Why I'm in favour of Proportional Representation

[andrewducker]

According to the BBC, the current polls show Lib Dems on 33%, Conservatives on 32%, Labour on 26%.
Which would give a seat allocation of Conservatives: 246, Labour 241, Lib Dems: 134.
Or, in a more easily digestible table format:

Party	Percentage	Seats
Lib Dems	33%	134
Conservatives	32%	246
Labour	26%	241

It should be pretty fucking obvious that this is an electoral system that is fucked in the head.

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

The trouble is (as the Americans found out) that when you enclose most areas, you get a mix of people in that area that's not the national average. So in the US they have states with urban areas that are racially mixed, and predominantly Democratic, and rural areas that are far more white and Republican, and the relative proportions of each that can be called out in the vote (or disenfranchised, as in Florida) can serious distort the vote of that area ... then the Electoral College system says that if 55% of a state votes one way, then 100% of the Electoral College votes go that way.

In the UK you do get similar things, and the boundary changes coming in for this election are making some "safe seats" into marginals by trimming out some of the incumbent's votes and bringing in areas that are predominantly for the other parties.

And that's probably right ... in a constituency that is predominantly urban, then the MP they want and the party they want will likely be very different to an area that's predominantly farmland. It takes a mighty swing to move Hackney and Hounslow/Feltham from Labour, so a country wide vote of 30% for LibDems would likely not be enough to change either of those two areas.

A truely representative parliament would have more BNP MPs in it, because with 500 MPs, you only need to get 1/5 of 1% of the vote to get an MP. The current system requires an MP to gain over 1/3rd of the votes in a consituency, not the party getting 1% in every constituency to elect 5 MPs.

[andrewducker]

Yes, there would probably be BNP MPs. I believe that this is the right thing to do. To deliberately disenfranchise people because I find their views despicable would make me as bad as them.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

No (in my opinion!), to disenfranchise someone who has dispicable views would be bad, but not as bad as them.

And we already disenfranchise based on whether you're mad, a criminal, a member of the House of Lords, or have the wrong passport (whether you live and pay tax here or not ... taxation without representation).

As an ""amusing thought exercise, given what democracy claims to be, why shouldn't people be able to say "no hate speech, no advocation of racial hatred, no holocaust denial ... and if you, as a potential candidate, do do any of those things, you're barred from standing" ... or a pre-election "losing your deposit" thing, where if you don't get a minimum number of people willing to vote for you, you don't make the cutoff and you don't get on the ballot.

And apply that to the next step up too ... if your party can't win more than a percentage of constituencies across the country, then you've shown that you don't have sufficient general support to be part of national government ... it would prevent "one interest" MPs from potentially being the casting vote in a hung parliament or a tight vote ...

... obviously that's a thought exercise and shouldn't be done in reality .. but it's worth thinking about I think!

[andrewducker]

I think it would be as bad as, or worse, than them. Two reasons.
Ideological: To take away someone's voice in society is to treat them as a lesser member of society and not fully human. Freedom of thought and speech are the bedrock of any decent society.
Practical: If you take away people's representation then you force them underground. Instead, bring them to the surface and shine a bright light on them. Things fester in the dark.

I believe that the criminalisation of holocaust denial is an abomination. Likewise with the criminalisation of hate speech.

I want everyone's voice to be heard, so that we can talk to one another. If we're not engaged in that dialogue then we've failed.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying that can't say it ... I'm saying that just because 1% of the country says that UFOs have abducted then does not mean they should get 5 MPs.

That if you promulgate racial hatred, that yes, you are a lesser person in society. If you can't abide by society's rules, you don't get to play the game.

There are certain basic truths and certain basic tenets that we, as society, have determined are the foundation for a just and equitable society, and if you don't want to be part of that society, then that's your choice, but you don't accept that there is a level of decency required, we will continue to treat you decently, but we don't have to listen to you.

It doesn't stop freedom of thought or speech.

Practical: If you take away people's representation then you force them underground. Instead, bring them to the surface and shine a bright light on them. Things fester in the dark.
Very poetical, but it applies just as much to things like the French Resistance. And if you are going to quote one set of views how about "take away the oxygen of publicity".

I believe that the criminalisation of holocaust denial is an abomination.
Good.
Likewise with the criminalisation of hate speech.
We all have our opinions.

If we're not engaged in that dialogue then we've failed.
Failed at what? I don't want to take away anyone's right to speak or believe what they want ... however I do want a society where I don't *have* to listen to hate speech, nor to fund them in any way to promote it. I certainly don't want to live in a society where hate speech and radicalisation leads to bombs in the streets of my town.

And there is a spectrum, and it may be hard to find the correct point in the middle between "allow everything and live with the consequences" and "allow nothing and live with the consequences" but life is full of consequences, and saying it's hard to find the middle way so we must be extreme seems like a lazy answer to me. (woot, political flame war ftw!)

[andrewducker]

Denying people their representation is denying them their speech. They have as much of a right to representation as you do. The second you start saying "We don't have to let people who think bad thoughts have a representative" then you open a door that I really don't want opened. Because sometimes I'm on the wacky frigne. And for a vast percentage of history my ideals were on the extreme of the wacky fringe. Votes for women? Never happen!

