4 ms·

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

by 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?
    - napoleond 11y ago
      Beyond strategic reasons mentioned elsewhere, the main ones are (a) local candidate of desired party is unqualified/unpopular/etc and (b) local candidate of less desired party is more qualified/more popular/etc. (Seeing as "popularity" is, for better or worse, a pretty important quality in a political candidate; this includes "I went to the same high school as candidate X, they seem like a good person.") This happens easily in more-than-two party systems like Canada or the U.K. Since each party overlaps with another a bit on certain issues, and many voters only seem to feel strongly about a few issues, those voters are ideologically okay with more than one party. Even if they have a "favourite" party, they will consider the candidates of those other parties as well.
    - aidos 11y ago
      The leadership of the Greens are/were most closely aligned with my values – certainly at the time when the Blairites were still heading up the Labour party. So I wanted to vote Green as the party. My local Labour representative, however, is a pretty good person to have looking out for the area. He was born and raised in the estates opposite my house - to a working class immigrant family, no less. In his time representing the area he's done a lot of good and he has a lot of experience. For me, that's all good - but his party values of continued austerity and benefit cuts don't sit well with me. You see my conundrum? :)
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.

by aidos 11y ago

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?
  - napoleond 11y ago
    Beyond strategic reasons mentioned elsewhere, the main ones are (a) local candidate of desired party is unqualified/unpopular/etc and (b) local candidate of less desired party is more qualified/more popular/etc. (Seeing as "popularity" is, for better or worse, a pretty important quality in a political candidate; this includes "I went to the same high school as candidate X, they seem like a good person.") This happens easily in more-than-two party systems like Canada or the U.K. Since each party overlaps with another a bit on certain issues, and many voters only seem to feel strongly about a few issues, those voters are ideologically okay with more than one party. Even if they have a "favourite" party, they will consider the candidates of those other parties as well.
  - aidos 11y ago
    The leadership of the Greens are/were most closely aligned with my values – certainly at the time when the Blairites were still heading up the Labour party. So I wanted to vote Green as the party. My local Labour representative, however, is a pretty good person to have looking out for the area. He was born and raised in the estates opposite my house - to a working class immigrant family, no less. In his time representing the area he's done a lot of good and he has a lot of experience. For me, that's all good - but his party values of continued austerity and benefit cuts don't sit well with me. You see my conundrum? :)

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.