Alternative to First Past The Post voting

[BeElBeeBub]

New thread for party discussion



https://politicalforums.uk/pol/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=180&p=3541#p3541">https://politicalforums.uk/pol/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=180&p=3541#p3541

[johnofgwent]

See, we can agree on some things!



I live in a safe seats so my vote counts for squat.



What are your thoughts on the party system? The more I think about it, the more I dislike it bit I struggle to think of a way to "outlaw" parties.



I'll start a thread.....

Well, this one might do. I've long felt the political.party system to be the reason politics is so shit.



Setting aside what the system has evolved into, what was originally envisaged - and my ancient ancestors had more than a little to do with this - is that the enfranchised were to send from among their number one to go to parliament to govern or LOYALLY oppose as they saw fit using their personal judgement in what they felt were the best interests of the whole constituency



The sovereign was charged with nominating someone - who was not necessarily an elected member - to go to westminster and there try to form a government to govern in their majestys name ...



My point is, if there were no parties, candidates would have to put themselves forward using funds they raised themselves and promoting policies they would have to think about.



And when I say funded themselves, I mean funds theybraise too. I paid my deposit largely from the pound coins and 50ps passers by three into a plastic bucket as explicitly legalised by  the PPERA 2000



As I always say, would be revolutionaries should stand in a street at a busy time of high footfall with a plastic bucket. I did this and had four fifths of my deposit in 90 minutes. I stress I stood at a time when labour gave not a flying one about all sorts and Gordon Brown uttered his 'bigoted woman' comment.



It is my firm belief that anyone unable to do the same should consider the popularity of their position.



On arrival at SW1A the successful candidates would have to see who else was there and what they proposed. A nominated Prime Minister would have recruit individuals to their side and give up if not successful.



I think it would take longer to agree a government,but I do think both front and back bench would be more cohesive, having had to think for themselves and set their own red lines ...

[BeElBeeBub]

"thoughts"



Wow. That's actually a bloody good idea



Keele uni used to keep a whole load of political / election statistics.



From those, which now appear on Wikipedia OR IN THE SMALL PRINT REFERENCE LINKS in the wiki pages, it's quite easy to see the country has been sliced up.into 600 odd (ok these days 650) lumps of about 50000 - 60000 voters of which over 80% are so heavily biased in one direction or the other, with majorities you weigh rather than count, that if you don't support the sitting MP you are disenfranchised.



The end result is there are perhaps 100 marginal constituencies across the land - ironically a cluster occur outside Birmingham... which see the highest footfall of politicians in any election. If you wonder why party politics gravitates to middle England it's because that's where the undecided voters have most clout....



Obviously, sending the runner up to parliament kicks that bias out of the window, and it means a far higher percentage of the electorate end up with a voice pursuing their beliefs....



I rather like the idea.

See, we can agree on some things!



I live in a safe seats so my vote counts for squat.



What are your thoughts on the party system? The more I think about it, the more I dislike it bit I struggle to think of a way to "outlaw" parties.



I'll start a thread.....

[johnofgwent]

"thoughts"



Wow. That's actually a bloody good idea



Keele uni used to keep a whole load of political / election statistics.



From those, which now appear on Wikipedia OR IN THE SMALL PRINT REFERENCE LINKS in the wiki pages, it's quite easy to see the country has been sliced up.into 600 odd (ok these days 650) lumps of about 50000 - 60000 voters of which over 80% are so heavily biased in one direction or the other, with majorities you weigh rather than count, that if you don't support the sitting MP you are disenfranchised.



The end result is there are perhaps 100 marginal constituencies across the land - ironically a cluster occur outside Birmingham... which see the highest footfall of politicians in any election. If you wonder why party politics gravitates to middle England it's because that's where the undecided voters have most clout....



Obviously, sending the runner up to parliament kicks that bias out of the window, and it means a far higher percentage of the electorate end up with a voice pursuing their beliefs....



I rather like the idea.

[BeElBeeBub]

Not to do with the proposed system but instead about A.V or  ranked preference voting.



https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/1/20941870/ranked-choice-voting-new-york-city">https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... -york-city">https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/1/20941870/ranked-choice-voting-new-york-city



Interesting but is where they talk about the effect changing the inventive structure has on the way campaigns operate.

