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This was relatively recently floated (2011) and thrown out to referendum (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum https:

This was relatively recently floated (2011) and thrown out to referendum (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternat...), where it was watered down to Alternative Vote rather than full PR and eventually rejected. Obviously none of these 16 year olds would have been old enough to vote in the referendum (or indeed have been born when it took place). ~One thing to bear in mind is that FPTP limits the influence of “extreme” parties on elections (see UKIP’s vote share in 2015), but at the expense of requiring more mainstream parties to pander to those voters to avoid splitting the vote share. Jury is still out I think on what’s “best” here and probably depends on what “best” means to the person forming an opinion.~ Edit: turns out the above is at best contested, at worst disproven.

roenxi 1y ago
FPTP tends to be the system that most reliably favours extreme candidates [0] - everything else promotes candidates who are most in tune community norms. Candidates who don't align with any of the voters tend not to get in under any fundamentally democratic system - someone who is willing to do what they're promising but more in tune with the voters have an easy time against that sort of candidate. Although just from browsing the UKs AV proposal it does look like it'd be similar to IRV which has some wild results in certain tight races. Although I personally think that is fine; a little randomness is good for the system. [0] http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/
- d1sxeyes 1y ago
  Interesting, I previously understood this as an established fact, but turns out there are some very convincing arguments that show that I am wrong on this. Thank you for the challenge and correction.
pjc50 1y ago
It was a huge mess; basically the only people properly backing it were the Lib Dems, Labour were not out there in favor of it and in any case the media (overwhelmingly Tory) were against it. Just as with Brexit. The UK is basically not to be trusted with referendums. The weird thing is how many different election systems are in use in the UK depending on what the politics of each devolved assembly is "supposed to be".
- d1sxeyes 1y ago
  Tell me about it. The whole thing was basically a bone thrown to Nick Clegg to entice the Lib Dems into the coalition. As far as I can tell, this neutered referendum was the only thing the Lib Dems got out of the coalition government, and even that wasn’t the PR referendum they pushed during the election campaign. I lived in his constituency at the time and I am ashamed to admit I voted for him. It’s a travesty to see what has happened since (not just the whole coalition thing, his work with Meta too).

roenxi 1y ago

FPTP tends to be the system that most reliably favours extreme candidates [0] - everything else promotes candidates who are most in tune community norms. Candidates who don't align with any of the voters tend not to get in under any fundamentally democratic system - someone who is willing to do what they're promising but more in tune with the voters have an easy time against that sort of candidate. Although just from browsing the UKs AV proposal it does look like it'd be similar to IRV which has some wild results in certain tight races. Although I personally think that is fine; a little randomness is good for the system. [0] http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/

d1sxeyes 1y ago
Interesting, I previously understood this as an established fact, but turns out there are some very convincing arguments that show that I am wrong on this. Thank you for the challenge and correction.

pjc50 1y ago

It was a huge mess; basically the only people properly backing it were the Lib Dems, Labour were not out there in favor of it and in any case the media (overwhelmingly Tory) were against it. Just as with Brexit. The UK is basically not to be trusted with referendums. The weird thing is how many different election systems are in use in the UK depending on what the politics of each devolved assembly is "supposed to be".

d1sxeyes 1y ago
Tell me about it. The whole thing was basically a bone thrown to Nick Clegg to entice the Lib Dems into the coalition. As far as I can tell, this neutered referendum was the only thing the Lib Dems got out of the coalition government, and even that wasn’t the PR referendum they pushed during the election campaign. I lived in his constituency at the time and I am ashamed to admit I voted for him. It’s a travesty to see what has happened since (not just the whole coalition thing, his work with Meta too).