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0 pointsbonzini10y ago0 comments

> UK election outcomes have nothing to do with gerrymandering and everything to do with

> being a multi-party democracy using a FPTP electoral system, which tends to boost

> the representation of leading parties at the expense of smaller parties.

More precisely, FPTP tends to boost the representation of leading national _and local_ parties (the latter being best exemplified by the SNP) at the expense of smaller national parties. Small local parties are usually toast anyway even in proportional systems due to thresholds.

During the 2015 elections the system worked exactly as designed, by favoring parties that are strong in one or more nations of the UK at the expense of parties that are a bit meh in all of them.

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11 comments · 2 top-level

aidos10y ago· 8 in thread

FPTP is heavily biased though - you end up in a situation where there's little point voting the way you want, because it won't be effective.

Take the Greens, 3.8% of the vote with 0.15% of the final representation. And I bet that 3.8% would actually have been higher if people had felt like they wouldn't be throwing away their vote.

I understand your sentiment, but I think "bit meh" is maybe a little uncharitable. Half of my voting life has been in NZ (mixed member proportional) and the other half in the UK (FPTP) – so I have a reasonable understanding of the drawbacks of the systems.

Robadob10y ago

The better example would have been UKIP 12.7% of the total votes, and 0.2%(1) of the total MPs, compared to SNP 4.7% of the total votes and 8.6%(56) of the total MPs.

It's just a shame that the Lib Dems wasted the chance for a more proportional voting system on a referendum for an unliked semi-proportional system (AV) that would have favoured them.

Karunamon10y ago

"you end up in a situation where there's little point voting the way you want, because it won't be effective."

How much of that situation is due precisely to that mindset?

It seems like circular logic to me.

    10 Why not vote for the guy you want to win?
    20 Because he won't get enough votes
    30 Why won't he get enough votes?
    40 Because not enough people will vote for him.
    50 So why don't more people vote for him?
    60 goto 20

FPTP is arguably broken, but people engaging in "tactical voting" isn't helping matters. You're supposed to vote for who you want to win, period.

nshepperd10y ago

FPTP is unequivocally broken.

Voting for "who you want to win, period" doesn't help in FPTP. Then you just get vote splitting - the majority of the population would prefer either of parties A and B to party C, but they have different favourites, so A and B each get 30% of the vote, while C gets 40%. So the party most of the population hates wins.

Tactical voting is IMO preferable to this outcome.

aidos10y ago

Really? I'm in an area where one of the seats was hotly contested. I, like thousands of others swapped votes on a website where we pledged to vote on behalf of other people.

My local candidate narrowly won (the one I voted for, not the one I chose) – had a number of us not swapped votes, maybe that wouldn't have happened. For me that's a bit of a win of tactical voting - at least people were able to have some influence.

Another thing to note is that party voting and candidate voting are all rolled together. I actually wanted my local guy to win, but I didn't want to vote for him because I wanted to vote for a different party.

That's all very suboptimal.

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795210y ago

It could also have the effect of making the main parties vulnerable to an "insurgency" from activist elements through the leadership elections and candidate selection.

username22310y ago

We already have systems like Condorcet voting that make tactical voting unnecessary. As usual, the hard part is getting them implemented; I'm not optimistic.

dagw10y ago

If you want a real 'travesty' why are you focusing on The Greens rather than UKIP? UKIP got 3.5 times the votes that the Greens got, but got just as many seats as the Greens did. And the same argument about the votes likely being even higher if people weren't afraid of throwing their vote away could also be made.

Yet you don't hear too many people complaining about that outcome.

aidos10y ago

Yup. I think that's wrong too. I'm no fan of UKIP, but with so little influence after being the preferred party of 12.7% of the voters something surely isn't right.

Ntrails10y ago· 1 in thread

It's also worth remembering that FPTP is designed to encourage strong single party governments over large multi party coalitions.

Whether you think that is a reasonable goal is a case of personal perspective imo. I dislike the position that implies FPTP is a flat out inferior system rather than one which has some advantages and some disadvantages (as do all other systems).

davidw10y ago

Bingo! No system is perfect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore...

They all have some advantages and disadvantages.

Weak coalition governments like Italy has had in much of recent history are what you can end up with with purely proportional voting, and they have some serious problems of their own.

I think FPTP with a STV type of system is nice - you can still vote for who you want to, without having to vote tactically, but there's still going to be a stronger result.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

11 comments · 2 top-level

aidos10y ago· 8 in thread

FPTP is heavily biased though - you end up in a situation where there's little point voting the way you want, because it won't be effective.

Take the Greens, 3.8% of the vote with 0.15% of the final representation. And I bet that 3.8% would actually have been higher if people had felt like they wouldn't be throwing away their vote.

Robadob10y ago

The better example would have been UKIP 12.7% of the total votes, and 0.2%(1) of the total MPs, compared to SNP 4.7% of the total votes and 8.6%(56) of the total MPs.

It's just a shame that the Lib Dems wasted the chance for a more proportional voting system on a referendum for an unliked semi-proportional system (AV) that would have favoured them.

Karunamon10y ago

"you end up in a situation where there's little point voting the way you want, because it won't be effective."

How much of that situation is due precisely to that mindset?

It seems like circular logic to me.

    10 Why not vote for the guy you want to win?
    20 Because he won't get enough votes
    30 Why won't he get enough votes?
    40 Because not enough people will vote for him.
    50 So why don't more people vote for him?
    60 goto 20

FPTP is arguably broken, but people engaging in "tactical voting" isn't helping matters. You're supposed to vote for who you want to win, period.

nshepperd10y ago

FPTP is unequivocally broken.

Tactical voting is IMO preferable to this outcome.

aidos10y ago

Really? I'm in an area where one of the seats was hotly contested. I, like thousands of others swapped votes on a website where we pledged to vote on behalf of other people.

That's all very suboptimal.

1 more reply

795210y ago

It could also have the effect of making the main parties vulnerable to an "insurgency" from activist elements through the leadership elections and candidate selection.

username22310y ago

We already have systems like Condorcet voting that make tactical voting unnecessary. As usual, the hard part is getting them implemented; I'm not optimistic.

dagw10y ago

Yet you don't hear too many people complaining about that outcome.

aidos10y ago

Yup. I think that's wrong too. I'm no fan of UKIP, but with so little influence after being the preferred party of 12.7% of the voters something surely isn't right.

Ntrails10y ago· 1 in thread

It's also worth remembering that FPTP is designed to encourage strong single party governments over large multi party coalitions.

davidw10y ago

Bingo! No system is perfect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore...

They all have some advantages and disadvantages.

Weak coalition governments like Italy has had in much of recent history are what you can end up with with purely proportional voting, and they have some serious problems of their own.

I think FPTP with a STV type of system is nice - you can still vote for who you want to, without having to vote tactically, but there's still going to be a stronger result.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse