Craig.

There are some good things about the Australian political system, preferential voting is one of these. It is equivalent to having multiple rounds of voting condensed into one round. If I were to suggest modifications to the system I would make the preferences optional after 1 or more preferences with none of the above being a valid last preference and require that the winning candidate after distribution of preferences gets more than 50% + 1 of the votes cast. This would allow voters a plague on all your houses option to leave the seat empty.

Craig

I agree that only true PR with STV in multi-member constituencies or something very similar will deliver a system much closer to true democracy than what we have now.

Which is why there is no chance of it happening. Both Labour and Conservative parties would never agree to this, even as the price of power. They bleat on about the need for "decisive government" as if this were a good thing, not the sham of democracy which has delivered the elective dictatorship of the House of Commons.

1st past the post in single member constituencies in some form is so central to their obsession with having a whipped "working majority" (rather than MPs voting on the basis of the case for or against any particular Bill) that they'd rather have minority party government and a series of elections until one of them got a majority, than real electoral reform which would lead to long-term coalition government.

"If voting changed anything, they'd abolish it!"

It doesn't matter who you vote for, the government still gets in.

I used to think that that was a very silly little aphorism, until I discovered that it was true. If you vote by any method, you are voting for politicians, and politicians - proxy powered hirelings - are exactly what we do not want. There is no point in electing people if we subsequently lack the resources to compete in the market place that buys them. Jack Straw would be a wonderful and humane democrat, if only we could bid higher for his services than BAE.

Let's stop pretending that any member of our species can be incorruptibly good, once given power. Oh shit, I'm going to bore on again about sortition. Google it for yourselves.

Turns out Cameron isn't at all interested in "crazy" voting reform - see link. Who would have thought it! ;o)

"Turns out Cameron isn't at all interested in "crazy" voting reform - see link. Who would have thought it! ;o)"

Which is of course why Brown is proposing it. He wants people to vote Labour at the election as the only way to secure a change in the voting system.

Of course we all remember how Blair supported voting reform right up until the time he secured his majority

A House of "Lords" chosen by sortition (meaning by a lottery) - what a good idea! Giving ordinary people the power and right to throw out rubbisdhy legislation. Craig, what do you think? See wikpeeia: Sortition

Craig,

thank you for this article. Information on this matter seems very sparse; even the fact that there's to be a vote on it doesn't seem to be in the news at all, let alone what systems are to be voted on or what their respective virtues are. If you know of a good campaigning group, or any further information, please let us know.

@James Chater

Nothing to do with the Lords (bicameral government is another argument). The idea of sortition is that money cannot exert influence on who is elected. No-one is elected, there is no system, the public relations machine cannot function, big spending can't skew the result, media whores cannot influence outcomes. There are 600 or so seats and everyone, including you and me, is a candidate. The lots are drawn, and if selected you turn up and chip in your tuppenceworth. Four or five years later the lots are drawn again. The chances of your being selected for a second term are vanishingly small, so there is no political class, just a species of national service which no-one is assured of avoiding and everyone is assured they cannot retain if once given it. Problem solved? Discuss.

Mischievous link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dice_Man

A less random, but much more inclusive form of democracy based on Community Empowerment is explored in the book "Escaping The Matrix" by Richard Moore.

http://escapingthematrix.org/

Tony

One of the problems with the parliamentary system is that in a general election one is really voting for a government and not the particular MP for whom one casts ones vote. As a result (1) there are no checks and balances between the legislature and executive as proper democratic systems need (2) the MP selected is committed to his party and not to you, since you really voted for a Party to form a government and not for the individual (ask Craig). And lets have a well defined written constitution as well

Craig,

I'm close to your position on proportional representation. However, I'd just like to point out that, it too, is a system with drawbacks. For example, small parties which gain seats, have, potentially, disproportionate influence compared to their real support among the electorate, and they often hold the balance of power, enabling them to decide which of the two main blocks, "left" and "right" forms the government.

If one elects the executive and legislature separately, one can have proportional representation in Parliament since a directly elected Government does not need its own party to have a parliamentary majority to function. Indeed the Government's performance and its Bills will have much better scrutiny in a Parliament that is elected independently of government.

HH, you wrote Bliar! I'm sure that was intentional.

"a species of national service which no-one is assured of avoiding and everyone is assured they cannot retain if once given it. Problem solved? Discuss."

Emotionally, I like the idea of helping to run things as a form of national service. Practically, if we had a system where all the visibly-democratic elements passed through too quickly to form a 'political' class, they'd remain as amateurs who don't know enough about the subject ? Wouldn't there always be a need for people who do know, for real expertise ? So, is it not likely to develop fairly quickly into even less popular involvement and more behind-the-scenes permanent staff who do know where the buttons and levers are ?

( Incidentally, for an alternative, _really_ daft, riff on J. Random Conscripted President, try G.K. Chesterton's "the Napoleon of Notting Hill". )

"Wouldn't there always be a need for people who do know, for real expertise ?"

I rather anticipated that question, so I've got the links ready. You mean experts like these?

tinyurl.com/yg8dy8a
tinyurl.com/yftgvzb

But your point stands - need to do something with the civil service too. However I do believe that a random selection of 600 or so people would very likely be better than the those appointed by the present machinery, simply because we would have removed the mechanism of self-selection. It must be possible to put a number on that probability, but I'm off for a beer.

Hi Craig

you can't assume the 2005 voting patterns would have been the same under AV. I believe third parties would have been given first preferences that otherwise went to Labour - for fear of letting the Tories in. AV or runoffs give power to the voters - PR gives power to the political class.

If a political party in a middle-eastern country was elected *against the wishes* of 65% of the electorate, would we say that was democracy in action, or the result of a fundamentally flawed system?

very good point Brennig, the alternative vote still allows parties who are elected due to a small turnout to run away with the prize and claim a mandate from the people.

Av and AV plus are not reaslly proportional, AV plus adds an excuse of proportion but the only systems which are really proportrional are STV and AMS.

Its good enough and understandable by Irish voters, but 'too complicated' for us to use in election.
This whole debate about voting reform, at the back end of a noLabour Government is shallow and not understood by so many, because they do not want us to understand and like it best as it comes.

I have given up on voting reform it will never happen, whatever the EU requires or the Lib dems say, they seem to be happy with the AV imposition, whilst cameron is blubbering on about 'giving power back to the locals' utter shite and bluster from the lot of them.

Agree completely Craig and Ingo - the Alternative Vote would just throw away 49% of the votes in most constituencies unrepresented rather than 60%. Bringing it in would make almost no difference and would discredit electoral reform in the eyes of most of the electorate once they realised it made no difference.

STV or some other multi-member constituency system is the only way to get really representative and proportional governments.

This is getting confusing. Looking at Resistor's comment re: AV versus PR, I think some of us may understand different things by different names. What is AMS?

Does anyone know of a list / description of the various systems please?

"If a political party in a middle-eastern country was elected *against the wishes* of 65% of the electorate, would we say that was democracy in action, or the result of a fundamentally flawed system?"

a) It depends which country ?

b) "We", paleface ?

"Middle-eastern" having been specified, I shall restrain myself from noticing recent-ish elections in either Iran or Afghanistan, or any difference in "our" attitudes towards them ...

Well, I almost managed it.

Hi Clark - there's an explanation of all the systems of voting at the Electoral Reform Society website on this link
http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=5

I think AMS is the 'Additional Member System', like the one used for Scottish Parliament elections. Each voter gets two votes. The first is a 'first past the post' one in their constituency. The second vote allows them to rank candidates on a regional or national Proportional representation list by order of preference.

In any system it is important to ensure the results are fully representative of voters intentions.

Following the successful e-voting scheme used for the electronic counting of ballot papers from the 2008 London Mayoral elections it is possible that the system may be expanded to count completed ballot papers for the forthcoming UK General elections.

I believe before the system can be used nationwide to count the results of 'marks' on ballot papers, certain security checks recommended by the Open Rights Group, especially source code verification and false counting analysis should be performed. We are all aware of the ?'s resulting from the 2004 Presidential elections in America.

http://tinyurl.com/General-Elections

"A TOTAL AND COMPLETELY NEW WAY OF RUNNING THE WORLD"

Most of this was probably written about 10 years ago. It is however, both refreshing and relevant.

http://www.angelfire.com/realm3/accord/change.htm

Tony

Way to go House of 'Lords'

I like you definition of 'second home'?

Here we go again.....

Great idea for some tea shirts.

Use all the pictures of the dead soldiers and use to create one of those montages which ultimately shows a Blair image

Political systems are only as good as the people who use them. Weimar Germany had PR, and they got Hitler. Israel has PR, and without it maybe we wouldn't have religious fundamentalists influencing the Knesset as much. PR might enable extremists to get into Westminster - it's already happened in the European parliament. So I'm not for changing things myself.

Abe I agree PR can't solve all problems and that if you have a fundamentally dysfunctional society it will spill over into any electoral system. However PR is the most democratic electoral system there is and the most representative and the only one likely to get people interested in politics again because they can vote for the policies they want, not the ones they dislike slightly less.

PR was not the cause of Hitler getting into power though Abe - the extremely harsh Treaty of Versailles which put the entire cost of the war on Germany and ended up with many Germans searching through rubbish for food was the cause.

PR isn't the cause of extremism in Israel either - Israel having been formed as a colonial outpost in the middle east and its continued expansion by force - and the inevitable reaction of some Palestinians using force too - are the causes of that. (I'm not by the way saying Israel has no right to exist - it does - within it's pre-1967 war borders)

Resistor - you say "PR gives power to the political class". That's not true at all.

Within parties the problem with candidate selection by the party leadership exists under any electoral system, including the current one - and can only be changed by a law or a codified written constitution requiring candidates to be chosen by the majority of members in a constituency (whether single or multi-member).

Outside of the parties independent candidates have a far better chance under PR than they do under FPTP or AV (which is just a minor variant of FPTP).
How can that possibly increase the influence of 'the political class' (by which i assume you must mean the senior ranks of the big parties)

Small parties also have a much better chance of getting both more votes (as people won't think their vote is wasted under PR if they vote for a small party) and the votes they get will actually result in representation rather than being binned (FPTP) or either binned or re-assigned to a big party candidate (AV).

Having one faction of one party running the country - the result you get under first past the post or AV - is the system that results in rule by 'the political class' because power swings back and forth between two or three big parties with everyone else excluded or their votes ignored.

Duncan McFarlane,

you've obviously looked into this and understand it. Thanks for explaining and directing me to the Electoral Reform Society, which I think I'll join.

Human systems - including human systems of government, are flawed:-

1. Does it make sense in the "first past the post system" to disregard the final total popular vote? The majority want one party, but the individual excess constituency votes are discarded, so an actual popular vote on the global pool of votes can see a party with a majority of the constituents actually the elected the government.

2. Put a proportional representational system in place. This makes for weak government (e.g. Italy) and invites the need for coalitions, which waters down effective government, causes a lot of untimely returns to a general election, and fails to provide a centralised opportunity to follow through on core policies based on a party's philosophy.
3. A criticism of a one party system is that there is but one set of political values and so no real choice. Contrast this observation with point 2 above, and if choice is to be based on real political differences placed before the electorate, then we arrive at point 4.

4. There is in essence in the US and the UK, a two party system. However, as Eisenhower cautioned of what he termed the "military-industrial complex" – this has given rise to a power elite that controls the elected representatives with economic and/or military might. This is true whichever party is elected, whether from one party or the other. Now, we move to point 5.

5. If in the UK, persons of conscience, such as George Galloway or a Craig Murray, seek to run, then what do we find:-

i) Murray does not have enough of a political background in party politics to get traction in a contest in the two party system to be elected; and
ii) Galloway, although as a man consistently re-elected - becomes one man with no party ( save in name alone – “Respect” – at least for his courage in standing up to warped political processes).

Where next? Over to all for comments.

