Is the UK electoral system really 'broken '?

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

In an article on politics, the UK left-wing newspaper the Guardian publishes a report that criticises the present electoral system in the UK. It claims that we are set up for repeated coalition governments.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jan/04/voting-system-perpetual-coalition-ippr

The whole argument for ' first past the post', the system that the UK has at present, is that it produces a clear winner. Well, this last election didn't. The Labour party had a bigger share of votes and seats than the Liberal Democrats, but is in opposition, whereas the Lib Dems were invited to join David Cameron's Conservative government.

How did that happen? Well, my take is that a lot of people did not vote *for* what they wanted, so much as they voted to stop the other guy getting in. people who could not bear the thought of candidate X getting in voted for the person most likely to beat them. This produced a squeeze on minor parties with the big fish getting more of the vote, yet still gave a clear message that neither Labour nor Tories really held the nations trust and confidence. In a way, it was a very democratic election - nobody got what they really wanted!

So, how can we fix it? We are about to have a referendum in the UK in May on AV - the Alternative Vote. the Greens say that this does not go far enough, Caroline Lucas wants STV, but welcomes AV as a step in the right direction.

STV will mean, not just a first and second choice, but all candidates being ranked in order of preference. Some say that this will mean minor right wiing extremists will be able to gather 5% of the vote and still get something.

i feel we have to play the long game here. It is not good ignoring 5% of the british public just because we don't agree with them. the way to tackle extremists is to give them the platform they want and then let them shoot themselves in the foot whenn they try to answer questions that are not on their favourite topics.

The BNPs Nick griffin recently appeared on the BBC, and there were wails of dispair from the left wingers that the BBC were giving this hard core racist 'legitimacy'. in actual fact, the appearance was a disaster for griffin and the BNP - because the presenter of the programme, 'Question Time', had clearly done his homework and confronted Griffin with things he had said on the record over the years.

The best and most memorable example was that he had said 'on record', that " Adolf Hitler just went a bit too far". This prompted the BBC presenter to ask him how far he should have or could have gone - was opening belsen concentration camp ok - maybe if it was just confiscation of all Jewish property, but no loss of life, or he had stopped when he had murdered a few million less Jews- would that be OK by you, Mr. Griffin? Can you tell us where Hitler should have stopped, in your opinion?

Griffin squirmd with embarrasment and tried to wriggle his way out and just got in deeper every time. The BNP crashed in the Local elections as well as losing a large share of the vote in the National elections held the same day.

Another weakness of extremist parties is that they cannot put up candidates who know enough about schools, housing and all the other bits involved in serious government. they get elected into local councils and fail miserably to adress the real issues like drains and housing shortages.

So, I feel that long term , Proportional Representation will work. First past the post has not given a clear winner, and cannot under present conditions. Wether other countries can hang on to a two party sytem is another matter, but two party politics in britian is becoming a thing of the past and it is time we had a change.

X posted to UK Politics.

Comments

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

It might well be 'better' than the US version , in some respects - but it does not at present give a result that most people think ' fair enough, we lost' or give a clear impression that the candidate who won had a mandate from the people. as I said, this clear injustice gives many people the idea that they will use 'tactical voting'. many voters know that their guy won't get in , so they vote against the guy they like the least in the hope of stopping them.

Unless you live in one of the few maginal seats, you are not going to influence the outcome - and the cynicism this produces results in lower turnouts that further skew the results.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

In the UK, the system IS deliberately skewed to the 'two party system', and the UK public is clearly unhappy with it.

The Liberals were eclipsed by the Labour Party back in the days when WW2 ended - but Libs never really dissappeared or got absorbed into either of the other parties. What has happened is that smaller, right of centre parties have arisen , and so have people over to the left, like the Greens.

Tories clearly don't speak for everyone on the right anymore, and many feel betrayed by the Labour party and accuse it of 'selling out'. We are not a Two party State any more, we have gone multi party in our politics and we need a multi party system to allow a proper debate on the issues.

