D'Hondt for UK Parliament elections, or?

[Ben Walker]

It's been something on my mind for awhile now and I've been experimenting with it a few times. Imagine a situation (near impossible though as it may be) where the electoral system for the UK Parliament chose its MPs on a D'Hondt system?

Now I can already imagine the first response: constituencies too large, thus a widening disconnect between politicians and the people; constituencies therefore wouldn't be 'local', etc.

How about imagining constituencies based on the settlement itself? No more 'elector for Leeds North West': instead you'll just be an 'elector for Leeds'. See an example below (made w/ Boundary Assistant), that'll be one constituency electing... judging by an electorate of 464,100: 6 or 7 MPs? Living not so far from Leeds I guessed the wards shown would be the ones that would identify strongly with Leeds: either excessively working/travelling there or having strong connections.
So you'll have 6 MPs representing Leeds, elected under a D'Hondt system.
What result would this cook up? Let's hazard a random (and potentially upsetting) guess for 2015:
LAB - 38%
CON - 30% 
LDEM - 17%
UKIP - 9%
GRN - 6%

That'd give:
LAB - 3 MPs
CON - 2 MPs
LDEM - 1 MP

Of course, there's the issue of electing MPs for very isolated constituencies, either forcing you to have them team up with other constituencies and create some f-off massive seats, or perhaps exemptions should be made and the isolated elect under a different voting system?

This is merely a fantasy of mine that I like toying with. What do you think of it, or, do you have your own kind of voting system for the UK parliament?

[Harry Hayfield]

I'd like to see what would happen for Wales and Scotland for a starter before seeing it was a goer. I know that in the Mid and West Wales electoral region (as defined for the 2011 Assembly election) the Westminster 2010 election was: Con 29%, Lib Dem 25%, Lab 22%, Plaid 20% with no other parties qualifying (assuming a 5% threshold) for eight seats. Under d'Hondt PR that would see the Conservatives win the first seat, Liberal Democrats win the second, Labour win the third, Plaid Cymru win the fourth, the Conservatives win the fifth, Liberal Democrats the sixth, Labour win the seventh and Plaid Cymru win the eighth leaving an allocation of Con 2, Lab 2, Lib Dem 2, Plaid 2 (so Labour would benefit from d'Hondt and the Conservatives would suffer)

[iain]

If you're doing D'Hondt on a constituency level then, IMO, it's just a bad version of STV.

Would you advocate an open or closed list?

[Pete Whitehead]

It isn't any kind of version of STV - it's a version of D'Hondt. The public have roundly rejected preferential voting so we can forget about STV.
In the example given, I don't see much point in hiving off a few wards from the ecisting borough of Leeds (there are decent arguments to be made that the City of Leeds council area extends furtehr out than it should but thats for another thread). It seems to me that Leeds MB would make a logical D'Hondt electorate returning 8 MPs. Other electorates would be formed from groups of smaller Metroplitan boroughs and London boroughs and in the shite areas whole counties. I would want to place a minimum and maximum size to avoid the kind of unproportional rsults we currently get in the NE European region and suggest they should not be smaller than 5 seats and not larger than 10. So to take the example further in the Yorkshire region, you could have BNradford & Calderdale (7 seats), Wakefield & Kirklees (8), North Yorkshire (8), East Yorkshire (Hull and the East Riding) (6) South Yorkshire (Barnsley, Doncaster & Rotherham)(9) Sheffield (6)
Only a couple of counties would fall foul of the minimum size rule - Herefordshire could join with Worcestershire again and Northumberland could join with Newcastle and North Tyneside.
Larger counties (ie over 10 seats) would simply be split. Taking the Eastern region as an example, Bedfordshire (6), Cambridgeshire (8), Norfolk (9) and Suffolk (8) would all be single electorates. Hertfordshire would split East/West with 6 seats each and Essex North/ South with 8 seats in the North (Braintree, Chelmsford, Colchester, Maldon, Tendring, Uttlesford) and 10 in the south.

I favour open lists on the Finnish model

My seat allocations are not based on the current allocations but on what they would be if 650 seats in the UK were allocated using a single quota (which therefore increase the total numbers in England to 545)

[iain]

The public haven't rejected preferential voting, they've rejected STV. And yes, STV is not D'Hondt, but I think you realise what I meant.

Aug 15, 2014 17:08:38 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

It isn't any kind of version of STV - it's a version of D'Hondt. The public have roundly rejected preferential voting so we can forget about STV.

[andrewteale]

Aug 15, 2014 17:08:38 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Other electorates would be formed from groups of smaller Metroplitan boroughs and London boroughs and in the shite areas whole counties.

Do you want to try typing that again, Pete?