I'm in favour of STV and multi-seat constituencies which is the system we have in Ireland. However, I would not like to see the system idealised as it does have its own disadvantages.There is really no perfect system. They all involve trade-offs and you have to choose from among alternatives depending on the prevailing culture, system, and desired results.

It is important to take account of the fact that voting patterns could change under STV, assuming an intelligent electorate, so it is not legitimate to translate existing first past the post statistics into STV.

While STV does give a more proportionate result, particularly the more seats there are in multi-seat constituencies, it gives rise to internal competition within parties and can lead to clientism which is very destructive for a national legislature. It also tends to lead to coalitions, for which read smaller parties holding a balance of power and possibly disenfranchising the majority of the electorate. On the other hand, coalitions have generally worked well in Ireland.

You really can't rely purely on a particular voting system. The prevailing political culture is also a major factor. People need to be encouraged to vote and take their vote seriously. The behaviour of currently serving politicians is very relevant to this. They need to be held accountable if the general public is to be expected to take its vote seriously.

Duncan: Without PR Hitler wouldn't have got in, nor would extremists have the leverage they do, because they wouldn't have been elected; nor would there be extremists in the European parliament. The main advantage of FPTP for me is making such contigencies much more unlikely.

The STV approach does not resolve the fundamental difficulties of weak government, which by different routes will ultimately, and of necessity, result in various forms of alliances, to enable divided power wield enough power to make central government function.

Hey, the system we've got at the moment let one Prime Minister take us into a demented, delusional invasion of another peoples' country, without appearing to have to even wake the democratic accountability bits of government up at all. Maybe a little bit of weak divided government for a change wouldn't be the end of the world. It's not going to let Mr. Hitler come to power, he's dead. We have other problems now.

"But your point stands - need to do something with the civil service too. However I do believe that a random selection of 600 or so people would very likely be better than the those appointed by the present machinery, simply because we would have removed the mechanism of self-selection."

Couldn't check the links, sorry. YouTube's whingeing about not liking my Flash, again, and life's too short.

But. Can't help noting that the civil servants would still be self-selected, having applied for the job ... I like the idea of a bit of randomness, throw some grit into some of the established machineries. What mainly seems to strike me is the impression that 'government' is in a big bubble of listening only to its own, and expecting that to be all there is thanks to their advertising apparatus, some unexpected people from outside that would be all to the good. But, expertise ... there should be some long-term thinking as well, which wouldn't be encouraged by "Five years max. and that's the end of it".

As to the relationships between civil servants and elected people, I really haven't been close enough to it to have any idea of how it works.

But it seems to me, one of the biggest problems we have is that peoples' decision-making is only as good as their information, and that means The Media.

"It must be possible to put a number on that probability, but I'm off for a beer."

Good idea, I'm not making much sense of this.

The best overview I know of methods systems is at:
http://condorcet.org/emr/index.shtml

Methods are judged by whether they meet various criteria; whether they do is mathematically provable. Disappointingly it is provable that no system is immune to tactical voting, although some are more susceptible than others.

The fairest single winner methods are Condorcet methods, that will always elect the candidate that would have beaten each other candidate in a one on one runoff if such a candidate exists. Unfortunately these require much processing, so would need to be computerised, which is whole new kettle of fish. CPO-STV is a multi member method that will simplify to a Condorcet method in a one member case, as regular STV simplifies to AV.

voting is pointless

Abe you are talking garbage. Goebbels, who knew the Weimar political system better than you or I, said he wished Germany had the FPTP system, then the Nazis would have come to power two years sooner.