Studies have shown that in places that have adopted it, ranked-choice voting has made politics a little less nasty. Candidates spent less time attacking each other, as compared to similar cities that didn't adopt ranked-choice voting. Voters in cities with the system reported being more satisfied with local campaigns as a result (again, as compared to similar cities).

If there's one thing we can agree on it's that leaving politics a little less nasty would be a good thing.

[BeElBeeBub]

I think you're running together independents and minor parties - they're two different things.  I see it more clearly as an ex-Ukipper.  In 2015, we had 1 MP and 12.6% of the national vote.  Under the MBS, we would have had 1 seat and 12.6% of the parliamentary vote.  The UUP had 0.3% of the national vote (i.e. theoretically enough for nearly 2 MPs) but no seats at all.  Under the MBS they would have had 1 seat with 0.3% of the parliamentary vote.  



My modification has the extra problem of what to do with the votes of an MP who jumps ship (also clear from the Ukip perspective, where Carswell did just that).  In your original scheme, the MP derives all her or his voting weight from the home constituency and so, as in FPTP, takes it over to the new party.  In the MBS, on the other hand, the minor party MP has national votes that had nothing to do with her or him as a person - at the very least, it's an argument against jumping ship!



It retains the advantage of wasting fewer votes, though.

From a representation perspective, independents and minor parties are the same.



I mentioned earlier that I don't like parties. They operate outside the democratic and constitutional framework.



I live in a super safe Tory seat.  My Tory MP isn't worried about losing to the Labour or LibDem MP in an election.  He's worried about losing to an internal candidate to be the Tory MP.  So the selection of my MP is really carried out via the internal rules and politics of the local conservative association.



This impact is very hard to design out if the system but it can be minimised.  Any "party list" system, which is effectively what is required with a proportional allocation, increases party power.



Regarding "jumping ship", that obviously happens now with defections, but I don't see that as inherently an issue as people will be (should be) voting for the person not the party.



This is as now, but people tend to think in terms of party not person.



Maybe changing some of the laws around how candidates are allowed to be described.



At the moment we have "the Labour/Lib Dem/Conservative candidate is Mr Bloggs" - that is to say the party are putting forward a candidate.



Maybe we should have it described as "Hi, I'm Mr Bloggs and I believe in the Lab/Con/LibDem manifesto so pledge I will vote in line with that".



Effectively, rather than the parties having control over who uses their branding they can only publish a manifesto that anyone can use as shorthand for their campaign.



Sort of ala carte manifestos.



You could even have a candidate pitch "I will vote in line with the Conservative education policies but the Labour health policy"....hummmmm



Regarding the UKIP issue, under my proposal UKIP would have had much higher voting "power" as they often finished 2nd to the conservatives.

[Paulus de B]

Independents can and have come first before (Martin bell IIRC) and sometimes come 2nd. As do smaller parties, esp in geographical areas eg PC in Wales.



If you switch to 3MPs would would get a lot more minor parties but at the expense of either more MPs or bigger constituencies



If you *really* want to get minority parties in to parliament (though with almost no voting power) you could have 4MPs per constituency.  That would guarantee an MP from outside the big 3 in every single constituency.  Of course they would have almost no voting power so their presence would be a bit pointless.

I think you're running together independents and minor parties - they're two different things.  I see it more clearly as an ex-Ukipper.  In 2015, we had 1 MP and 12.6% of the national vote.  Under the MBS, we would have had 1 seat and 12.6% of the parliamentary vote.  The UUP had 0.3% of the national vote (i.e. theoretically enough for nearly 2 MPs) but no seats at all.  Under the MBS they would have had 1 seat with 0.3% of the parliamentary vote.  



My modification has the extra problem of what to do with the votes of an MP who jumps ship (also clear from the Ukip perspective, where Carswell did just that).  In your original scheme, the MP derives all her or his voting weight from the home constituency and so, as in FPTP, takes it over to the new party.  In the MBS, on the other hand, the minor party MP has national votes that had nothing to do with her or him as a person - at the very least, it's an argument against jumping ship!



It retains the advantage of wasting fewer votes, though.

