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
In a single-seat system (which I opposed for other reasons) at least one can run a 'paper' candidate in a hopeless seat; fill in the nomination papers, print the leaflets for distribution by the post office, collect your 5% of the votes on polling day, but actually put your efforts into places you might win.
From the party organisation point of view, if I know we are going to get 5% in a multiple-seat constituency, I much prefer to have a single candidate who then has a ghost of a chance of getting in, rather than divide efforts and waste energy in co-ordinating four simultaneous campaigns which may turn out to be bald men squabbling over a comb.
(I should add that I was the central party campaign organiser for the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland for three years, so I have some practical experience in this area.)