So you’ve gone from “no safe seats” with STV to STV “makes it possible”. :rolleyes:
It’s possible in FPTP too.
We’ve used preference voting here in various jurisdictions and permutations in both single and multi-member for over a century and have a passing familiarity with how it works. IMHO it knocks FPTP into a cocked hat, but its no panacea and does throw it’s share of unrepresentative electoral outcomes.
A safe seat is one that cannot reasonably be won by the opposition. With STV in multi member constituencies parties would be able to enter multiple candidates and would need to, to ensure a maximum result. The one who was damaged goods would slide down the pecking order of his fellow candidates and would be one of those not elected.
So, yes, every vote would count and transgressors could easily be punished without damaging ones own party’s chances.
Definitions will vary but a rule of thumb used here is any electorate held by a margin of 5% or less is considered marginal, up to about 10% margin they are considered as safe for the incumbent though there are always a few that are lost/gained for the usual mix of reasons, above 10% they are considered blue ribbon and these don’t usually change outside the biggest of landslides.
About 2/3rds of all seats are blue ribbon … and that is not going to change with any switch in voting system.
In a FPTP election it is all or nothing. The case is different in more proportional systems.
Supposing you have a morally or politically doubtful candidate whose party you support for government but who you find unelectable. In FPTP you are faced with a dilemma of voting for someone you despise or voting against the party you support. In the case of say STV in MMC you can cast four votes for your party and one for the party closest to yours, avoiding the candidate, but still aiming to get the government you want. In AV+ you can vote for an alternative candidate for constituency MP yet vote your party affiliation for the list candidates.
Having sat through the morning’s political programmes I am struck by the level of dishonesty that the FPTP system is forcing on the parties concerned.
Labour (both London and their Scottish branch office) insist wrongly that the party that gets the most seats necessarily gets to form the next government, and further, should they be in that position but without a majority, they would not in any way be beholden to minority parties.
LibDems from their Scottish conference were unable to suggest which of their policies would survive accommodation with either Labour or Conservatives. Additionally they could not explain how they could support a right wing government for the last five years as full partners, but could never me part of a Confidence and Supply relationship with Labour if it involved the SNP.
The Conservatives refuse to discuss anything other than a minority or majority Conservative government with no admission of the deals that would be necessary to gain stability.
Now if people just accepted the reality of the possibility of a future coalition, we might get some grown up politics. A PR system would institutionalise realism.
UKIP at least now seem to accept that their parliamentary contribution will be negligible this time and are now playing a long game
You’ve been quoting from your copy of the PR handbook for a while but your mantra PR = inescapable coalition government = perpetual good governance doesn’t hold water… might now, might not next election cycle.
I am quoting nothing. I am merely reflecting a lifetime in politics under various systems.
PR makes it less likely for the indefensible to get elected. That was my point. The point is proved.
Perhaps you should reflect further before writing further on the subject?
Unfortunately, that is far from true. One only has to look at Germany, Italy, and Israel.
By indefensible I mean people getting elected despite not having popular support, but merely because they are carried in by their party.
People vote for an individual, not a party. You are trying to get rid of that…
But STV does put the focus on voting for individuals rather than parties, unlike FPTP where you have the one vote for whoever your party puts up (no matter how unpalatable for you) or for a less unacceptable candidate for a party you don’t really want to vote for. Pure party list PR would be party-based only, indeed, but that is not the only option.
If a party keeps putting up someone who gets a large amount of votes, they are hardly unpopular, though. And the people the parties put up are (at least in some cases, and for the major parties) chosen by the members of the local party, not the central one, so someone who is a staunch Labour supporter could join their local party and actively try to get someone better selected. If they are as unpopular as they are made out to be, that should be possible.
People vote for parties more than individuals. Most people cannot name their constituency MP. I have rarely voted for a person I prefer rather than the party I support. This has only been the case in town and parish politics where party affiliation was less important. Even when a councillor I have voted for opponents in the election, but would not do so for a body managed by party politics where majority is everything.
