Hrm. The fundamental problem with the proposed system, apart from giving crecedence to the ‘regions’ system (a system that has been shown to be very unpopular and based on arbitrary geography rather than any real sense of community within a region) is that you’re in essence:

1) giving even MORE power to marginal seats. When you remove the first-placed candidate from contention and then start electing the highest-scoring lower-placer, who’d you think will have the most votes (even in terms of percentage – hell, ESPECIALLY, even)? That’s right.

2) not exactly helping the minor parties, because the constituency vote will STILL be worth much more than whoever it goes to when it escalates up both in theory and perception.

3) you’re still essentially taking the power of who gets elected on a list out of people’s hands. They’re being selected by a handful of (marginal) constituencies rather than all voters that they’d represent.

4) the threat is very much there that you could discourage smaller parties from standing, because their votes could deny the second-placed contender a seat. It’s a lesser problem, admittedly, but a problem all the same.

Regional top-up is a mess that may remove a few of the problems of complete non-proportionality from FPTP, but will create a whole raft more.

Sounds like a load of nonsense to me. Why re-invent the wheel just because Gordon hasn’t got the guts or conviction to give the people a choice on how they want their votes to be cast and counted?

People aren’t stupid, they are quite capable of marking ballot papers in order of preference, so why the need to keep a system that allows people to mark the paper with a single X?

Interesting that the web site set up by this ex Libertas candidate doesn’t say who is behind what he calls “this cross-party campaign”. Looks like a one-man band effort, and a fatally flawed one at that.

“Smaller parties such as the Greens and UKIP, despite earning enough votes for a number of MPs, are left without any representation. The last European Elections showed that 43% of people might vote for a party other than the big three in a General Election if they thought that their vote would count”

Hmmm

Nick Griffin, top-up member for the North East.

Sounds an absolutely wonderful idea. I really must campaign for this fantastic idea, and overturn decades, nay centuries of tried, trusted and known pratices, which have kept this country politically stable. After all what does the past have to teach the geniuses who with blank peices of paper, unencumbered by actual consequences come up with such novelties.

Sounds like another attempt to impose regionality on the UK. Despite the electorate massively rejecting the regional govt notion in the Nth east, it’s come in by the back door, with the SHA, universities, GONE, development agencies, council heads etc all mysteriously adopting the same boundaries, ones which don’t really map on to the populace’s affinities and loyalties.

@Dontmindme

“Stability” is a good argument for dictatorship too.

FPTP is tried and tested and found wanting. What we need is a genuinely democratic system of voting that ensures no party can take outright power unless they have an outright majority. We need a system that actually reflects the votes of the people rather than one that can be manipulated by the parties through safe seats and marginal seat targeting.

If you’re going to abandon the local element then do it, don’t do half measures. For me the choice is simple. AV for a locally based decision about your own MP, or STV for a national decision on the makeup of parliament. Ideally a combination of the two in a reformed set of houses would make the decisions for this country, to my mind, but proposing these halfway-houses of measures muddy the water unnecessarily.

Joseph I’d have thought this’d actually deal quite nicely with marginal seats as those are the ones most likely to split more or less evenly and come at the top of the regional lists, so you’re likely to get the two candidates in no matter what happens – effectively taking them out of the equation. Marginal seats would have disproportate representation (which is definitely a problem) but the big problem of FPTP that it causes a huge amount of attention paid to a small amount of voters is resolved.

Naturally I think there are better ways of doing similar things by eliminating marginal seats altogether but it’s an innovative way of doing it if you absolutely have to keep some bits of FPTP – Which we don’t. STV’s been around forever, we’ve had it in the UK before, it works in N.I. right now – if multi-member constituencies are a good idea for some, they’re a good idea for all. I’m a fan of thinking about different systems (I’m convinced 0% wasted votes and first preference representation for everyone is possible), but this isn’t a great time for throwing another hybrid system into the mix.

A brand new style of electoral system was today issued to MPs for consideration.

“Brand New”?

Someone hasn’t done their research–I studied the idea of regional top ups when I did GCSE politics back when I was 17, that was 18 years ago FFS.

It’s very similar to the similarly fatally flawed Hansard Society proposed system from the 70s, and is just as daft. It also doesn’t address any of the actual issues that FPTP causes, and doesn’t solve the real problem nor does it help create a more diverse and representative parliament, as a return to multi-member seats combined with the re-introduction of preferential voting would.