So, while many do vote for parties like UKIP or the Greens on principle, I do still have voters on the doorsteps tell me that they will vote for X or Y "because they are the only ones who can stop the Tories/Labour Party from getting in".
Clearly, unless people are allowed to vote for what they want with any real chance of getting it they are not going to participate in the political discourse.

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

or give a clear impression that the candidate who won had a mandate from the people.

Am I to assume we now realise how a simple postal vote fraud, the whole election can be corrupted?

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Sure - and this is one reason to make sure that we have more transparency in the voting system aswell as the whole political set up. troops overseas and the like should have the vote - but not Labour MPs who want to invent whole fictitious families...

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

uh hu, my problem you see is with our state in control of our education system, we're all indoctrinated at an early age, I still remember being taught that Britain was best, cleverest, fastest..... yada yada yada, when it came to foreign political systems we were all allowed to m,ake our own minds up, when it came to our own "Free democtratic" system, that was best, no discussion time allowed!!!

My problem now is that though often the capitalist side of this country is "Kept in check", it's still wide open to abuse of the political system, and as we're getting close to 80% of workers being in the "Public sector......"

[pmax3.livejournal.com]

First Past The Post seems good enough to me for a parliamentary democracy. All voting systems have problems, including the ranking system. FPTP has been working well in India, with the myriad coalations we have had in the past two decades. There have been times when the party with the largest number of seats in the lower house stayed out of power for the entire term of that house without anybody creating a fuss, and I don't see such situations as inherently problematic. So don't worry, stick with it, it works!

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

in what way does it ' work' ?
obviously, we need other reforms as well to see to it that MPs do not abuse the system for personal gain, but for me, it inherently unfair that a party that gets less than 30% of the overall vote can get more than 50% of the seats.

if the Indian people are happy with that sort of system well good luck to them, but the fact that we are forced to have a referendum on AV shows that people in the UKK are not happy.

I personally do not see FPTP working for me locally or my party nationally, and will vote AV in the hope of forcing a vote on STV next time round.

[pmax3.livejournal.com]

I mentioned India as an example of a place where this system has been used without any breakdowns or allegations of unfairness for a long period of time under circumstances that you have only now begun to encounter, thus giving you a precedent.

As for fairness, well no voting system can be completely fair, as this table (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Criteria_in_evaluating_single_winner_voting_systems) shows. A ranking system in particular is constrained by Arrow's Impossibility Theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_impossibility_theorem), which says that a ranking based voting systems that satisfied three basic fairness criteria is impossible.

You mentioned "tactical voting" in a comment above. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with it. Rather it is a legitimate tool for smaller segments of the population to have their opinion counted. For example, in some of the communally polarized elections in India in the past, Muslims voted for whoever the next most powerful candidate to the BJP candidate was, when it appeared that the BJP candidate was likely to win. The BJP tried to make it out to be a case of subversion of the electoral process, when it fact was the legitimate use of the process by a group of people with similar concerns.

Proportional representation seems to be largely like the presidential system to me, but perhaps you could explain it in detail.

It would be good if you could mention what criteria determine fairness or non-fairness for you, so that the best method for you as a country can be arrived at.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

The following table shows which of the above criteria are met by several single-winner systems.

As the main article from which that table is drawn clearly shows, PR is a multiple winner system.

The Zeno's paradox argument does show that one cannot meet *all* criterions for fairness, but then , does it need to?
I would argue tha we need a ~fairier~ system than the one at present, and that this can be arranged.

Ireland at present has run for many years with STV - and the net result has been that the Conservatives have shared power with the Greens to make a stable and successfull government.

it is a consensus of the Irish people I know that the greens are what keeps the Irish conservative party 'on track' in terms of openess and honesty, and thus , the system has worked for them.