Can I put in the positive word for multi-member constituencies? The "personal link" is very valued by many MPs; but the parliamentary system is not meant to be there to satisfy the MPs. I've never heard a local councillor say "I wish I had this ward all to myself, I could do a much better job if I felt a personal link to this area." In single-member seats even with AV only about half the voters actually voted for their "representative;" and without AV it is on average much less than half. But with STV multi-members, nearly all the voters have at least one MP they cast a vote for, and often a choice to take an issue to a member who within the same party is more, not less sympathetic to that voter's views. Multi-member constituencies can be drawn on permanent natural boundaries, entirely consistent with local government boundaries, which very few constituencies are now, so there would be genuine natural identification between the community, the voters, and the MPs. FPTP constituency boundaries have to be redawn into unnatural shapes to keep some proportion with the arithmetic of changing populations: even so, they fail dismally, since the ratio between the largest and smallest constituencies by population has sometimes gone as far wrong as 5:1. Population change in multi-member seats only need result in that seat losing or gaining a member, within existing boundaries, an adjustment that can be made at every election, not just every 10 years. The discrepancies in the ratio of electorate to MPs would never be worse than about 5:4.

How about a "Gong Show" approach? Put'em into power by whatever means - doesn't matter how, no system works. As the representitive pisses off the voters, they add votes to some cumulative repository to get rid of him. When some threshold is reached, the representitive gets replaced.

There. The ultimate in negative voting!

My idea would be reverse elections ie. de-elections. You start with a group selected by whatever means and then every year you get to vote out the useless. No constituencies, everyone votes on everyones performance, 50%+1 say nay, youre gone. People who are good at it can then implement their long term plans (they could be at it for life).

Off topic but good news that Brown/Milipede have lost their appeal in the Binyam Mohammed case. Documents detailing his torture by the CIA with UK comlicityn have to be revealed.

comlicityn should be complicity !!

Richard, a 'proof' based on an unsubstantiated quote from Goebbels, without context, with an ad hominem argument, is better described as 'garbage' tha what I wrote.

The instability created by PR in Weimar Germany helped the Nazis get in. The present Germany has included a 5 percent clause precisely to counteract such instability. Multimember constituencies would weaken the link between constituents and their MP, so I'm not for that.

Further to Mary @11.36am

"Appeal judge watered down Binyam Mohamed torture ruling"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/10/binyam-mohamed-judge-deleted-ruling

although the lawyer's letter arguing for suppression of this material is quoted in full and makes it pretty clear what this material stated.

NB Neuberger is quoted as saying he would give "parties who wished to object until 4pm on Friday to make representations, when he would decide whether to reinstate his judgement."

It was unclear where to post this important point - a lateral mind would suggest a link to elections and the current governments relationship to the British secret service. We note in the case of Binyam Mohamed, torture allegations refuted by the government have proved to be false:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8507852.stm
( http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6192F520100210

It is clear that pressure has been applied to the British courts to 'dampen down' their conclusions that a British man had been tortured with the knowledge of our secret services.

Having previously made a public statement that our SIS has gentlemen with integrity and professionalism I feel rather foolish and dishonest.

The SIS should and must now make a public statement concerning their acceptance of torture or having been compelled to assist America and the CIA under threat of intelligence sharing termination.

It was unclear where to post this important point - a lateral mind would suggest a link to elections and the current governments relationship to the British secret service. We note in the case of Binyam Mohamed, torture allegations refuted by the government have proved to be false:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8507852.stm

w+w+w.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6192F520100210

It is clear that pressure has been applied to the British courts to 'dampen down' their conclusions that a British man had been tortured with the knowledge of our secret services.

Having previously made a public statement that our SIS has gentlemen with integrity and professionalism I feel rather foolish and dishonest.

The SIS should and must now make a public statement concerning their acceptance of torture or having been compelled to assist America and the CIA under threat of intelligence sharing termination.

I is now very clear to me that the last bastion of honour, integrity and honesty rest with the British justice system and the circuit of Crown Court Judges. We owe our place in the world to these men and women and I salute them.

STV has already been introduced for local authority elections in Scotland - this was the Lib Dems price for supporting Jack MacConnell (Labour) as First Minister. Labour thought that they could game the system by setting up two or at most three seat wards (whereupon the outcome would differ little if at all from FPTP) but were somehow thwarted in this. As a consequence Labour lost control of many councils.