After going to the website the whole thing feels like a personal promo for the guy rather than a serious attempt at positive reform.

#7

Thanks for stating the choice so clearly, and I agree. Personally I support FPTP because I’m concerned AV would end up exaggerating majorities, and I’d rather abolish the House of Lords than elect it, but if I was forced to design a system without FPTP and with two houses, I’d opt for AV for the House of Commons and STV for the House of Lords in a purely revising role.

GB

FPTP works extremely well in fact. Consider what an election is for. It is to elect a local representative from a constituency to go to the Comons. The make up of the commons is then determined from the aggregate of the constituencies. In acheiving this aim it is flawless. Whoever get the most vote wins.

The aim of the constituency election is avowededly NOT to create a proportional parliament. Quite the opposite. It is to send a MP to the commons to represent the locals regardless of the make up of the rest of parliament, and regardless of whether the rest of the country is like minded or not.

Any system that breaks that principle is LESS democratic, not more, because individual constituencies would lose their voice because they in effect cannot vote against the general party line (whatever parties are involved).

There is a case to reassert the commons, and to limit the powers of the parties, to restore more power to individual members, I am very much in favour of that.

But I think it is fundamentally wrong to fix the perceive weaknesses of the commons by changing the voting system so that parties become more powerfiul and have more authority over their members. I can not see how that helps.

All that PR brings, is a greater variety of individually more powerful parties, who are less accoutable to constituencies (a MP who fears losing his seat is a lot more attentive to his constituents than one who doesnt).

As to stability is an argument for dictatorship, I defy you to show me stable dictatorship that matches Great Britains record. It is nonsense to equate the arguments. The stability that comes from effective supression is no substitute from the stablity that comes from a widely held consensus as to the constitutional settlement we have, warts ‘n all.

designed to end the argument over which voting method is best.

Well that’s obviously stupid. Voting systems are always compromises between incompatible criteria which we would reasonably expect to insist upon, – not only existing systems, but (due to Arrow’s Theorem for example) any system. As long as people put different weights on these reasonable properties, the argument will exist.

dontmindme.

FPTP worked when local constituencies had no power – in the days when it meant appointing a big wig to trundle to London and shout at Lord Liverpool until he agreed to stop putting a levy on your potato farmers, on the understanding that if they were dead then they wouldn’t be able to fight Napoleon.

Now we have more knowledge, more power an generally more interest in things outside of our own constituency, and demand to performance manage our MPs, rather than begging them to take our petitions to Westminster, each individual should have a greater say in National interests. Especially as GB announced that hereditary peers are now out the window, effectively giving the elected government another share of the voting process.

There’s something to be said for the American Congress/Representatives system.

Why can’t we just have STV in multi-member constituencies?

John Stuart Mill saw it was the way forward over 100 years ago, how have we still not got round to using it?

Donut HP.

“constituencies had no power”? Are these the same constituencies that formed the basis of the government of the British Empire?, that made Gladstone, Disraeli et al Primeminster?

The modern constituency MP today should envy the independence of his forbears. Since the days of Lloyd-George, there has been a progressive trend to party power (I dont mean that as a compliment).

The ills of the Commons have nothing to do with the way the parties are elected, it is entirely to do with the way the parties and the executive have over time taken power away from The Commons. Moving away from FPTP is not going to fix that.

I am all for an elected House of Lords (limited to a revising chamber only), and I would myself want to see a full PR House of Lords, so the two houses elected on different systems at different times.

this regional top-up system is the best PR system I’ve seen proposed. Like alternative member systems, it provides a proportional outcome, while retaining constituencies. However, it avoids the problem of the electorate having little control of who is elected on the party lists.

It would mean that candidates from under-represented parties would compete to stand in seats where the support levels are highest; and then all parties and all candidates with a fighting chance would have an incentive to do their best to engage with their entire electorate, – rather than the marginals as at present.

STV is a horrible system. No more than a handful of political geeks know enough about all the candidates in a constituency to be able to rationally list them in order of preference. The “donkey vote” effect of just numbering the candidates 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 as they appear on the ballot paper ruins the claim that it is a proportional system.

First past the post is an unrepresentative anachronism, this “new” system is trying to sell itself through “simplicity” but won’t cure the problem (it’s far too close to the mish-mash we have in Scotland), but when Peter asserts:

“STV is a horrible system. No more than a handful of political geeks know enough about all the candidates in a constituency to be able to rationally list them in order of preference. The “donkey vote” effect of just numbering the candidates 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 as they appear on the ballot paper ruins the claim that it is a proportional system.”

