UK Electoral reform

[herzlos]

I think we need a hybrid of the STV/Ranked and PR. Which is basically what's already in place for the Scottish Parliament: 129 seats, 76 are constituency based and 56 are 'list'.

So you have your STV vote which ranked list, if there isn't a majority then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and their votes are re-allocated to the next in the preference list, repeat until someone wins. That means you can vote for the candidates you want in order and it'll still mean something, there's minimal need for tactical voting.

Then your list candidates don't have constituencies but are elected based on the actual vote percentages, with some fudge factor to disadvantage the parties with the most constituent seats.




However you do it, you should have some route to contact an MP for help with whatever issues you are facing, the most logical for that is to give each an area and regular clinics, because I think that'll work better than trying to contact a pool of them especially if it's a long running issue with multiple meetings.

[nfe]

There are national political cultures to account for in terms of voting preference systems, as well. The vast majority of people in the UK at a general election* are voting with the party they want to be in government in mind, not the MP they want to represent them (though they are actually voting for the latter). Swathes of the country can't make the MP who represents them.

In the US, my guess is that far more are voting for the specific local representatives they want - partly because of attitudes to local governance, and partly because they also get the presidential election to fulfil a national election mental space.

*It's well understood that people pay far more attention to the individual candidates at by-elections, despite them electing the same type of representative, since it is not done as part of a national election.

[mdgv2]

I’d definitely want a proper local representative with a voice on the national stage.

Whilst not a saint, Greg Clark was my MP for a good few years, and he at least responded when I’d write him. One was about the unfairness of taxing pubs into oblivion to pay for the impact of problem drinking, when it’s supermarkets selling cheap piss as a loss leader which lead to binge drinking and antisocial behaviour, yet because the tax is expressed as a percentage of the sale price, supermarkets paid the least Beer Duty. Now I got a stock response from the Minister for that basically sucking of the supermarket and whining about “mArKeT fOrCeS. But Mr Clark added a hand written addendum agreeing with me, and pledging to do what he could. If memory serves. He also championed my old local pub to become the area’s first Community Asset Pub, saving it from cunty developers.

Of course, some get lumped with the like of Nadine Dorries, who never visit their constituency.

[Haighus]

If absolutely wedded to the idea of having a representative at the national level, then do PR by regions, so you have several representatives for a region. That way, most people in a region will have at least one representative who aligns with their views, rather than running into a brick wall if their representative is ideologically opposed to them. I've functionally never had a representative, they've represented a plurality of people living in the same area as me to do the opposite of what I stand for.

I also don't think that any issue sufficiently local that having regional MPs over local ones would mean it is not addressed, is probably too trivial for national politics. We need more devolved government not more centralisation to Westminster. On less local stuff, people in Stockport are likely to have broadly similar concerns to people in Oldham (and, frankly, most of these concerns are covered by the GM mayor). People in Stoke will to people in Newcastle-under-Lyme. These areas could easily be grouped into regional constituencies with multiple MPs, and you choose which MP to contact with your issue (or all of them). If an MP is underperforming compared to their regional colleagues, it would also be more obvious.

[Haighus]

Jul 6, 2024 18:49:42 GMT -5 Peregrine said:

Jul 6, 2024 16:35:18 GMT -5 mdgv2 said:

But the theory behind Proportional Representation is a government better reflecting the mood and will of the entire country.

I suppose that's a question of political philosophy then: is the legislature supposed to be a single national entity looking only at the needs and wishes of the country as a whole or is it an assembly of delegates from each city/region/etc representing the interests of their constituents? I suppose one could make the argument that it should become the first but in that case why have so many members? Cutting it down to maybe 10-20 MPs selected in proportion to a single nation-wide vote is all you'd need.

Jul 6, 2024 17:33:33 GMT -5 semipotentwalrus said:

Because democracy is rule by the people, not rule by the arbitrary geographical divisions?

It is not arbitrary, or at least it is not intended to be. A town or region is an entity with natural borders and shared interests and so, rather than deal with the unwieldy nature of direct democracy at a national level, we have that entity select a representative to act on their behalf in the national government. It's arguably closer to the ideals of democracy than having a nation-wide system where a very regional party can have full control without caring about the interest of anything outside their region as long as that region has enough voters to hit the 51% threshold.

The problem is that is disenfranchises huge amounts of voters. In practice, it is much more likely that you get regions dominating a minoritarian government with FPTP than it is to have a region gain a slim majority and dominate in PR. Take the US- the GOP are able to get a majority in the House on a minority of votes. Meanwhile, what region even comes close to 51%? California is the most populous state and isn't even close, plus PR would mean the large minority of California Republicans would actually have a vote that matters. The reverse is true for Texas. How is that the less democratic option than turning up to vote being a waste of time in huge swathes of the country?

