andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2011-01-06 11:26 am
andrewducker) wrote2011-01-06 11:26 am
Annoyed by politics
I keep seeing articles talking about alliances between the Lib Dems and Conservatives, either for the next election, or for the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election that's happening a week today. In the latter case, many of the Conservatives basically seem to be saying "We don't have a chance of winning, so you Tory voters should vote LibDem instead, so that Labour don't win."
Not only do I disagree over there being alliances over elections (because it denies people a free choice), but I object to the fact that the current system encourages them. If we had AV then Conservative voters could vote the way they want to (Conservative) and then vote Lib-Dem as a second choice _if that's what they want_. Similarly, Lib-Dem voters could vote Lib-Dem first, and then either Conservative or Labour depending on which they preferred as a second-choice, etc., etc.
That way the parties could concentrate on standing for themselves, and not what other parties are doing, and electoral bargaining could at least wait until _after_ the votes were in.
As it is, the election results won't actually tell us what the honest choices of the electorate are. People will be voting tactically, to keep out the people they oppose, based on guesswork over who has the most chance of winning. It's a horribly broken system.
(Not that I think that AV is the bees knees, but it's decidedly better than FPTP. I think my ideal system would probably be AV with an AMS top-up, but that's a completely different debate.)
Not only do I disagree over there being alliances over elections (because it denies people a free choice), but I object to the fact that the current system encourages them. If we had AV then Conservative voters could vote the way they want to (Conservative) and then vote Lib-Dem as a second choice _if that's what they want_. Similarly, Lib-Dem voters could vote Lib-Dem first, and then either Conservative or Labour depending on which they preferred as a second-choice, etc., etc.
That way the parties could concentrate on standing for themselves, and not what other parties are doing, and electoral bargaining could at least wait until _after_ the votes were in.
As it is, the election results won't actually tell us what the honest choices of the electorate are. People will be voting tactically, to keep out the people they oppose, based on guesswork over who has the most chance of winning. It's a horribly broken system.
(Not that I think that AV is the bees knees, but it's decidedly better than FPTP. I think my ideal system would probably be AV with an AMS top-up, but that's a completely different debate.)
no subject
(I couldn't find any statistics on this, so went through the Eire 2007 results by hand - if anyone has any better data, I'd like to know).
no subject
As most of the people I know vote by party, not representative, I can't see it working nearly as well cross-party, as they'd vote for all of the reps for a party before they voted for a different one.
If I remember rightly, the last poll I ran showed that most people didn't even know who their prospective candidate was, they weer just going to vote for whoever was next to "Raving Loony" on the ballot.
no subject
This would still lead to a situation where, for example, you'd get probably two Labour MPs, one Lib Dem and one Tory in the four seats nearest me by the last election's numbers, as opposed to the current situation of three Labour and one Lib Dem. I personally prefer the latter, but the former is more democratic.
"If I remember rightly, the last poll I ran showed that most people didn't even know who their prospective candidate was, they weer just going to vote for whoever was next to "Raving Loony" on the ballot."
Absolutely - most people still don't have a clue (I'm very unusual in that I've met five of the candidates who stood in my constituency last time, and can count two of them as, if not friends, at least good acquaintances). However, in areas with a nationally-known candidate, or one with a strong local reputation, that difference could still be crucial (I imagine that Labour voters would, for example, have listed only Labour candidates, but listing Hazel Blears last in North Manchester, essentially meaning she'd never get re-elected.)
That means that those who genuinely don't know about candidates can rank them randomly and still get a say in which party represents them, while those who do can order them properly and get a say in which member represents them.
no subject
It's a question of whether you priorities voting for candidates or including small parties, which is always going to be a matter of taste. Either is clearly better than the current situation.
no subject