He’s talking out of his (evidence-free) backside:

http://www.fairsharevoting.org/why.htm

It ain’t perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the alternatives. And if drunk students can successfully run STV elections, anyone bloody can…

There is no single “right” solution. It is not even a quadratic equation with tow “right” solutions.

Instead it all depends on your view of what the process is for. So we all argue abot the merits of A over B, when what we are really arguing about is why we have elections in the first place, and what the objectives of those elections are.

Since in a small space like this the variety of those touting the “one true electoral system” is already growing, I ask the question, should proponents of system X not at least be clear on what elections are for, before announcing what system is best X?

For example, the behaviour of ‘drunk students’ seems to me a poor model on which to base and argument for general election systems

I followed through his London 2005 election example and got the following overall

Party/ Local MP / Top-up seats / Total

Labour 279 12 291
Conservative 153 42 195
Lib Dem 48 70 118
UKIP 0 8 8
SNP 5 3 8
Plaid Cymru 3 1 4
Ind Kid Hosp 1 0 1
Respect 1 0 1
Green 0 1 1
BNP 0 1 1

“In acheiving this aim it is flawless. Whoever get the most vote wins.”

AV is, without any doubt, the best system for achieving this. Rather than someone being voted in “with the most votes” despite only have more than a third of the votes, you’re voting in someone that…in all consideration…50% or more of the population would be able to live with as their representative.

You don’t have to rank EVERYONE on the paper, if you truly don’t want someone to be your MP then you don’t give them a preference.

20

I dont beleive you can work the numbers out like that. There is ample evidence that people vote differently depending on the system used. of 05 was Top up, then people would have voted with that knowledge in mind and the numbers would look different, potentially very different.

22 Had a different system been in place people would have possibly thought differently about their vote. All I’ve done is repeat their London example for the other regions.

#21

Voting in a candidate who most of the population can live with is not the same as voting in a candidate who most of the population supports.

Suppose 49% of the population votes for candidate 1), 25% for candidate 2) and 26% for candidate 3), then all of candidate 2)’s votes go to candidate 3).

In that case, is it better to have a candidate who was 49%’s first choice, or one who just over a quarter wanted, a quarter could live with and up to 49% hated?

An extreme example, but I don’t think it can be said for certain that AV is better than FPTP on those grounds.

Some people are against PR because it would let nutters in. For example:

@4 Dontmindme: Nick Griffin, top-up member for the North East. Sounds an absolutely wonderful idea. I really must campaign for this fantastic idea, and overturn decades, nay centuries of tried, trusted and known pratices, which have kept this country politically stable.

But the majority of MPs in the current parliament voted for a law that criminalises women who take it in turns to look after each other’s children, so I doubt that a parliament elected under PR would be any nuttier than the current one.

And because no party would have a majority on their own, the government would have to persuade MPs to vote for legislation, instead of it being automatically passed through on their whip.

“An extreme example, but I don’t think it can be said for certain that AV is better than FPTP on those grounds.”

I disagree. Like I said, you don’t have to put a preference on the paper if you don’t want that person to lead you. If people have gone to the extent of saying they want candidate 3 as second preference then that is essentially 51% of the people that have said that candidate 1 is their least favourite choice. How is that person getting in via FPTP the fairest situation?

25.

Thats what you would hope, but not necessarily what would happen. The more proportional the system is, the more divorced from the individual elector (e.g party lists), the more likely it is the whips who will dominate.

Thats the problem with the PR debate, it is too often based one desired outcomes, and not thoughts of how a system would be used in practice

Hi,
I am the author of the site. Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for their comments, although it seems to be getting a bit of flak, so I will try to answer all of the points here.

As another poster pointed out, different people here are extolling the virtues of AV or STV. However, I set out to create a system that would be acceptable to the establishment. Addional Member Systems are already used in both the Welsh and London Assemblies. RTU is really just an improved version of AMS. We know that AMS works and is acceptable – we just need a way of scaling it up to a national level.

AV, as Gordon Brown is proposing is a reform red herring. It’s just a slightly different system that gives the least worst candidate, rather than the most voted for candidate. Big deal. It doesn’t address the problem of lack of proportional representation. Plus, GB is only suggesting it because he thinks that most Lib Dem voters will put Labour as a second choice. I am sure that someone ran the expected numbers on this for 2005 and AV actually increased Labour’s disproportionate majority.

