On Electoral Systems

[tiggymalvern]

Why is everyone suddenly talking about PR as if it's the only possible choice for electoral reform? The Lib Dems, the newspapers, all the current buzz I'm reading is about PR vs the status quo.

Can't we have a system based on Preferential Voting/Single Transferable Vote? People who wish to vote Lib Dem, or whatever, can then do so instead of feeling obligated to vote tactically. The Lib Dems would take the extra seats they deserve, and without handing seats to lunatics like the BNP, which is the inevitable result of PR ::shudder:: Plus, people get to keep the benefits of a local MP who is directly accountable to them, which is lost with PR.

I don't want a referendum that offers me the choice of PR vs doing nothing. I'd like to try some middle ground first. Yes, I know that Preferential Voting can throw up some odd results sometimes too - peering at Australia - but I feel horribly disinclined to vote for an electoral system that is guaranteed to put the BNP in Parliament :-(

Comments

[jo-lasalle.livejournal.com]

Are you sure they're talking about pure, unadulterated PR, though? I haven't followed every article on this, so forgive me if I'm wrong. But in my general experience, a lot of the time 'some form of voting more proportional than first past the post' gets shortened to PR. General journalism tends to call the German system PR, and we've got accountable local MPs and everything. STV gets lumped in there a fair bit, too.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I hope you're right - though it would be silly if everyone talking about PR actually meant something else!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I did some poking around, and found some answers - and boy, was getting the details trickier than any sensible person might have hoped. Anyway, this is what I think I now know.

The Lib Dems are proposing a form of SVT, but they would create bigger constituencies and multiple MPs being selected per constituency. So it avoids the disadvantage of PR in having nobody locally accountable, but retains the PR risk of electing some fringe weirdo for the fourth or fifth slot.

[jo-lasalle.livejournal.com]

and boy, was getting the details trickier than any sensible person might have hoped

Yeah, that's what I suspected. People arguing for a PRish principle tend not to go into the fine print, in that stage.

a form of SVT, but they would create bigger constituencies and multiple MPs being selected per constituency

Eeep. Okay, that is just me -- STV and multiple member system are the two I find most confusing just by themselves. *g* But I'd still find it preferable to first past the post. As the PR risk of electing some weirdo.... weeeell. At some point, if you got the weirdo voters, the guy they're electing isn't really the problem. And depriving 70% of a constituency of the representation they wanted because of the hypothetical weirdos isn't something I find helpful.

If I ran the world, I'd give you guys the German system, of which I am a fan not because it's German. (And we were very concerned about weirdos and the like when they set it up, and it worked well for that.) But it's fallen strangely out of fashion.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

The Lib Dem manifesto (itself a PITA to look at online in an almost-.pdf but far more annoying to use format) specified STV and larger constituencies. I had to go rooting around political blogs to find the 'multiple MPs per constituency' part that explained the larger constituencies.

The German system sounds interesting, until I reached this part - 'If a party wins more constituency seats than it is entitled to according to its share of the vote in the second ballot, the party retains those seats, and the size of the Bundestag is increased.' Extra politicians, nooooo! XD The Swiss system sounds cool, if slightly confusing, but I would tack onto it the German minimum of 5% for a seat.