[Haighus]

Jul 6, 2024 16:10:31 GMT -5 Peregrine said:

Jul 6, 2024 16:05:47 GMT -5 mdgv2 said:

Kind of? As I understand it, each State gets electoral votes based on percentage of the population. So a more densely populated state has greater clout in determining President. But….they’re awarded on a FPTP system, rather than proportional.

For president, yes, it's the weird electoral college system. But for the legislature it works the same as in the UK: each district has its own separate election and the single winner of that election gets the seat, there are no points for second place. And why should there be? Why should a district lose its choice of representative just because some other district had a bunch of votes for the losing party?

Some states (one state?) assign their electoral votes proportionately, but most give all to the single highest votes. Which is why Trump was elected despite losing the popular vote.

Why should someone be unrepresented because the winning candidate is diametrically opposed to them but had the single most votes in their area? Lets say its a gerrymandered seat an independent ran, and the candidate won on 40% of the vote? Is that actually representing their district?

PR almost completely removes gerrymandering.

[semipotentwalrus]

Jul 6, 2024 18:49:42 GMT -5 Peregrine said:

It's arguably closer to the ideals of democracy than having a nation-wide system where a very regional party can have full control without caring about the interest of anything outside their region as long as that region has enough voters to hit the 51% threshold.

A party with a majority of voter support isn't going to be "very regional" in the first place. Regardless, democracy is demographic representation, not geographic representation. Regions aren't hive-minds, people have diverse opinions and deserve to have their opinion be given the same weight as anyone else. You're making a less democratic system out of fear of a situation that only exists in hypotheticals. Why does a rural farmer from Idaho deserve to have their opinion on who should be President of the United States count for more than someone who lives in California? Subsidiarity principles (actual states' rights, as in letting local government deal with issues that don't need to be dealt with on a larger scale) handle your fears just fine without making some animals more equal than others.

[Peregrine]

Question for the people arguing against representatives and for the legislature as a purely national entity: why have districts and a large legislature at all? Why not cut the legislature to 5-10 MPs, allocated based on nationwide vote? For every 10% of the vote you get you get one of the ten MPs. What is the purpose of having hundreds of seats in the legislature if they're allocated by nationwide percentages?

And TBH what is the point in having a legislature at all? If it's all about national politics and a party with a majority of the seats can govern without really needing to care about the minority party why not simplify it even further and just have a nationwide vote for a single president/prime minister/etc who writes all the laws?

[nfe]

Jul 7, 2024 21:10:16 GMT -5 Peregrine said:

Question for the people arguing against representatives and for the legislature as a purely national entity: why have districts and a large legislature at all?

I don't think anyone has made this argument.

In a UK context, I'm not really aware of any PR advocates that want to completely remove ties between representatives and constituencies, and none that want to bin devolved governments, regional government, or local councils

[Haighus]

Jul 7, 2024 21:10:16 GMT -5 Peregrine said:

Question for the people arguing against representatives and for the legislature as a purely national entity: why have districts and a large legislature at all? Why not cut the legislature to 5-10 MPs, allocated based on nationwide vote? For every 10% of the vote you get you get one of the ten MPs. What is the purpose of having hundreds of seats in the legislature if they're allocated by nationwide percentages?

And TBH what is the point in having a legislature at all? If it's all about national politics and a party with a majority of the seats can govern without really needing to care about the minority party why not simplify it even further and just have a nationwide vote for a single president/prime minister/etc who writes all the laws?

This is a weird slippery slope-esque argument that I'm disappointed you're making.

Firstly, whilst you could reduce the national legislature with a PR system, 5-10 MPs is obviously ludicrous. It doesn't have the granularity to reflect minority views within the electorate. With 10 MPs, a view has to get at least 10% of the vote to matter. This would drastically reduce the diversity of thought within the legislature.

Which misses the whole point of PR, in which minority views are able to get at least some voice at a national scale. It feels you are looking at this purely through the lense of your current two-party system, when in reality that system is artificially created by the pluralistic voting system.

PR means that voting for an independent is much less likely to be a wasted vote. It also means the Republicans and Democrats would probably split into at least two parties. New parties would likely spring up. The idea is that the full spectrum of thought is represented, with only the very niche ideas excluded (exclusion being less than the votes for a single seat, so a larger legislature can include more viewpoints).

This does typically result in hung legislatures that force cooperation and coalitions, unlike FPTP which encourages partisanship. The point is, in part, to avoid an electoral dictator for a term.

[Peregrine]

Jul 8, 2024 0:22:41 GMT -5 nfe said:

I don't think anyone has made this argument.