The article you cited has a link to PR, but if you want a 'potted version' from me , it goes something like this:-

Thatcher got in with less than 50% of the vote - and the big problem we brits have with FPTP is that it can lead to people who get 30% of the vote getting less than 10% of the seats in Parliament.

PR would attempt to reflect the will of the group as a whole, not just the biggest faction in politics, which is what happens when you say "winner takes all". The 2010 election in Britain gave us a coalition - and this under a system which is designed to make a clear strong winner.

yet the coalition we have has not reflected the choices of the electorate as a whole, it is simply that people are tactically voting 'no' instead of positively voting " Yes" .

A system that encouraged a 'yes' vote would still give us a better coalition, but one we definitely wanted, not just the least worse option from the majority view.

For me, I think the criterion of fairness that is paramount is that 20% of the votes should get something close to 20% of the seats in Parliament, not just a mere handful. the more people see that their vote makes a difference, the more people will go out and vote.

There is the argument about whether people should vote for a person or a party. In actual fact, in the UK, there is something called a 'safe seat' -it is said that if you pinned a blue or red rossette on a donkey in some places, the donkey would win, so long as it was wearing the right colour!

In actual fact, it was true that a Labour candidate who was a complete non entity with no previous experience could be sent along to some places in the North of England and get a massive vote of confidence from the locals - coal miners and steel workers who voted Labour on a matter of principle, whereas anyone wearing a blue rossette for the tories was guaranteed a 'shoo in' in vast swathes of the home counties where the stockbroker belt and farming communities had their strongholds.

So, in UK politics , I don't really see it as an issue that people are voting for a personality so much as a political position. Ok, the personality of the PM may sway some people, but the local MP , not so much. it is the big hitters we care about, mostly. There outstanding MPs who make a big impact in marginal seats, there are people who will succeed as Independent candidates in an area where they decide to fight on a local issues platform - but these people are rare, compared to the majority who stand on a Party platform.

For these reasons, I see AV as a means of delivering more of what people want, and a stepping stone to STV which will mean they get it more so.

[pmax3.livejournal.com]

It is not Zeno's paradox, but Arrow's Impossibility Theorem.

So, under PR, if Party A gets 45% of the vote, Party B gets 35%, and Party C gets 20%, how many seats will each party have in the parliament, and which party will the the Prime Minister be from?

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Oh - reminded me of Zenos paradox, and I am sure it was quoted, but still,to answer your question , the AV system of PR would eliminate tactical voting to some extent, but STV would drive it down further.
there are severaal PR systems and it seems to me like the 2 main parties see that any PR system will mean gains to smaller parties at their expense.

Under STV, one ~should~ get party A on 45% of the seats, and party B with 35% with party C getting the remaining 20%. Now, can the 2 main players work to form a working majority is another question, but in the UK, the Lib Dems got less votes than Labour, and got offerd cabinet places.

Had the election gone on 'share of the vote', not FPTP, Labour and Lib Dems may have been the ruling coalition, not the Tories.
Undeer the UK 'constitution' - the rules are there but not fully formalised into one document, the Queen invites the person who leads the party with the most seats to 'form a government' - and there are no rules on who they can or can't ask.

The problem is that our present system can mean that theoretically, a party with less than 50% of the vote gets more than 50% of the seats and that a party with 20% may get no seats at all.

PR would at least give a more balanced representation to each party, but may cut the ties of an individual candidate to their area. However, as I said, we tend not to choose individuals as much as policies anyway in the UK. For that reason, STV would suit us better, I think. it may not give us everything we want, but no system will. STV would give us our most important national concern - a Parliament that reflects voters policy preferences.

[pmax3.livejournal.com]

So under this new system, can Party B and Party C come together to form a government, and nominate a Prime Minister from either Party B or Party C?

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Sorry to be so late getting back, but the brits system works like this.
1)All the votes get counted and a result gets declared.

