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Post by AdminSTB on Nov 8, 2024 12:12:33 GMT
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
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Post by andrewp on Nov 20, 2024 9:45:39 GMT
Michael Crick is reporting that the Con selection here is between 2 former MPs - Paul Bristow and Vicky Ford.
Presumably the Government doesn’t want to/ hasn’t got time to change the voting system back away from FPTP for next years mayoral elections? Cambridgeshire, along with the West of England, are 2 where the Conservatives have got a much better chance of a gain under FPTP
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Post by johnloony on Nov 20, 2024 18:19:42 GMT
The government has no plans to restore SV elections for PCC elections or anything else. It was not even remotely mentioned in the manifesto, and is a dead issue.
As someone who preferred SV to FPTP (and would have preferred AV) when it was introduced, it quickly became clear to me that it didn't work as intended. It was supposed to make voters focus on the top two candidates in the second round with their second preference, but in reality voters didn't understand it and simply scattered the second preferences all over the place. e.g. the election for Mayor in Croydon in 2022 had the votes of Lib Dem, Green and Independent mostly transferring to each other.
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Nov 21, 2024 19:26:33 GMT
It was always a principal flaw of any form of preference voting that it relies on an informed and engaged electorate who spend time learning the system and working out the best way to use their preferences. Its too much to expect from the majority of the population.
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Post by No Offence Alan on Nov 21, 2024 19:36:53 GMT
It was always a principal flaw of any form of preference voting that it relies on an informed and engaged electorate who spend time learning the system and working out the best way to use their preferences. Its too much to expect from the majority of the population. No its not. With warped preference systems like SV, yes, but with STV and AV, no. In those, you vote for the candidate you like best as number 1, the one you like next best as number 2, and so on. It's FPTP where you have to work out if the candidate you prefer has a chance of winning or not, and then decide if you want to vote tactically against the candidate you like least. |
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Nov 21, 2024 19:47:37 GMT
It was always a principal flaw of any form of preference voting that it relies on an informed and engaged electorate who spend time learning the system and working out the best way to use their preferences. Its too much to expect from the majority of the population. No its not. With warped preference systems like SV, yes, but with STV and AV, no. In those, you vote for the candidate you like best as number 1, the one you like next best as number 2, and so on. It's FPTP where you have to work out if the candidate you prefer has a chance of winning or not, and then decide if you want to vote tactically against the candidate you like least. Not in practice. You have to consider who is most likely to win. Let's say a voter likes the Greens most, the Lib Dems second, Labour third. But Labour could win and the Lib Dems could not. If they vote 1. Green and 2. Lib Dem, the second preference is unlikely to count and is a waste of time. If the voter understands the system well, they will vote 1. Green and 2. Labour, to maximize the chance of an acceptable candidate winning. If they don't understand the system, the second preference won't count. |
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cathyc
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Post by cathyc on Nov 21, 2024 19:54:02 GMT
It was always a principal flaw of any form of preference voting that it relies on an informed and engaged electorate who spend time learning the system and working out the best way to use their preferences. Its too much to expect from the majority of the population. So one a scale of 1 to 100, how much more ill-informed and unengaged do you think the English and Welsh electoarte is compared to countries that use a preferential system? |
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Nov 21, 2024 19:55:52 GMT
It was always a principal flaw of any form of preference voting that it relies on an informed and engaged electorate who spend time learning the system and working out the best way to use their preferences. Its too much to expect from the majority of the population. So one a scale of 1 to 100, how much more ill-informed and unengaged do you think the English and Welsh electoarte is compared to countries that use a preferential system? Obviously if a country has been using a preference system for years, people become more used to it. Though I do think we have a fairly high degree of voter apathy. |
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cathyc
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Post by cathyc on Nov 21, 2024 20:03:04 GMT
So one a scale of 1 to 100, how much more ill-informed and unengaged do you think the English and Welsh electoarte is compared to countries that use a preferential system? Obviously if a country has been using a preference system for years, people become more used to it. Though I do think we have a fairly high degree of voter apathy. There must have been a point at which they started to use a preferential system. |
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Nov 21, 2024 20:10:35 GMT
Obviously if a country has been using a preference system for years, people become more used to it. Though I do think we have a fairly high degree of voter apathy. There must have been a point at which they started to use a preferential system. Yes, but why not make it as easy as possible for people to participate. Put an "X" by the one you like. Simple, straightforward, no confusion. |