PR may make electing the indefensible mandatory.
Under STV in multi member constituencies is only a matter of time before in one, or in enough electorates to hold the balance of power, the major parties collect 95% of the primary vote but are shy of the quorum necessary to win the last place. So the final seat goes to the most fortuitous minor party/independent/reality TV frat party gagster. So by the luck of a byzantine preference deal they leverage 0.20% of the primary vote into 20% of the representation.
So you have the Raving Loony Party candidate finding themselves in Westminister with bugger all resources to support their parliamentary office and in the invidious position of being the crucial swing vote on a matter of national import that they know 2/3rds of 3/5ths about.
Or even less defensible is that minor parties, single issue groups and carpet baggers work out that the odds of picking up a term in parliament with attendant perks and a bloody good pension scheme are much better that in the lottery and they start gaming the system.
It is not a lottery. Under any near proportional system, each seat gained is only won by gathering enough votes. Each seat won goes to the most next deserving party.
The MR,P will only get a seat if they are the recipients of the same number of second, third or fourth votes as the first elected. If they are that popular, they deserve representation.
You really don’t understand how what you are promoting works, do you?
Presenting Ricky Muir of the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party and now Senator for Victoria for the next 6 years following his election in the 2013 Federal poll. Each state’s senate is essentially a 6 member STV electorate.
Muir won 0.51% of the primary vote (17,122 out on 3.5 million) (13th out of 34 groups). To reach the quota of 14.3% (483,076 votes) he harvested the preferences of 23 minor and micro parties: Bank Reform Party, Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party, HEMP Party, Shooters and Fishers, Australian Stable Population Party, Senator Online, Building Australia Party, Family First Party, Bullet Train For Australia, Rise Up Australia Party, No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics, Citizens Electoral Council, Palmer United Party, Democratic Labour Party, Katter’s Australian Party, Socialist Equality Party, Australian Sex Party, Australian Voice Party, Wikileaks Party, Drug Law Reform, Stop CSG, Animal Justice Party, and the Australian Independents Party. Plus 55,000 primary votes from the bottom of the major party’s tickets.
Seven of these groups picked up more primary votes than the Motor Enthusiasts Party.
The Wikileaks Party candidate Julian Assange picked up 3 time Muir’s primary vote despite the inconvenience of being held up in Ecuador’s London embassy which seriously hampered his door-to-door campaigning. The Australian Sex Party got 4 times Muir primary vote. The Palmer United (now thoroughly disunited) Party received 10 times his primary vote.
96.5% of the 483,076 quota of distributed votes that elected Ricky Muir were primary votes cast for somebody else.
And he isn’t the only one of these carpet baggers electorally employed at the moment.
There are 324 candidates on the NSW Senate ballot paper on Saturday for the 21 seats in the Legislative Council. Of these over 300 are there for the jollies and 20 who are #1 on thier ticket are hoping the luck of the preference deal will make them the next Ricky Muir.
As Fagan would have said “I think you better think it out again”
If that many people choose them down the ballot list then that seems fair. Many times people do vote against the parties that they don’t want rather than for voting for one that they do. For instance I would be very happy to have a Monster Raving Loony Party MP if that meant that the UKIP candidate was not elected because he had less last preference votes. Under FPTP a UKIP (or any other) candidate could be elected with less than 25% of the vote with 75% and more against.
The other problem with FPTP is going to happen in Scotland in May. A party with less than fifty per cent of the votes will have maybe up to 90% of the seats.
As Fagan would have said “I think you better think it out again”
Under STV this candidate WAS ELECTED with less than 1% of the vote with 99% and more against.
How do you like them apples?
To be honest so long as the Greens don’t get in I’ve basically given up with this election. Only time will tell as to what will happen.
If people expressed any preference at all for him, they can hardly be counted as “against” him. Of course, if the system requires the voter to allocate a preference to all candidates, that’s the problem, not the principle of STV (or indeed preferential voting): usually, you can express as few preferences as you wish, and if you only want to vote for one person and no-one else that should be possible.