Just briefly, in the comments tot he Tactical post, the topic has drifted to how preferential systems, especially STV are better and negate the need for tactical votes. I thought I’d bring the discussion to the top again. Dave asks:
From the limited amount I know of STV it sounds really good.I know its probably been writen else where, but could you briefly say roughly how you think STV would work in the UK?
I assume you would need much bigger constituencies? or would you suggest similar size with a lot more MP’s?
If the constituencies were too big then the politics wouldn’t seem as local surely?
Right, without sourcing too much, you’re looking at most people living in a constituency with between 3 and 7 MPs, and you would have much bigger constituencies geographically as a result; ideally you also reduce the number of MPs for Westminster, the number has been increasing slowly for years. Some areas, such as the sparsely populated Sottish Highlands may have constituencies with only one MP simply due to geographic scale, but that isn’t ideal.
Currently, most constituencies don’t follow any real boundary that people identify with, notable exception of course being the now far too big Isle of Wight, which is nearly populous enough for a second MP anyway. As an example, I live in the Constituency of Torbay. My parents live in the Borough of Torbay, but in the constituency of Totnes, in fact, they, all of Brixham and a big chunk of Paignton aren’t in Torbay, to the confusion of most residents there.
So, you have a larger constituency, that would include all of Torbay, most of Teignbridge and the current Totnes constiutency, and probably the rest of the old South Hams constituency, the areas have close cultural (and genetic) links, for the most part. In other areas, especially urbanised areas such as Birmingham and London, you could have even larger constituencies. Those counting centres where they’ve got one hall and one set of workers for MPs from all over the area? They could be one big constituency.
Advantages
- More representatives means more choice
If you live under a crap MP, you can go to someone else, in much the same way you normally can deal with mulitple local councillors - No further need for all-women shortlists or ‘diversity’ A-lists
Because each party will usually put up multiple candidates, then a diversity of candidates will be to their electoral advantage, to appeal to multiple groups. In addition, the apparent pro-white-male bias is lessened, as you can have a “traditional” candidate and also have others. - No more safe seats
You’re not reliant on the local party to deselect an incompetent, you can vote them out. Under STV, if you’ve got a crap local MP for your favoured party, you can still vote for that party but against the MP. - Competition between MPs can increase standards and representation
Indeed, because MPs are competing against multiple candidates, they’re likely to work harder and emphasise differences within the party, giving voters a better choice (pro- or anti-EU conservatives, as an example, or anti-war/id card Labour candidates) - Decrease the “threat” of minority interests
In Barking and Dagenham in the 2006 local elections, the BNP managed to acheive a plurality of votes in a lot of wards, but this we due to split votes, the Conservatives got substantially more votes than them in the Borough. Many Conservatives view UKIP as a reason they’re losing or not gaining seats; the anti-Labour vote is splintered. - Give the voters real choice
That’s a summary. In fact, STV is being implemented for local elections in Scotland next year, which will be interesting, and is already used in Northern Ireland for some elections. Parties have tried to run slates for vote rigging purposes, with mixed, and sometimes counter-productive, results, but essentially those slates are open and honest.
With STV and other preferential systems, you can vote for a favoured candidate without the danger of letting the’other lot’ get in. Expressive voting for 1st preferences becomes the norm, voters can show what they really think and wholly false pictures of support can be eliminated. Ideally, issues are more honestly discussed, rather than simply looking for the middle ground, MPs can push for specific groups, and you’ll have a selection of ‘moderates’ and those with more pronounced views.
Pure speculation, of course, but the odds are very good that the elimination of safe seats will increase turnout in formerly ‘monkey in suit’ partizan seats. I’ve got a list of disadvantages I’ve been meaning to go through for some time (and rebut), but not at 1.30am. I’ve also got that promised Cameron Project article, I might leave that until midweek when the conference is slightly closer, it’s Labour watching time this week, fun fun.
I rate STV as a system, and endorse it fully. Many of its supposed disadvantages I see as advantages anyway. It’s definately more democratic and honest than the current system. As James highlights (in the above link), a “drawback” of STV is an increase in localism. MPs responsive to local needs is a drawback? Go figure…
Tags: New Politics Network, STV
Nice site, good design and worthy aims.