In a UK context, I'm not really aware of any PR advocates that want to completely remove ties between representatives and constituencies, and none that want to bin devolved governments, regional government, or local councils

Then what does PR mean, if not a system where representatives in the legislature are allocated based on nationwide vote totals rather than the winner of each district? Where it doesn't matter if one party wins every district, the opposition still got 40% of the votes so the winner only gets 60% of the seats? In that kind of system you aren't directly electing your representation in the national government, you're voting for one of the parties to have a larger share.

Jul 8, 2024 1:43:35 GMT -5 Haighus said:

Firstly, whilst you could reduce the national legislature with a PR system, 5-10 MPs is obviously ludicrous. It doesn't have the granularity to reflect minority views within the electorate. With 10 MPs, a view has to get at least 10% of the vote to matter. This would drastically reduce the diversity of thought within the legislature.

OTOH why should a party that can't even get 10% of the votes have any representation? Such a party is almost certainly a fringe element with little of value to offer like the libertarians or, at best, some weird single-issue party like the US "legalize weed" parties that has no real plan or ability to govern outside of their one issue. And if you set a threshold at 1%, still a significant reduction in size, you're starting to bring in meme candidates. Do you really think the sovereign citizens (or whatever the UK equivalent is) should have a seat in government? Or some guy with a ridiculous costume who got 1% of the vote because people thought it would be funny?

It also means the Republicans and Democrats would probably split into at least two parties.

Why? Changing the voting system doesn't eliminate all of the advantages of a large party organization in fundraising, campaigning, etc. There would still be pressure to align with one of the major parties even if it means only getting part of your desired platform instead of everything. To even attempt to change this you'd have to go beyond merely implementing PR and also impose limits on campaign finances, advertising, etc, to eliminate the advantages to size.

But let's say you did all of this and you now have four parties. Now the coalition building you mentioned happens, the two halves of the party agree to form a coalition that gets them to 51%, and the combined coalition runs things just like the old single party did. All you've really accomplished is replacing the primary elections where candidates are selected with a pseudo-primary where the exact ratio of the different sub-parties is determined within their 51% majority. It's almost certainly going to be very obvious which parties will form a coalition together, you aren't going to have D1 and R2 allying to oppose D2.

Or maybe that's the difference in opinion here? The UK doesn't have an equivalent to US primary elections where each party runs several different candidates for each seat (representing the various viewpoints and platforms) and the winner faces the winner of the opposing primary in the general election. So maybe there's less representation of alternative views, where in the US those views get their chance to be considered and only lack representation if the voters decide to reject them?

[Haighus]

So, to sum up, you feel that a view that gets 1% of the vote is not worth having a seat at the national level? Yet 1% of the electorate is a population larger than Wyoming, who get two senators.

The current system pushes minority views outside of politics. You talk about primaries giving each viewpoint a fair hearing, but really it just means one viewpoint wins out overall. How many members of the Democrat legislature are actually leftwing, for example? The other factor is that people are more likely to vote for a party that represents them rather than the least bad of two options likely to win in FPTP. PR eliminates tactical voting.

By the way, you have lots of hypotheticals about big parties remaining dominant, but PR does actually exist in many countries around the world. These show that more parties are generally represented and cross-party coalitions are the norm.

I fully agree campaign finances should be cut right back though.

[mdgv2]

We do. Kinda.

Members of a Political Party within a constituency have some say in who the party’s candidate is to be in that constituency. And, when a new party leader is needed (so every five minutes for the Tories) all party members get a vote.

The theoretical joy of PR is it becomes much much harder for a single party to have an outright majority, and certainly it should eliminate weird majorities like Labour have right now (63% of seats from just 33% of the votes of a 60% turn out). So those much smaller parties? They’ll become part of the system proper as the larger parties need to form alliances for or against given bills of parliament.

Let’s look at vote share for this Election - www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2024/uk/results

If this was a strict PR? Labour would hold 33% of the seats, Tories 23.7%, Lib Dem’s 12% and Reform 14% and so on. So Labour would still have a straight “single largest party”. But the Tories and Reform could have allied for a coalition, and be 4% larger. In turn, Labour could and probably would go into a coalition with the Lib Dem’s for a much healthier 45% in total. Add in the Greens? And you’ve got 51-52%.

But instead, Labour have a staggering majority. Big enough to simply ROFLstomp anything they want through, because outside of internal rebellion there’s nobody to really stop them.

So overall, PR doesn’t fix things. But it does begin to address them. And who knows what it would look like if even half of the 40% who abstained see in PR a chance to actually be heard, without having to vote tactically and possible compromise on their ideals.

[Peregrine]

Jul 8, 2024 3:00:42 GMT -5 Haighus said:

So, to sum up, you feel that a view that gets 1% of the vote is not worth having a seat at the national level? Yet 1% of the electorate is a population larger than Wyoming, who get two senators.