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I'm not denying anyone representation.

My MP represents me. He doesn't agree with my views, and he votes in opposition to what I want, but he still represents me. It's not an ideal system.

I never said people should not be represented. But there's a difference between people and ideas.

And when enough people thought votes for women were a good idea, it happened.

I've just been told that in Germany it's a 7% minimum to get your views represented in parliament, to stop the large numbers of smaller parties clogging up the business of passing law and governing. So if 7% of people voted for the "bring sharia law to the UK" party, then they could have 35 seats in the House (or whatever the number, I think it's currently out of 650 but there are proposals to reduce it ... so 45 representatives for 7%)

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

A follow on question ...

... across the UK, let's say 5% of people vote for BNP. But that they don't get a majority in any constituency.

Do you:
a) introduce additional non-geographical BNP MPs to make up the numbers
b) force an area to have a BNP MP even though they voted for someone else
c) get rid of local representation in Parliament
d) something else?

It's a serious question that follows on from PR.

[andrewducker]

Darn good question.

Depends on which version of PR we go with. If it's the Scottish model (Additional Member Voting) then you top up from party lists (your option a). If it's the Single Transferrable Vote then you still have regions, and these have multiple MPs. But you'd still need a fair chunk of the vote in each region to be elected.

In the Additional Member system the Greens got 2 MSPs elected based on 5% of the vote - but obviously these have very little power.

Under STV they'd quite possibly have nobody.

I'm actually ok with very fringe parties having nobody - I view it as a drawback, but there's no perfect voting system, and there are advantages to having a tie to a local(ish) MP. If I had the choice of having my local MP being a Tory MP who lived next door, or a Lib-Dem MP who covered a larger area (along with two Labour MPs and a Conversative) then I'd choose the latter state of affairs.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Thanks, excellent answer.

With that final option of having multiple MPs covering the same area (which I think I approve of, as it means that I'm likely to have an MP of *my* party (whatever that is!) as one of my "localish" representatives. And I guess you could have different areas covered by different MPs, so that, say, for London, you'd have one BNP covering all of London, two Green MPs, one covering London East and one London West, 10 Conservative MPs covering groups of boroughs, and 25 Labour MPs covering smaller groups of boroughs ... based roughly on the percentage of votes for each ... ouch, that's getting complex, because you probably don't know which Labour MP you're voting for because the coverage area may change depending on how many votes they get ... and if you just spread them across all of London, then you a small bit of BNP, more Green, far more conservative and most labour coverage, and then who do you write to if you have a problem? Who is *your* MP? Who comes to open the schools and hand out prizes at sports day?

Aieee, my head go splodey! :-)

[andrewducker]

Well, if you wanted to do things that way you could just get everyone to vote for a party, and then, once they'd been elected, they could assign themselves to different areas in whatever way they saw fit.

Whereas with the STV method you just have bigger areas, with multiple MSPs to return. This has the advantage that you can choose the order in which you support your MPs. You can choose to support a Labour one who is anti war, then two Lib-Dems, then a Green MP and then the Labour one who is pro-war, and then two Conservatives, before the UKIP get anywhere near your vote :->

This means that voters get to shape the party they vote for - if everyone votes for the anti-war Labour MPs then we still have a Labour party, but now they aren't in favour of war! (Not that I see that as likely, but you see my point).

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I think it would be as bad as, or worse, than them.

So someone standing up and saying that all gays should locked up and receive treatment until they stop their deviancy, or that all blacks are genetically inferior or that to be a faithful member of your religion requires you to detonate bombs in city centres is not as bad as saying that people who say those things shouldn't be allowed to run for parliament?

I'm afraid I don't agree.

[andrewducker]

We'll have to agree to disagree. Although I'm differentiating between hate speech and direct advocacy of violence (which I do agree should be illegal).

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

[cybik.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I agree with you. I also think there is going to be at least one BNP MP in less than a month even without PR.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

then the Electoral College system says that if 55% of a state votes one way, then 100% of the Electoral College votes go that way.

Usually but not necessarily. There's no overriding Constitutional principle involved; all the Constitution says is that each state shall appoint electors, and keeps mum about how those electors are chosen. Why so many states have gone with the winner-take-all method is a mystery to me, but they can change the system if they wish; both Maine and Nebraska use different systems, and the other states have the option to set up any laws they like.

Our system is strange, fascinating, and overly complex.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Grin, actually I knew that, as I seem to recall there was an interesting episode of Boston Legal where one of the electoral college had stated they weren't going to follow the winner-take-all and there was a constitutional question about whether the state had the power to compel that person to do so.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

There's actually a whole Wikipedia article on what are called "faithless electors"--people who didn't vote for the same person or party that their state did.

That happened en masse once, in 1836, and ,a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector">the whole article is kind of fun reading.

Um, if you're a big ol' geek, anyway. :)

[skington.livejournal.com]

There is in fact an ongoing attempt to have states pass laws that say that they'll give their electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote, but only if enough states to make a majority of electoral votes have such a law on their books. (This is to avoid the practically impossibility of doing so by passing a Constitutional amendment.) So far it's been passed by statesrepresenting 23% of the required votes.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Huh; that's interesting. Thanks for the link!