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> 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 te

by bonzini 11y ago

> 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.

aidos 11y ago
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.
- Karunamon 11y 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.
  - username223 11y 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.
  - 7952 11y 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.
  - nshepperd 11y 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.
  - aidos 11y 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.
    - Karunamon 11y ago
      Out of curiosity - usually party candidates deeply reflect their party platform. Under what circumstances would you want to vote for a party but not their representative candidate?
      - 11y ago
- Robadob 11y 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.
- dagw 11y 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.
  - aidos 11y 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.
Ntrails 11y ago
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).
- davidw 11y ago
  Bingo! No system is perfect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem 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.

by bonzini 11y ago

aidos 11y ago

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.

Karunamon 11y 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.
- username223 11y 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.
- 7952 11y 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.
- nshepperd 11y 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.
- aidos 11y 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.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    Out of curiosity - usually party candidates deeply reflect their party platform. Under what circumstances would you want to vote for a party but not their representative candidate?
    - 11y ago
Robadob 11y 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.
dagw 11y 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.
- aidos 11y 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.

Ntrails 11y ago

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).

davidw 11y ago
Bingo! No system is perfect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem 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.