The ward/constituency tie is a fallacy - many people prefer to talk to a councillor other than their own, based on reputation for 'getting things done' or just personal acquaintance. Equally, Israel and Italy (or Weimar) are regularly trotted out as examples of the adverse effects of PR, but if I wanted to list all the states suffering the consequences of FPTP, I'd use up all the disk space on Craig's server.

The Additional Member System (AMS) used in Scotland has achieved an approximation to PR - certainly better than FPTP - but has the undesirable effect that parties choose the representatives, not the voters. The party produces a slate of 'list' candidates, and on the basis of second preference votes (for a party, not a person) candidates are called off the top of the list. First place on the list almost guarantees election, and consequently there is a rather ugly festival of rumour mongering and slander before the voting to position candidates on the list. In STV the voter can vote not just for a party, but for a specific name from that party. Under this system if Peter Mandelson (relax, it's only an example) decided to renounce his numerous titles in order to become leader of Labour, he could not be parachuted into a safe seat - the voters might support Labour, but candidates other than poor Peter. Another attraction of the system.

Surely, the instability of the Weimar setup was due to rather more than the technicalities of their voting system. To the extent that a party has honest intentions towards the current constitution, it's not the job of an election to keep them out, and to the extent that is isn't, ditto - it's the job of some other system to catch that and deal with it.

And what's needed to deal with dictators, prime ministers, vice-presidents, etc, once they're inside the system and running amok, is something else again.

(Incidentally, for the avoidance of confusion, I'm the 'Richard' that uses a surname. Posts without that are from someone else.)

Richard and Vronsky - excellent points - hadn't thought of some of those.

Abe - To me it seems more like the instability that brought Hitler to power was due to the combination of the Treaty of Versailles and laissez-faire economics leading to mass unemployment and poverty in inter-war Germany. We've seen the same on a smaller scale in Northern English towns which used to have textile factories. When they were moved abroad in the 1990s the levels of support for the BNP rocketed - and the BNP won council seats - in first-past-the-post elections.

The cause of extremism and instability is generally economic systems that provide no stability of income, housing and food for a large proportion of the population - not electoral systems.

Alternative vote is at least a step in the right direction. For the first time ever, people in this country would be free to express their real preferences. At present, most people seem to feel that they have to vote for what they consider to be the least bad of the two main parties. Alternative vote would give new parties and independent candidates a fighting chance.

Duncan

You've made a good point about economic instability as one of the factors contributing to the rise of Nazism. But my point is that PR creates political instability and makes matters worse. I'm not for measures that make it more likely that extreme parties get into law making bodies. PR enabled the BNP to get into the European parliament. I don't want them getting into Westminster.

Abe i accept PR gives greater representation to minority viewpoints (whether good or bad, extreme or moderate, tolerant or intolerant) - that's it's strength though, as most people are really from minority viewpoints and just making do with the big party they dislike least.

However not having PR won't prevent neo-fascists getting more support - only reducing unemployment and poverty will do that. They got council seats in the 90s in Blackburn and Burnley under first past the post - and European parliament seats last year under PR.

The common factor wasn't the electoral system but high unemployment.

MarkU - i agree that the Alternative Vote would be an improvement on first-past-the-post - just not nearly enough of an improvment - and i doubt it'd do more than increase the number of seats the Lib Dems got relative to Conservatives (though i could be wrong)

The voting palliative is shallow not the answer...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5639595091158759722#

The voting palliative is shallow not the answer...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5639595091158759722#

Craig,

My point is as follows:-

A. You say: " Plainly the system needs to be changed so a dangerous fanatic like Blair cannot reach power when his party has only 35% voter support"

B. So, what if 55% or more for Blair?

C. Then as with Hitler and the use of a democratic process - so - what is the big deal about the percentages?

Blair would have been the same muderous person with 35% or 55%. But,to spin it a little - with proportional represnetation you are not going to get the solid 55% - and my point is that a weak central cannot govern effectively.

Think about it.

(www.globaljusticeonline.com)

Between us speaking, you should to try look in google.com

The word of honour.

Well said, such a person should be a good sentence, or the future will be more rampant.

I agree with told all above. Let's discuss this question.