2) The Person who leads the Party with the most seats gets invited to come to Buckingham Palace by the Queen and is invited to for a government to legislate on her behalf. this person will then become her Prime Minister.
I dunnow what happens if there is a draw - but it has not happened in my lifetime - i am sure someone will know the answer and be brought to the palace to toss a coin or something :)

3) The Party Leader who is the new PM will try to get a team together - mostly from their own party , if poss, but will do deals and make alliances to gain overall control if this is not possible without outside help.

So, if Party B and C come together to form a government, under the present rules, the PM is automatically the Leader with the most seats. now, there is nothing to stop them from going to one or two people from party A, if they think that the Party A types will be more suppportive than the Party they are partners with.A few sympathetic Nationalists and Independents have saved a few governments in crisis by voting with and not agaist them in my lifetime - and been rewarded for their services rendered by the government proposing a bill they wanted passing and voting for it.

[pmax3.livejournal.com]

Hey I understand the present British system. I was asking how things would proceed in our hypothetical situation under the new rules that you propose (proportional representation). You had worked it out to the point where B and C get 35% and 20% of the seats in the legislature on the basis of their vote percentages. Now if someone from A is called by the Queen to form the government but he doesn't have the majority (their seats are less than 50%, remember?), then how will he "legislate on her behalf"? If you don't know the answer to this then you don't have a solution in your proposed PR at all (that is the solution to the "problem" of having a coalation government, or having the party with the larget vote share sitting out of power)

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Ok, I see where you are coming from now. Under the new PR rules, it would mean that maybe more Greens, more people from other small parties and more Independants get into the House.

This means that the PM has a wider choice of people to form a government from. Because nobody can vote in the house, for or against the Government unless they get elected first.

The problem is at present that we are set to have minority governments for quite a while, but under FPTP, they are decided by tactical voting - quite legal, but this is not the same as having the person you really want to get a seat.

If it were easier to elect one's first choice, then the makeup of future coalitions would change , and I think this would be a good thing for UK politics.

[pmax3.livejournal.com]

Ah, I understand now, thanks for explaining!

[pmax3.livejournal.com]

But I certainly appreciate your making the effort in your comments to explain the current system to me - I probably should have made it clearer before that I was familiar with it. Hope I didn't come across as being rude :)

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

You are welcome to ask you want.
And no, you don't come across as rude, just curious.
Our political system as we have it now was drawn up mostly in the days when the British Crown was emerging from religious struggles, back in the 1700s.

Back then, we did not want a Catholic to ever sit on the throne again - not after Mary Tudor, thank you! But the idea of a Monarchy, and not a Republic, still carried lots of popular support. And we can blame Oliver Cromwell for that, plus the fact that nobody was strong enough to carry enough the country behind him to become his sucessor.

We therefore restored the Monarchy under Charles II, and invited William of Orange to sit on the throne of England later, as his sucessor.

But the problem of having a king was that Charles I had started a Civil War by attempting to raise money for foriegn wars against the wishes of the Common People.

Now we put an end to such a thing ever happening again by having a system whereby the Crown is a non - political entity. The Monarch simply does not make policy, and acts as a figurehead behind which all loyal subjects can unite. The Government, chosen by the people, rules England on behalf of the Monarch and acts in the Monarch's name.

In practice, this means that nobody in England can declare martial law, or do anything else without the Queen's permission. It is not what power she has that makes her important, it is the power she takes away from everyone else.

When the Americans had an election recently, George Bush called the result before all the votes were in and there were arguments over the legitimacy of of the Bush administration becase of the way the whole election was run.

In the UK, a Returning Officer, acting in the the Queen's name, declares any election result. The Queen then invites the leader of the party with most seats to form a Government of their own choosing, and the Queens Ministers, led by her Prime Minister, will set about framing legislation for the good of the whole realm.

Although the Monarch does not have any say in Parliament, we should not underestimate the value of a good Monarch. It is their duty of every Monarch to sit down and talk with the Prime Minister about affairs of state once a week.

