Interesting Links for 27-03-2021

[andrewducker]

You say you want a 'written constitution' for the UK? Here are four online places where it is already written down.

(tags:Constitution UK )

Learning to code 'will seriously change your life'

(tags:computers propaganda UK programming )

Alex Salmond becomes leader of new pro-independence Alba Party ahead of Scottish elections

(tags:politics Scotland independence viaDanielDWilliam )

Easter and paganism. Part 1

(tags:Easter religion history paganism )

Easter and paganism. Part 2

(tags:religion history paganism easter )

Ooh, DC got someone competent to direct The Suicide Squad reboot, and it shows!

(tags:movies DC trailer )

Solar Is Cheapest Electricity In History, U.S. DOE Aims To Cut Costs 60% By 2030

(tags:electricity solarpower GoodNews thefuture USA )

In Stockholm there's an IT battle underway for people's schools

(tags:it schools Sweden OhForFucksSake )

The parental consent case against the Tavistock has succeeded (puberty blockers no longer blocked)

(tags:LGBT law GoodNews transgender children puberty )

How The Hobbit became the best selling text adventure of all time

(tags:text adventure games TheHobbit history programming )

How a coronavirus variant tore through an English island and onto the world stage

(tags:UK Kent virus pandemic )

Police lied about officers with broken bones during the Bristol protests

(tags:protests police lies violence )

Comments

[calimac]

That's interesting. This is a scenario that I'd not come across in any reading I'd done on voting systems, or in accounts of other AMS polities.

[andrewducker]

You'd need to get enough votes for the extra party in order for them to actually win the seats, and it remains to be seen how much patience the public have for these shenanigans.

(The Greens have stood list-only for a fair while, but they're clearly not just a carbon copy of the SNP with Salmond's head stuck on it. So we'll have to see.)

[cmcmck]

And I see you have the delights of Gorgeous George putting up as well.

Oh, joy! :o/

[andrewducker]

I think he's failed to get in before too. Hopefully he will again!

[calimac]

"Gorgeous George" = Galloway?

[andrewducker]

Yup!

[cmcmck]

The very man! :o)

[danieldwilliam]

It's a bit of an edge case with AMS which only happens in a 5+ party set up if one of the parties is polling 45%+ of the constituency vote and everyone else is sharing the other half of vote evenly-ish.

Which is accidentally the situation we find ourselves in Scotland.

I'm not sure it's soluble by adjusting the allocation of seats between constituency and regional list. Shifting from d'Hondt to the Sainte-Langue method might reduce the gamability. Not sure.

AV+ probably does fix the problem in practice. Difficult to implement that under the circumstances.

[andrewducker]

I always thought an interesting tweak on AV+ would be to have one, ranked, vote. And the highest ranked one would then be used for proportionality.

I *think* this would get rid of tactical voting, but I'm not 100% sure.

[danieldwilliam]

So you would have 1 ballot, electing a constituency member using AV and all the 1st preferences become regional list votes?

[andrewducker]

Yup.
Means that if you want Greens in the list you vote Green first preference in the local election.

Only works if you actually have every party stand in both local and list, of course.

And using AV locally means you don't have a spoiler effect, so you could actually state your preferences clearly.

I can't currently see a down side, but I'm no expert!

[danieldwilliam]

It would limit List vote gaming but prevent me deliberately splitting my vote if I liked the top regional candidate on a different party's list more than their local constituency candidate.

[andrewducker]

This is true.

I really need to write up some thoughts on voting at some point!