[Pete Whitehead]

Fruedian slip.. I was obviously thinking about Bedfordshire

[Tony Otim]

Aug 15, 2014 18:12:22 GMT iain said:

The public haven't rejected preferential voting, they've rejected STV. And yes, STV is not D'Hondt, but I think you realise what I meant.

Aug 15, 2014 17:08:38 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

It isn't any kind of version of STV - it's a version of D'Hondt. The public have roundly rejected preferential voting so we can forget about STV.

No, they've rejected AV.

[Crimson King]

I think to be more accurate they rejected that nasty Nick Clegg

[Pete Whitehead]

[Pete Whitehead]

2010 notional results (assuming everybody cast their vote the same way, which they wouldn't have done obvs)

	Total seats	Con	Lab	LD	Nat
Highlands & Islands	5	1	1	2	1
Aberdeen & Angus	9	2	2	2	3
Forth	7	1	4	1	1
Strathclyde	6	1	3	1	1
Glasgow	6	0	4	1	1
Lanarkshire	7	0	5	1	1
Ayrshire & Galloway	6	2	3	0	1
Lothian	5	1	2	1	1
Edinburgh	5	1	2	2	0
Scotland	56	9	26	11	10
Clwyd-Gwynedd	7	2	3	1	1
Dyfed-Powys	5	2	1	1	1
Glamorgan	9	1	5	2	1
Cardiff	5	2	2	1	0
Gwent	6	2	3	1	0
Wales	32	9	14	6	3
Northumberland	8	2	4	2
Tyne & Wear	7	2	4	1
Durham	7	1	4	2
Cleveland	6	2	3	1
Cumbria	6	3	2	1
North Lancashire	8	4	3	1
East Lancashire	6	3	2	1
West Lancashire	5	2	2	1
Liverpool	6	0	5	1
Warrington-St Helens	5	1	3	1
Bolton-Bury-Wigan	8	3	4	1
Oldham-Rochdale	7	2	3	2
Manchester	10	2	5	3
East Cheshire	7	3	2	2
West Cheshire	7	3	3	1
North Yorkshire	9	5	2	2
East Yorkshire	6	2	2	2
Leeds	8	3	3	2
Bradford-Halifax	7	3	3	1
Wakefield-Huddersfield	8	3	4	1
Barnsley-Doncaster-Rotherham	8	2	5	1
Sheffield	5	1	2	2
Lindsey	6	3	2	1
Lincoln, Holland & Kesteven	5	3	1	1
North Nottinghamshire	5	2	2	1
Nottingham	6	2	3	1
North Derbyshire	5	2	2	1
Derby	6	3	2	1
Leicester	5	2	2	1
Leicestershire & Rutland	6	3	1	2
Northamptonshire	7	4	2	1
Warwickshire	6	3	2	1
Coventry & Solihull	5	2	2	1
Birmingham	10	3	5	2
Wolverhamton & Walsall	5	2	2	1
Sandwell & Dudley	7	3	3	1
South Staffordshire	7	4	2	1
North Staffordshire	5	2	2	1
Shropshire	5	3	1	1
Hereford & Worcester	8	5	1	2
Norfolk	9	4	2	3
Suffolk	8	4	2	2
Cambridgshire	8	4	1	3
North Essex	8	5	1	2
South Essex	10	6	2	2
East Hertfordshire	6	4	1	1
West Hertfordshire	6	3	1	2
Bedfordshire	6	3	2	1
Buckinghamshire	8	5	1	2
Berkshire	9	5	2	2
Oxfordshire	7	4	1	2
East Surrey	5	4	0	1
West Surrey	6	4	0	2
East Kent	8	4	2	2
West Kent	10	6	2	2
East Sussex	8	4	2	2
West Sussex	9	5	1	3
North Hampshire	6	4	0	2
West Hampshire	7	4	1	2
South Hampshire	7	4	1	2
Gloucestershire	7	4	1	2
Bristol	7	2	2	3
Wiltshire	7	4	1	2
Dorset	8	4	1	3
Somerset	10	4	1	5
North Devon	7	3	1	3
South Devon	5	2	1	2
Cornwall	6	3	0	3
West Essex	9	4	4	1
London East Inner	7	1	5	1
London Central	9	3	4	2
East Middlesex	8	3	3	2
Central Middlesex	8	3	4	1
West Middlesex	6	3	2	1
London South	9	4	2	3
London South Inner	8	2	4	2
London South East	10	5	3	2
England	545	243	171	131
GB	633	261	211	148	13

	Total Seats	DUP	UUP	.SF...	SDLP	ALL
Antrim	7	3	1	1	1	1
Down & Armagh	5	2	1	1	1	0
Londonderry, Fermanagh & Tyrone	5	1	0	3	1	0
Northern Ireland	17	6	2	5	3	1

[J.G.Harston]

Aug 16, 2014 14:51:18 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

(map)

What do the colours mean? Areas grouped into theoretical constituencies? That's one huge Dumfries & Shetland constituency.