—————
Joseph Edwards:
I didn’t understand either of your first two points, sorry.

“3) you’re still essentially taking the power of who gets elected on a list out of people’s hands. They’re being selected by a handful of (marginal) constituencies rather than all voters that they’d represent.”

OK, I understand the point (just about), but the whole concept of regional Top-Up works on elected the most popular candidates in the region. Obviously this will mean that those people standing in what would have been marginals will be more likely to get elected… but that’s because more people are voting for them! It’s an improvement over lists created by central party officials, I am sure you will agree.

Also, RTU does away with the whole concept of marginals to some extent because the two-horse race problem isn’t so prevalent, meaning that people can vote for the person/party they want (knowing that their vote will count), rather than being forced into a choice of just two.

“4) the threat is very much there that you could discourage smaller parties from standing, because their votes could deny the second-placed contender a seat. It’s a lesser problem, admittedly, but a problem all the same.”

I really can’t see that ever happening. No smaller party is going to risk losing seats in order to help a second placed candidate from getting elected. The whole point of RTU is to allow the smaller parties to compete fairly.

—————
GB
“People aren’t stupid, they are quite capable of marking ballot papers in order of preference, so why the need to keep a system that allows people to mark the paper with a single X?”

I don’t think that anyone is suggesting that people are stupid, but some people do seem to struggle with different mechanisms. For the 2004 London elections:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-11317425-500000-votes-not-counted.do;jsessionid=49D1B469B28823D1B0CB7FEB6FFB5DD6

“Some 385,952 votes were unable to be counted for the mayoral poll and a further 167,071 were ruled in breach of rules for the assembly election.”

In 2008, the same thing happened; there were 466,120 rejected ballot papers.
http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/elections/mayoral/

Keeping a single ‘X’ vote makes it as simple as possible.

—————
Lorna Spenceley:
“Interesting that the web site set up by this ex Libertas candidate doesn’t say who is behind what he calls ‘this cross-party campaign’. Looks like a one-man band effort, and a fatally flawed one at that.”

Well, it is certainly me pushing it. By cross-party I simply mean that the supporters aren’t from a single party, and I am not promoting it from a partisan position.

—————
Dontmindme:
“Hmmm Nick Griffin, top-up member for the North East. Sounds an absolutely wonderful idea. ”

Firstly, Nick Griffin is already an MEP for the BNP. Secondly, the idea of choosing an electoral system to keep out a specific party that you don’t like, despite them having widespread public support is anti-democratic. If you can’t beat the BNP through debate…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/07/european-elections-manchester-liverpool

“I really must campaign for this fantastic idea, and overturn decades, nay centuries of tried, trusted and known pratices, which have kept this country politically stable. After all what does the past have to teach the geniuses who with blank peices of paper, unencumbered by actual consequences come up with such novelties.”

If you don’t believe in electoral reform, that’s fine. You are welcome to your endless future flipping between Labour and Tory governments and ever decreasing turnouts

—————
MatGB
“It also doesn’t address any of the actual issues that FPTP causes, and doesn’t solve the real problem nor does it help create a more diverse and representative parliament, as a return to multi-member seats combined with the re-introduction of preferential voting would.”

Er… of course it does! Did you look at the London example? It gave both a Green and a UKIP MP, as well as reducing the number of Labour seats while significantly increasing the number of Lib Dems seats. It was pretty close to a pure proportional distribution.

—————
Lee Griffin:
“After going to the website the whole thing feels like a personal promo for the guy rather than a serious attempt at positive reform.”

Given the large photo of me, that’s slightly hard to defend against! However, I used the photo because the web page was really dull without it. I tried using flags, maps etc, but they all looked poor. I have no problem putting my name out there; it shouldn’t detract from the idea itself though.

—————
Dontmindme:
“FPTP works extremely well in fact. Consider what an election is for. It is to elect a local representative from a constituency to go to the Comons. The make up of the commons is then determined from the aggregate of the constituencies. In acheiving this aim it is flawless. Whoever get the most vote wins.

The aim of the constituency election is avowededly NOT to create a proportional parliament. Quite the opposite”

This looks very much like a personal analysis of what Parliament and elections are for, and most electoral reformers would disagree 100%. I believe that Parliament should represent the political beliefs of the country as closely as possible. National elections are there to make that happen, IMHO.

