany. You seem to be mistaking Baden-Württemberg for the whole of Germany? It's a pretty strange system. It was designed to ensure minority party representation, using a mechanism borrowed from pr systems; and to ensure permanent (short of losing a majority of the fptp seats) Labour government anyways. It's almost as if Donald Dewar said "let's introduce PR" and Tony Blair said "let's not but say we did" and one won the argument in Scotland and the other in Wales. Be glad no one explained French local election to Tony I guess... |
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Post by therealriga on Sept 11, 2020 16:01:55 GMT
The AMS system is perverse, but to have two member STV seats would be too. Either have proper STV with 4+ member seats (which isn't my preference) or stick to FPTP. If people insist on having lists, they should be open lists. Closed lists remove the power of the electorate to boot politicians out. Though that would lead to ballot papers metres long and be confusing for many.I don't see how keeping to linkage to Westminster seats wouldn't work either. Each seat could elect two members. Simple: use separate ballot papers for each party with a list on each paper for people to mark like they do in most European countries When I voted in the Riga city council election last month that was exactly the method used. I got a stack of individual voting papers for each party. The downside I can imagine with that is that it makes corruption more likely. If someone decided to sell their vote then all they have to do is hand the unused voting papers to whoever they've sold it to as proof outside the polling station. Of course, that doesn't guarantee that they didn't spoil their ballot, but most people who go along that route would comply with the person paying them. |
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Post by greatkingrat on Sept 11, 2020 16:12:41 GMT
How do they stop you completing multiple ballot papers for different parties?
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Sept 11, 2020 16:34:27 GMT
How do they stop you completing multiple ballot papers for different parties? The Labour Party's insistence on fielding a full list of regional candidates, combined with their tribal donkey vote. If they really wanted to screw us over, they could not stand on the three regional lists in South Wales and let some clone party win them. |
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pl
Non-Aligned
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Post by pl on Sept 11, 2020 16:37:17 GMT
Simple: use separate ballot papers for each party with a list on each paper for people to mark like they do in most European countries When I voted in the Riga city council election last month that was exactly the method used. I got a stack of individual voting papers for each party. The downside I can imagine with that is that it makes corruption more likely. If someone decided to sell their vote then all they have to do is hand the unused voting papers to whoever they've sold it to as proof outside the polling station. Of course, that doesn't guarantee that they didn't spoil their ballot, but most people who go along that route would comply with the person paying them. It's not the sale of votes that would worry me under such a system, it would be the coercion which would result within certain parts of society. It's much easier to track who people are voting for than if they only get one ballot paper which they MUST put in the ballot box. |
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Post by therealriga on Sept 11, 2020 16:54:01 GMT
How do they stop you completing multiple ballot papers for different parties? You are only given one official envelope (they stamp it when they give it to you) which you put your chosen ballot paper into. Any ballot paper not inside that envelope is void. Any envelope containing two or more ballot papers is void. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2020 17:16:33 GMT
How do they stop you completing multiple ballot papers for different parties? You are only given one official envelope (they stamp it when they give it to you) which you put your chosen ballot paper into. Any ballot paper not inside that envelope is void. Any envelope containing two or more ballot papers is void. I believe a similar system is used in Sweden and France |
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Post by minionofmidas on Sept 11, 2020 17:39:24 GMT
You are only given one official envelope (they stamp it when they give it to you) which you put your chosen ballot paper into. Any ballot paper not inside that envelope is void. Any envelope containing two or more ballot papers is void. I believe a similar system is used in Sweden and France France, Israel and "I think I heard they're not even the only ones" off the top of my head. In the olden days of the 19th century and beyond, voters had to provide their own ballot. Parties eventually started supplying preprinted ones and distributing them at the polling station or in advance. There are two obvious ways of combatting the associated problems regarding the freedom and fairness of the vote: either you legislate that these ballots all have to be the same size, colour and design and are available everywhere and not handed out by local party operatives (because social coercion) which eventually requires the gov't to print them all anyways. Or you go the whole hog immediately and have the gov't print a list of all available choices, as happened in the UK and Germany. Either system works, though. |
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edgbaston
Labour
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Post by edgbaston on Sept 11, 2020 18:19:25 GMT
(And who says that Alexa is a waste of time) "Alexa, what are the factors of 80?" Answer: 1 2 4 5 8 10 16 20 40 48 "Alexa, what are the factors of 90?" Answer: 1 2 3 5 6 9 10 15 18 30 45 90 With the suggestions that Wales would go down to 32 Westminster constituencies you could easily have 16 electing 5 members without any problem at all by pairing constituencies. 32 each with 3 members would give 96. Not keeping the boundaries aligned with Westminster for the sake of 6 AMs over the artificial limit seems silly. Of course the idea that the assembly needs an increase in members is also silly.. |
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Post by Delighted Of Tunbridge Wells on Sept 11, 2020 20:47:21 GMT
And to think any Scottish/welsh assemblies that would have been set up as a result of a positive vote in the 1979 referenda would have been elected via fptp! FPTP would be a much better idea all round. Less gameable than the AMS system or that perverse STV thing. And it would mean that Welsh people would have genuinely hyper-local assembly-members, rather than people who cover some abstruse region that extends from Crickhowell to Bardsey Island and from Llanymynech to Pembroke Dock. You could get rid of the list seats with multi member STV seats,mirroring the Westminister constituencies with 3 reps for each. |
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