Setting aside the fact that the US senate doesn't work like the US house of representatives or UK parliament you're mixing ideology and geography. Wyoming is less than 1% of the population but ideologically Wyoming is largely in line with the rest of the US. Its two senators will of course favor Wyoming's needs on issues like policies for use of government-owned grazing lands or where to put a new military base (and its associated economic benefits) but if those senators ran for office in Montana, Idaho, etc, they would be reasonable candidates and have a good chance of winning. Whether or not you or I agree with those senators they are functioning politicians capable of handling the basic responsibilities of their office. Wyoming is not, and probably will not ever be, represented by some weird fringe party that advocates for Wyoming merging with Hawaii to become a single state ruled by the secret alien overlords inside the hollow earth.

When you start insisting on representation for beliefs which have very low popularity you start to include the dysfunctional fringe groups and extremists that are rejected for good reasons. You get the Nazi party and similar extremist groups that are rejected by civilization because of their abhorrent beliefs. You get groups like the libertarians who are rejected because they lack a coherent or plausible plan for governing and would do nothing with their power besides wasting time and annoying the productive elements of the legislature. And if you drop too low you give blatant meme candidates like Count Binface because all it takes is half a percent of the voters thinking it would be funny to put them in parliament. A 10% threshold establishes a line where a party has to be credible and gain serious support for its ideas before it gets a place in government. But it's a low bar where any party that should be in power will have no problem crossing it.

The current system pushes minority views outside of politics. You talk about primaries giving each viewpoint a fair hearing, but really it just means one viewpoint wins out overall. How many members of the Democrat legislature are actually leftwing, for example?

A handful like AOC, but that's mostly because the US as a whole is a right-wing country. Genuine left-wing ideology (as opposed to "gay black women can be billionaires too") is not at all popular here. But do you think the situation would be meaningfully improved if the socialist party had 5-10 seats in congress? I sure don't think it would. They'd have a different letter beside their name in the headlines but they'd still form a voting coalition with the democrats and their sole influence would be internal party negotiations on what legislation to support, exactly as it is now. As an example look at Bernie Sanders. Technically he has that "I" next to his name instead of "D" but for all relevant purposes he's a democrat and he hasn't been any more successful at advancing left-wing policies than he would have been as an official member of the party.

The other factor is that people are more likely to vote for a party that represents them rather than the least bad of two options likely to win in FPTP. PR eliminates tactical voting.

It doesn't eliminate tactical voting at all. You still have to vote for one of the major parties that is likely to get a place in the coalition that will reach the 51% mark, voting for a minor party is still throwing away your vote. Technically they may have a seat in the legislature but they won't be part of the ruling coalition and can be ignored without consequence. Your best use of your vote is still to pressure one of the major parties to favor your positions (whether through primary voting or lobbying) and then vote for the major party closest to your beliefs in the general election.

If you want to minimize tactical voting what you actually want is a conventional district system with ranked choice voting. In that system you're free to vote your conscience with your top vote and then if/when that party loses it proceeds down your preference order until your vote reaches a party that can win.

By the way, you have lots of hypotheticals about big parties remaining dominant, but PR does actually exist in many countries around the world.

Ok, let's be clear on it then: which country do you think best demonstrates the PR system you want to see?

[Peregrine]

Jul 8, 2024 3:14:18 GMT -5 mdgv2 said:

If this was a strict PR? Labour would hold 33% of the seats, Tories 23.7%, Lib Dem’s 12% and Reform 14% and so on. So Labour would still have a straight “single largest party”. But the Tories and Reform could have allied for a coalition, and be 4% larger. In turn, Labour could and probably would go into a coalition with the Lib Dem’s for a much healthier 45% in total. Add in the Greens? And you’ve got 51-52%.

But how much does that really accomplish in terms of policy influence? The ruling coalition is obvious and it's not like the greens have any real leverage. They can either join the left-ish coalition in exchange for even the slightest amount of influence in it or they can refuse, get nothing of what they want, watch their hated opposition rule the country, and get demolished in the next election. That isn't a choice at all, obviously they join the coalition. And now, with 51% of the seats, the coalition can do the exact same ROFLstomping of the conservative side. The reform party doesn't have any more influence than they do in the actual results, they just have more useless representatives to whine in the news with a fancy little "MP" next to their name while the actual government ignores them.

Also, keep in mind that this is a fairly extreme case of FPTP vs. PR. Let's say labour had 40% of the nationwide vote instead of 33% so all they need is the greens OR the lib dems to get 51%. Now neither party has any real influence because it's a race to the bottom to see which of the two will join labour in exchange for the fewest policy concessions, with the alternative being shut out entirely. And of course the combined coalition will shut out the conservative parties regardless of what final configuration it takes.

And who knows what it would look like if even half of the 40% who abstained see in PR a chance to actually be heard, without having to vote tactically and possible compromise on their ideals.

See above re: PR still having tactical voting.