Anthony

Thanks for the responses. On your last on. I could not agree more. We disagree on what the election if for, so it is not surprising we disagree on how it should be conducted.

So are we not having the wrong debate? before we discuss which alphabet soup system is best, should we not be debating why we have elections in the first place? That is what are the primary objectives of an election?

“I believe that Parliament should represent the political beliefs of the country as closely as possible. National elections are there to make that happen, IMHO.”

In theory this sounds good, but in practice it would deliver one thing….a parliament where local people have no direct route to lobby parliament. Is that the best thing? If the mood of the nation that is bringing about this electoral reform opportunity is on the crest of a wave of discontent with how much power politicians and parties have over people, and how little a say the public has when they want to say it, then surely pure PR is not an option the people are clamoring for?

No, the way I see it is the public want more accountability than FPTP, they want their votes to be more meaningful in who they elect in their constituency …and they want to be able to have that power over the individual MP by that association. AV systems do this. Some claim that it greater entrenches safe seats, though this is only true under FPTP mentality of thought (where people would vote exactly the same with an added second preference, rather than feeling more free to vote for a different first preference thanks to an abolished situation of “wasted votes”).

Does PR therefore have a part to play? Yes, in a fully (or about 90%) elected second chamber that has a sole purpose of mediating and fine tuning legislation. But this system you advocate, Anthony, doesn’t provide the needed constitutional reform to make this all work as it needs to. It’s a small plaster on a big wound.

Voting for AV, should it come to a referendum, would solve half of the constitutional problem in the UK, at least from the perspective of the public en masse. At least then reformers could easily concentrate on the last half of reform, the harder half of actually changing the Lords in to something more relevant to society today.

dontmindme:
“So are we not having the wrong debate? before we discuss which alphabet soup system is best, should we not be debating why we have elections in the first place? That is what are the primary objectives of an election?”

That’s an excellent point. Here’s my take.

Democracy is the least worst form of tyranny. Governments take money from citizens under threat of imprisonment and impose laws upon them, again under threat of imprisonment or fining. Therefore it is extremely important that everyone has the opportunity to have a say in the laws that are imposed upon them. It is part of the contract of trust between the public and the rulers.

At the moment, we have a tyranny of the minority, with 33% of voters running the country. Labour, with 55% of the MPs, has no need (normally) to worry about reaching a consensus with the MPs who apparently represent the other 67% of the voters.

To me, that is a broken system. The primary objective of an election should be to create a Parliament that allows everyone to be represented. FPTP does not allow that. Nor does AV.

People argue that FPTP creates ‘stable’ governments, but so what? Let’s take ID cards for instance – a major change to our lives imposed by a minority supported government and opposed by the ‘majority’ supported opposition parties. Is that stable? I don’t think so. In fact, I would say that the FPTP system, in a modern British context, is so skewed that it allows massively unpopular decisions to be taken without recourse. That is not healthy.

————
Lee Griffin:
“In theory this sounds good, but in practice it would deliver one thing – a parliament where local people have no direct route to lobby parliament. Is that the best thing?”

I don’t see how you have reached that conclusion; RTU still uses FPTP for 75%+ of the seats, and the remaining candidates are all elected within constituencies anyway. This means that in some constituencies the locals will have *two* routes into Parliament.

In terms of improving accountability and public control, a combination of the power of recall and Direct Democracy would more than cover it I think.

As for the House of Lords, I will put my thinking cap on. I, without having looked at it in great detail yet, think that the second chamber should consist of independents ideally, without party whips.

#33

I don’t want the ruling party to have to reach a consensus with the other parties. I want governments to be able to take action. Otherwise you end up with a situation where professional lobbyists have all the power.

31
I totally agree that we should be having a debate about what elections are for,
I may have become cynical, or it may be that I have seen no evidence to detract from my view, that representative democracy is a sham.

“I don’t see how you have reached that conclusion; RTU still uses FPTP for 75%+ of the seats”

And thus makes a mockery of the system by being a halfway house. So I’ve elected more than one MP, but only one of them is technically my MP. Who is the other? No-one that I have picked, merely someone that I have no idea about in terms of their ability or care for the area that is picked by the party on some list basis?

I’m sorry, like I said, either abolish the constituency link (or perhaps more accurately I should say the ability to choose precisely who represents you) or don’t. Anything else resorts in some weird two tiered parliament that, in my opinion, would lack credibility.