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nyx
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Post by nyx on Nov 21, 2024 20:13:39 GMT
There must have been a point at which they started to use a preferential system. Yes, but why not make it as easy as possible for people to participate. Put an "X" by the one you like. Simple, straightforward, no confusion. Often people vote against politicians who they dislike rather than for politicians who they like. |
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Nov 21, 2024 20:15:39 GMT
Yes, but why not make it as easy as possible for people to participate. Put an "X" by the one you like. Simple, straightforward, no confusion. Often people vote against politicians who they dislike rather than for politicians who they like. Well that's an say one, you just decide the most serious opponent by how many leaflets they put out. |
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cathyc
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Post by cathyc on Nov 21, 2024 20:18:23 GMT
There must have been a point at which they started to use a preferential system. Yes, but why not make it as easy as possible for people to participate. Put an "X" by the one you like. Simple, straightforward, no confusion. Lots of reasons. In any walk of like easiest and best are rarely the same thing. |
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nyx
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Post by nyx on Nov 21, 2024 20:45:27 GMT
Often people vote against politicians who they dislike rather than for politicians who they like. Well that's an say one, you just decide the most serious opponent by how many leaflets they put out. My sister who lived in Enfield Southgate in 2019 nearly ended up voting for the Lib Dem candidate Rob Wilson in the general election under that logic, who had put out a decent amount of literature implying that he, and not the incumbent Labour MP, was the best positioned candidate to challenge the Tories. I had to inform her that a Labour vote was in fact the preferable option in the circumstances. |
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Post by carlton43 on Nov 21, 2024 21:22:42 GMT
No its not. With warped preference systems like SV, yes, but with STV and AV, no. In those, you vote for the candidate you like best as number 1, the one you like next best as number 2, and so on. It's FPTP where you have to work out if the candidate you prefer has a chance of winning or not, and then decide if you want to vote tactically against the candidate you like least. Not in practice. You have to consider who is most likely to win. Let's say a voter likes the Greens most, the Lib Dems second, Labour third. But Labour could win and the Lib Dems could not. If they vote 1. Green and 2. Lib Dem, the second preference is unlikely to count and is a waste of time. If the voter understands the system well, they will vote 1. Green and 2. Labour, to maximize the chance of an acceptable candidate winning. If they don't understand the system, the second preference won't count. Which makes it a really stupid system and much worse than FPTP. |
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Nov 21, 2024 22:25:53 GMT
SV really was a spectacularly poor system, for the reasons outlined above - it didn't just require voters to express a second preference if their candidate didn't reach the top two. Rather to decide, conditional upon their preferred candidate not making the cut, who the two most likely candidates to do so were and then express a preference between them.
There are clear cases where this mattered (PCC in Gloucestershire, I think?), and had the number of candidates grown then it would just get worse.
Much as I'm rather sceptical about the motivation for its abolition, I can't really say I'm sorry to see it gone.
N.B. the problem is largely avoided in proper AV or STV since your preferences cascade down and you don't have to play the ridiculous guessing game (mostly).
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YL
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Post by YL on Nov 22, 2024 9:04:52 GMT
SV really was a spectacularly poor system, for the reasons outlined above - it didn't just require voters to express a second preference if their candidate didn't reach the top two. Rather to decide, conditional upon their preferred candidate not making the cut, who the two most likely candidates to do so were and then express a preference between them. There are clear cases where this mattered (PCC in Gloucestershire, I think?), and had the number of candidates grown then it would just get worse. Much as I'm rather sceptical about the motivation for its abolition, I can't really say I'm sorry to see it gone. N.B. the problem is largely avoided in proper AV or STV since your preferences cascade down and you don't have to play the ridiculous guessing game (mostly). Yes, SV was a very badly designed system. If you wanted a system which emphasises coming in the top two as SV does but doesn’t expect voters to guess who will be in the top two, you could allow them to rank as many candidates as they like, exactly as in AV, but then immediately eliminate anyone who doesn’t come in the top two in the first count. That would be essentially an “instant” version of the two round system many presidential systems use, which I think is what SV was trying to be. In johnloony’s Croydon example the real “plague on both your houses” voters could still have stopped after giving preferences to the Lib Dem, Green and other candidates, not expressing a preference between Lab and Con, but others might have chosen to do so. Of course that system would have its downsides as ell, but it’d bebetter than SV. |
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