What is your preferred type of voting system from those listed below? Please vote in the poll and let us know why in the thread!
Source: Types of Voting System – Electoral Reform Society – ERS
I have never heard our system called “Alternative Vote” it is “Preferential Voting” where you number the candidates in order of preference. No vote is wasted.
Personally I think it is the fairest system and the Australian electoral system has a lot going for it.
It doesn’t matter who you vote for the government always gets in.
We do have sausage sizzles at the polling stations here in Oz though.
I say bring back the ‘‘Old Fashion Ways’’… when many politicians had some honestly in them…
…Of course the Blood of the French is within most English Men since Louis the14th Reign of Hatred for Protestants sent them Fleeing France…haha many Frogs in England…
No wonder people are not the same any more!
à moitié français
Don’t matter how you vote or for whom, you always end up peeing someone off.
Anything other than FPTP.
Perhaps the system depends on what is being voted for? So the two tier system seems to work ok for presidential elections as, with a limited number of candidates, it allows people to assess the likely voting based on the previous rounds first time voting. This would not work for electing a large number of representatives.
The additional member system seems to have benefits in the Scottish parliament as it makes it hard for one party to gain overall majority. This might make sense for Westminster as actual numbers of votes rarely show a significant majority of votes for one party - even if under FPTP there is a huge majority of MPs. It encourages coalitions and compromise which given some recent policies might have been a good thing.
Perhaps also the structure of upper and lower chambers, MPs and local councilors needs to be re-thought first. There are too many MPs, too great a divide between Westminster parties and local government and probably not enough devolved power to regions.
I think this article captures exactly what I see as the problem with the structure and mechanisms of politics in the UK. There seems little point changing the voting system until something fundamental is changed in the issues raised here - role of MPs in local constituency versus role of others, role of ministers and their tenure, short term decision making and the tendency to focus on either/both creating news or denigrating the opposition. All in aid of self-promotion rather than country-wide improvements.
Not only the Huguenots,there was 1066 before that and they were very bossy 
.
I read an article which I can’t find at the moment that said that people, especially young people, are less disenchanted with democracy in countries where there is a form of proportional representation than in countries with first past the post
I can understand that, I’m pretty disenchanted with democracy myself at the moment
Yes, in Britain and parts of Europe, democracy simply isn’t delivering the will of the people.
I saw a debate with a Swiss constitutional expert arguing theres now a very cosy Establishment/ big biz / NGO / Institutional Blob that carries-on regardless of public sentiment.
Take for example the UK where it’s perfectly ok to shoplift without any repercussions. This is unthinkable in very safe nations like Singapore or Qatar, where the slightest illegal act is come down on hard.
Progressives over-complicate things like law n order, whereas Singaporeans apply simple common sense with far superior outcomes.
Progressives like over-complicating things because it produces careers for themselves as rehab experts etc.
New York was lawless, and this was addressed wit Broken Window policy. London is now lawless, I see endless vids on my timeline showing unbelievable levels of violence such as a gang pushing a boy onto a live train line having beaten him senseless.
Labour will be even softer on crime so I expect major political consequences for this and other epic failures which will lead to a Reform Govt in 2029.
PR is definitely what we need
How do we get the message through to them, they will not listen unless it is made clear and then only if enough want the change from FPTP, people vote according to their bank balance it seems.
why change what has worked for many years? I can’t see the point of changing for change sake only
Working for who? FPTP works for the privileged, vile being an excellent description for most in politics. I do believe MP’s are going to be under scrutiny more than ever before; the(hoi polloi)many are angry. They need to be wary every word or action will be noted, will not be allowed to get away with the corrupt activities, abuse of power that FPTP allows for much longer.
The problem is that the parties have a vested interest in the status quo. They don’t know what the outcome of a change will be.
I think getting rid of the House of Lords and installing an elected upper house to become a democracy is a more urgent issue in the UK.
It would also provide the opportunity to experiment with a different voting format.
I see two problems with your statement here. First, the current FPTP system obviously does not work in the sense it does not fairly deliver a representative body of MPs that reflect the actual voting of the population. A party can, and often does, gain a significant majority and power with a lot less that 50% of the vote. How can that be called “working”?
Therefore change would be to attempt to address this sort of issue.
There are constituencies where the sitting MP is pretty much guaranteed to return because the majority there will always vote for him/her. That means the remaining voters effectively have no say, their vote means nothing and counts towards nothing. There is universal franchise but extensive useless franchise. Changing that would surely not just be for the sake of change.
It’s PR for me every time, even if it produces stagnation.
Nothing could be worse, properly thought out. Clarity is most needed to avoid any misunderstanding for a fairer alternative.
I think I’d go further. There must be a way to address the disconnect between Westminster and the people across the country. If the upper chamber also becomes an elected body, could that mean the house of commons moves more towards clearer representation from different parts of the country? Assume you could have 7 or 8 such groups of representation (South West, South East, Midlands, Wales, North West, North East, Scotland, N Ireland) - each reflecting a regional power base. These regional bases would have budgets, local tax raising powers, local investment powers.
Then the role of the executive might change so that the role of who determines would new legislation could be any of the three levels - executive, or lower chamber, or upper chamber.
Big shake up to curtail the two major parties, to push decision making back out to local areas, to reduce London’s influence.
Ok, the idea needs refinement.
This doesn’t apply to me per se, except to say that if we spent as much time vetting candidates as we did the voting system, we would be in much better shape.