Now, if the Monarch is simply an empty headed noodle, interested only in parties and such, not much will come of it. However, our present Queen is a grandmother, and has sat down and talked to every single PM that Britain has had since the 1950s under Sir Winston Churchill. She has a deep interest in political affairs, nationallly and internationally, and has seen many a political crisis come and go.

In the film 'The Queen', we get a glimpse of her role in British politics. She is played by Helen Mirren, and the film charts her relationship with Tony Blair, when he happened to be her new PM.

The film is a masterpiece with some brilliant performances, but also shows the relationship between people, politicians and the British Crown, especially in the wake of the death of Lady Diana, who was once Princess of Wales. Anyone interested in british politics should get it and view it on DVD, but we must remember that one day, Her Majesty will be succeeded by someone else. Either Prince Charles or one of his sons is most likely.

This will mean that someone relatively new and untried must step into Elizabeths shoes. The current film doing the rounds is 'The King's Speech', in which Colin Frith plays King George VI, Elizabeth II's father.

During WW2, he played an enormous role in uniting the country behind Churchill and did a lot to sustain morale during the blitz. Again, the film emphasises the value of a good monarch who stand above and apart from any political party on behalf of the nation.

I could be wrong , but I don't think that Prince Charles has the same affection in the eyes of the public as his mother does, and he may never be forgiven for his role in the unfortunate business of his divorce from Lady Diana. However, his son William, if he accepts the role, has stillgot the national goodwill behind him. I do not see us entirely ready to become a republic just yet.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

it inherently unfair that a party that gets less than 30% of the overall vote can get more than 50% of the seats.

It's because they represent an area*. If a party got over 50% of the vote, but only 30% of the seats (for example), hasn't catered to a wide and diverse community; they're very strong in some areas, and weak with others. If it were all proportional then, in our case, non-urban voters would have no voice, and in yours I imagine it would be something similar, but more London-centric than just urban-centric. This is why I like the mixed system the Kiwi's have (see my post below).


*They don't represent an area at all anymore, you and we have presidential elections wrapped around a westminster system, something needs to change.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Also, I think one major difference is that our senate is proportional (state based); but the house of lords is something fucked up and non-democratic isn't it?

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Ah, the House of Lords used to be all about the Aristocracy. however, there have been moves to make it more representative and I would not like to say how effective the recent changes are- too early to say at present.

I still feel though , that rather than have the guvvermint appoint someone to be in the upper chamber, we should have people actually elected to do the job of taking a long term view of things.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Yeah, half of our senators are elected each election on proportion by state (ie. each state gets 6, territories get 2). This means they're in twice as long as the reps (the long view; being a safety valve against radical change of an electorate wrapped up in the moment), it's more likely to get minor parties in (the minors/independents usually have balance of power in the senate, so they need to be considered when making policy), but at the same time it also allows for the small states (population wise) to get an equal voice as the big ones (it was a condition of federation). Western Australia has about 1/10th of the population, but has a quarter of the landmass of the country, including a large portion of the mineral wealth. Without the senate we have it would be easy for Victoria and NSW to overwhelm the rest of the country, which would lead to issues in other parts of the country. However, it also means we end up with lunatics in the senate because a handful of nutbug Western Australians or Queenslanders can elect someone like Pauline Hanson... In their defence though, Victoria elected the fundy xtian.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I like the mixed member thing they have in New Zealand. A portion of the house is individual, preference electorates, and a portion is proportional of the vote for the entire country. I think it sort of works that if you vote for Bob Sheeprooter for the Kiwi party, then Bob gets a vote for that electorate contest and the Kiwi party get a vote in the proportional stakes, if Bob fails to win the seat, but he's the #1 nominee from the Kiwi party and they get enough for a proportional seat, then he gets in.