[Pete Whitehead]

The beauty is you don't have to ever have boundary changes. These electorates are fixed and the number of seats can fluctuate to take account of (relative) increases or decreases in the electorate.
No district is divided between electorates with the single exception on the mainland of Richmond upon Thames (I would have put it all in 'South London' but that would then have had a quota of 11 seats and I wanted to limit the maximum to 10). I have also split the Causeway, Coast and Glens district in Northern Ireland in order to maintain the boundary between Londonderry and Antrim (or more accurately, between the old Coleraine district and the old districts of Ballymoney and Moyle)

[Pete Whitehead]

Aug 16, 2014 15:31:58 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Aug 16, 2014 14:51:18 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

(map)

What do the colours mean? Areas grouped into theoretical constituencies? That's one huge Dumfries & Shetland constituency.

How the fuck have you deduced that Dumfries and Shetland are in the same constituency? Are you colour blind?

[johnloony]

Aug 15, 2014 17:08:38 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

The public have roundly rejected preferential voting so we can forget about STV.

A false premise and a non-sequitur do not a convincing argument make. No they haven't, and no we shouldn't.

[johnloony]

If we had PR by D'Hondt, I would prefer smaller constituencies (3ish to 5ish) i.e. STV-sized.

[J.G.Harston]

Aug 16, 2014 15:42:06 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Aug 16, 2014 15:31:58 GMT J.G.Harston said:

What do the colours mean? Areas grouped into theoretical constituencies? That's one huge Dumfries & Shetland constituency.

How the fuck have you deduced that Dumfries and Shetland are in the same constituency? Are you colour blind?

I am 45 years old and, like 90% of the population, do not have the vision of a 18-year-old web designer with a 95-inch monitor with perfect colour balance, who thinks that yellowy-green is distinguishable from greeny-yellow. If you use colours to transfer meaning you ensure that those colours are distinct from each other, and if the range of colours has a meaning, you ensure the colour range ranges through self-similar colours.

Edit: I've just checked with a colour picker, and one of them is 255,255,0 and another is 0,255,0, which with the combination of my monitor and my eyes is indistinguishable. You can be bothered to make "Borders" distinguishable from "Dumfries", you can go to the effort to make "Dumfries" distinguishable from "Ayr".

[Deleted]

A mixed-member system with constituency and regional MPs. You can have your FPTP/AV/Duck race for the 'local member', but national/regional/LA/county vote share taken into account via closed/open list.

[piperdave]

Aug 16, 2014 17:21:34 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Aug 16, 2014 15:42:06 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

How the fuck have you deduced that Dumfries and Shetland are in the same constituency? Are you colour blind?

I am 45 years old and, like 90% of the population, do not have the vision of a 18-year-old web designer with a 95-inch monitor with perfect colour balance, who thinks that yellowy-green is distinguishable from greeny-yellow. If you use colours to transfer meaning you ensure that those colours are distinct from each other, and if the range of colours has a meaning, you ensure the colour range ranges through self-similar colours.

Edit: I've just checked with a colour picker, and one of them is 255,255,0 and another is 0,255,0, which with the combination of my monitor and my eyes is indistinguishable. You can be bothered to make "Borders" distinguishable from "Dumfries", you can go to the effort to make "Dumfries" distinguishable from "Ayr".

I've got a £400 laptop with a 15" screen and whatever standard videocard the manufacturer wanted rid of. One's green and one's yellow.

[johnloony]

Aug 16, 2014 17:21:34 GMT J.G.Harston said:

I am 45 years old and, like 90% of the population, do not have the vision of a 18-year-old web designer with a 95-inch monitor with perfect colour balance, who thinks that yellowy-green is distinguishable from greeny-yellow.

Edit: I've just checked with a colour picker, and one of them is 255,255,0 and another is 0,255,0, which with the combination of my monitor and my eyes is indistinguishable. You can be bothered to make "Borders" distinguishable from "Dumfries", you can go to the effort to make "Dumfries" distinguishable from "Ayr".

They are not yellowy-green and greeny-yellow; they are green and yellow. I am older than you and my laptop is older and smaller than yours, and I can see the distinction between yellow and green perfectly.

If you genuinely can't tell the difference between the yellow of Dumfries & Galloway & Aryshire and the green of Highland & Islands, then presumably it also looks to you as if there is a single constituency stretching from Cheshire to southern Lincolnshire? It's not your fault if you're colour-blind but there are many more examples to make it obvious that you misinterpreted it.