[BeElBeeBub]

Independents, I grant you, would be screwed, but they'd be equally screwed in your original version unless they come 1st or 2nd.  I still think my Modified BeElBeeBubbian System (hereafter, 'MBS') achieves the same as the original plus representing and saving the wasted votes of the minor parties.

Independents can and have come first before (Martin bell IIRC) and sometimes come 2nd. As do smaller parties, esp in geographical areas eg PC in Wales.



If you switch to 3MPs would would get a lot more minor parties but at the expense of either more MPs or bigger constituencies



If you *really* want to get minority parties in to parliament (though with almost no voting power) you could have 4MPs per constituency.  That would guarantee an MP from outside the big 3 in every single constituency.  Of course they would have almost no voting power so their presence would be a bit pointless.

[Paulus de B]

Independents, I grant you, would be screwed, but they'd be equally screwed in your original version unless they come 1st or 2nd.  I still think my Modified BeElBeeBubbian System (hereafter, 'MBS') achieves the same as the original plus representing and saving the wasted votes of the minor parties.

[BeElBeeBub]

The minor-party MPs, though, would be the highest scoring candidates of their party in the constituencies, so they wouldn't represent a transfer of power to the parties, it's simply that their parliamentary voting weight would come from the national vote rather than the local one.  The constituencies still have 2 MPs each, and the minor-party MPs could truck about between constituencies or, in the Brexit/UKIP case, slope off to the boozer.  It solves the problems of wasted votes and big-party bias.

How do you handle independents?



I'll run through my analysis of 2015 and add 2017 if I can (the data is formatted differently so it's non trivial) to have a look but from memory the "minor parties" (i.e. not Lab/Con/Dem) did get representation, esp if we expanded out to 3 MPs per constituency. It's not that uncommon for one of the big 3 not to be in the top 3, so you would get minor parties that way.



The system is not designed to be perfect (of such a thing exists) it's designed to be more representative whilst being as close to the current system as possible for voters.

[Javert]

One of the other issues in my opinion with our system is that huge numbers of voters assume that if they have any problem whatsoever that they think relates to public services or the government, they should contact their MP.



This was one of the reasons Rory Stewart gave for wanting to become London Mayor - his comment was that as an MP, most of the constituents who want to talk to him are asking about things that actually aren't technically under his responsibility as an MP - they are mainly matters that actually should go to the local council or Parish council or whatever.  



Therefore the other thing we really need is to find some way of educating the population about how local government works, and which parts of the services they receive are under local government versus national government.

[Ciaphas]

Interesting idea though they'd need a lot more seats in the House of Commons.



I like the potential for encouraging cooperative working between MP's of divergent political views. It could go some way to breaking down the bunker mentality of the main political parties.

[Javert]

Have you considered floating your idea with the local branches of political parties?

[patman post]

No necessarily.



MPs could still do the current work on committees etc.



In fact for some tasks (eg committee work) you probably would go back to one MP one vote.



For example a committee might scrutinise legislation and vote on a majority basis to put the amendments to parliament, but the final votes on adopting the legislation would be via the "varying votes" method.



The 'variable votes" method only makes sense for full parliamentry votes.  For other work the "one MP one vote" method would be used.



This does feed into another strand of this debate which is how we choose our executive.  But I'll put that in another thread.



My ultimate aim would be better separation of the executive from the legislature and the legislature be more representative of the population.



The idea is that the legislature *is not* there simply to "rubber stamp" the executives proposals but rather the executive's job is to craft proposals that can command a majority in the legislature.  In other words the executive's job is one of compromise and consensus building not whipping MPs

I think great care should be taken in reforming/meddling with the UK political system. Look at the badly thought out muddle that's become the current House of Lords.

The UK is teetering towards instability simply because of knee jerk reactions to populist rants that resulted in hurriedly mixing representative democracy with direct democracy without formulating the processes under which it would work...

[Paulus de B]

The minor-party MPs, though, would be the highest scoring candidates of their party in the constituencies, so they wouldn't represent a transfer of power to the parties, it's simply that their parliamentary voting weight would come from the national vote rather than the local one.  The constituencies still have 2 MPs each, and the minor-party MPs could truck about between constituencies or, in the Brexit/UKIP case, slope off to the boozer.  It solves the problems of wasted votes and big-party bias.