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Do you retain first past the post, switch to AV, move to proportional representation? What are the consequences of each of these choices and who is the right p

by Ntrails 10y ago

Do you retain first past the post, switch to AV, move to proportional representation? What are the consequences of each of these choices and who is the right person to make them? There is no perfect voting/political system - all of them have side effects.

oblio 10y ago
The fact that there's no perfect __anything__ shouldn't stop us from trying to improve the status quo.
- Ntrails 10y ago
  Agreed, so my question is why the OP is declaring 2 party system as "worse" when all current systems have drawbacks. Worse is subjective in this arena. So what are your metrics? What do you define as better? I'm not terribly keen on prop rep, for example - I think it actually gives too much power to extreme parties. Maybe you disagree. Maybe you think it would be better? If so, why?
  - oblio 10y ago
    I'm OP. I just said why the 2 party system is worse. Re-read my previous comment.
  - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
    This is a common argument. For example, many people in the UK's Labour party said this would be the case if the UK moved away from FPTP to AV. The conservatives wouldn't even allow the choice of real PR, limiting the vote to either what they wanted or a crap choice that no-one wanted in an attempt to get their policy choices rubber stamped with a false sense of public approval. This "worked" for that vote, and for Scottish Independence (not allowing further devolution as an option which would have won handily) and failed catastrophically with Brexit. Notably, Brexit was caused by the small party UKIP stealing votes from the Conservatives, and then by Lib-Dem voters fleeing to Labour because they previously teamed up with the Conservatives. So a leftward shift of voters, sent the result rightward, giving the Conservatives a clear victory which meant they had to deliver a referendum that they never thought they'd have to. Too late now to change it, but it seems likely the UK wouldn't be tearing itself apart at the moment with a better system.

by Ntrails 10y ago

oblio 10y ago

The fact that there's no perfect __anything__ shouldn't stop us from trying to improve the status quo.

Ntrails 10y ago
Agreed, so my question is why the OP is declaring 2 party system as "worse" when all current systems have drawbacks. Worse is subjective in this arena. So what are your metrics? What do you define as better? I'm not terribly keen on prop rep, for example - I think it actually gives too much power to extreme parties. Maybe you disagree. Maybe you think it would be better? If so, why?
- oblio 10y ago
  I'm OP. I just said why the 2 party system is worse. Re-read my previous comment.
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  This is a common argument. For example, many people in the UK's Labour party said this would be the case if the UK moved away from FPTP to AV. The conservatives wouldn't even allow the choice of real PR, limiting the vote to either what they wanted or a crap choice that no-one wanted in an attempt to get their policy choices rubber stamped with a false sense of public approval. This "worked" for that vote, and for Scottish Independence (not allowing further devolution as an option which would have won handily) and failed catastrophically with Brexit. Notably, Brexit was caused by the small party UKIP stealing votes from the Conservatives, and then by Lib-Dem voters fleeing to Labour because they previously teamed up with the Conservatives. So a leftward shift of voters, sent the result rightward, giving the Conservatives a clear victory which meant they had to deliver a referendum that they never thought they'd have to. Too late now to change it, but it seems likely the UK wouldn't be tearing itself apart at the moment with a better system.