RE: coalitions being bad for government. We (Oz) have our first minority government for generations (our "coalition" is essentially one party using two names and sets of policies depending on whether it's city or bush, but they're never going to not be a coalition). What I see is the the most willing to listen government I can remember. Sure, our opposition are still squawking like insane cockatoos in a swimming pool full of beer, but the independents we've got (some of whom I thought were going to be the batshit crazy ones) seem to be doing a really good job of bringing up problems that we actually have here, rather than problems invented by the media and micro-managing, focus group obsessed political apparatchiks.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Thanks for commenting. It is interesting to see how other systems work and compare the differences.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

One thing I've always liked about first past the post is that it allows us to factor in the agency of communities. We consider the individual but also what a particular community says. I'd maintain that a party that wins 5% of the national vote but wins almost all of it within a small number of communities seems far more seat worthy than some fringe group that has managed to pick up 5% of the vote spread across the country. The one that picked up the 5% country wide is more likely to be a fringe group. But you raise a good point, exposing them to the sunshine of actually having to participate in government may be just the right kind of disinfectant.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

FPTP Westminster system seems to have worked for centuries in many many nations. PR or STV seem to be marketed as utopian solutions to problems it won't really solve. Flaws such as unhappiness with election results are still inheirent in democracies. It's not about pleasing everyone. Never has been.

I'm still surprized UK accepted a coalition gov't rather then the minority gov't they elected.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

The minority govt would be weak b/coz they would not be able to pass any laws without outside help. So, they went to the Lib Dems and asked what it would cost to have their support for policy A and hoped that it would not mean too much of policy B! in the end, watered down versions of both parties policies were voted for, and so it won't be long before we get another (metaphorical 0 bloodbath on election night.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Look at PM Harper in Canada. Yes, minority gov'ts can and do work. So what if they need outside help to pass legislation? Big whopee. Opposition will have to lend their support or bring down the gov't with yet another election they've proven they are unable to win. So bills are still passed in minority gov'ts.

Forming a coalition after election result seems contrary to the democratic will of election results. They didn't campaign as a coalition. They didn't promise to form a coalition if they lost.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Quite, hence this government is likely to be very unpopualr, but what else have we got apart from the Greens?

It is my bet that as we have become a multi Party state, we will eventually turn to a multi party system.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

As it should be a multi-party state to try to represent the many views of the many people. To do so like the Americans do is rather limiting. To do so under the guise of minority government, making deals, bargaining, and sometimes backing down or away from proposed legislation is how democracy should work in my view.

Listen, just because the MP/MLA has job is to enact new laws, doesn't mean they have to do so all the time. Seems they sometimes introduce bills because it's their job rather then because these bills are needed or necessary. Neither do we need a majority government to pass laws. If the law is necessary, good and the right thing to do, then it will find support from both sides of Parliament.

I'm against majority gov't, just as I'm against coalition (faux-majority) gov't. I don't like laws rammed through just because they can, just because they feel it's why we elected them. It will pass if iot has support.

We elected them to represent us, ALL of us. We come in all stripes. Only a true minority gov't rules from that perspective.

[anadinboy.livejournal.com]

bnp all the way! or at least ukip

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

There's a fair amount of criticism in American political science circles of first past the post/winner takes all elections, the main argument being that it effectively disenfranchises the losing minority (or plurality), especially in districts with a long tradition of electing one particular party. I think there's some merit to the argument, but I'm not convinced that a proportional representation system would work any better, especially considering the general non-viability of our third parties (and note that I myself am a registered member of a third party). It was once pointed out to me that Norway's unicameral PR legislature works well, and while this may be true, I'm not sure that it would work in a nation of 300,000,000.

I would not be opposed to a mixed system, however, where say half the seats in Congress were filled through the traditional FPTP elections, and half through a PR party-list system.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

The non-viable nature of third parties is a direct result of FPP though.

I've said it a few times in this post, but check out the NZ system.