I’m rather shocked to see that you haven’t linked to Unlock Democracy. You should be a member.
Thanks for the link to the Witanagemot Club and CEP – I will reciprocate.
What if the Conservatives fielded 10 candidates and the vote was split between them all, but Labour only fielded 2 who got elected even though Labour had less overall support than the Conservatives?
Could that happen in such a system? or are there some kind of rules on how many each party must field?
No rules at all, but it’s preferential, so you number candidates, and only get elected if you’ve got enough votes out of the total cast.
You could implement rules, but generally it’s in the party’s best interests to put up one or two more than they’re likely to get elected, in case the numbers go in their favour. It’s never in their advantage to put up less than they can get.
Case study. If it was a single member seat, you go in and number candidates. If no one gets 50%, then you knock of the lowest, and their second preferences go to whover they voted to, you keep repeating until one candidate gets 50.01% of the vote.
In a two member seat, to get elected, you need 33.34% If one candidate has more than that, then you share out their remainder (there’s a formula, explaining it is harder than doing it). If no one candidate has enough, then you knock off the bottom until one has, share out their surplus, and keep going untilt he second candidate has. Once two have 33.34%, there are only 33.32% left, so no one else could win. You keep going after that.
It does work, is broadly (but not exactly) proportional, and gives voters real choices. It’s used in Australia for their Senate, Ireland for the Dail (sp?) and in Malta. Calling it PR is a gross simplification, it’s more proportional that FPTP, but that’s not the key aim.
Make sense?
What if the Conservatives fielded 10 candidates and the vote was split between them all, but Labour only fielded 2 who got elected even though Labour had less overall support than the Conservatives?
The technicalities of the system in practice mean that a few weird things can happen. But let’s say that the seat is two members big. The MPs need 33.34% of the vote to get a seat.
Of the first preference votes, the two Labour candidates get 10% each. So there’s 80% left which is split among the Conservatives. To make things more obvious, let’s say there’s 20 Conservatives. The Conservatives have 4% of the vote each, give or take. So it looks like Labour has a massive, massive lead, right? But the MPs still need 33.34 of the vote each. No-one has that. So now you knock out the one with the smallest pile of votes, and spread them around to their next preference. So you knock out the smallest Conservative pile of votes, and spread it around. And again, and again, and again.
Most of these Conservative voters won’t be going to the Labour candidates. Some of them may stop voting, if they don’t like some of the candidates. But eventually, you keep knocking out the smallest one, and spreading their votes to the next candidate on the voter’s list. So Labour maybe get to 11 or 12% each, but eventually, with only two or three Conservative choices left, they get up to 33.34% each. And so they get the seat.
In theory, at least, having a lot of candidates shouldn’t hurt you, so long as your voters will continue to rank your candidates as second, third, fourth… choice. They might stop doing that, though, either through apathy (if there’s a lot of them), ignorance, by accident, or they don’t like some of them. For example, in an election where abortion was highly contentious, your normal voters might not vote for your pro-life (or pro-choice) candidates, and might be happy to switch their votes between parties and candidates, based more on whether they agree with the issues the candidates stand for, and not just what party badge they wear.
In a two member seat, to get elected, you need 33.34% If one candidate has more than that, then you share out their remainder (there’s a formula, explaining it is harder than doing it).
Condensed explanation:
If the candidate elected has got 30% of the vote, but needed 20% of the vote (a four member constituency), they have a surplus of 10%. To get 20%, the candidate only needed two thirds of the vote they got. So that’s what you give them. Each ballot paper that counts for them has two-thirds of its vote used up, and then the remaining third is passed on to the next preference. This gets more complicated when you get onto other candidates, because you get a mixture of whole votes and partial votes, and so on. But the basic idea is that they use up enough of their vote to get elected, and then pass the rest on to the next people on the list.
In real life, this can be a bit complicated because you have thousands of ballots. As I recall, in the Republic of Ireland they say “Oh well, you needed two thirds of that pile of votes. So let’s pick one third of it at random, and pass that on to other people.” The Electoral Reform Society have a slightly weirder version, where they only keep track of the last new pile of votes to land on a candidate (from surpluses or disqualifying someone for having too few votes), and only handle surpluses from that.
They’re both basically just a fudge to keep the amount of fractions and papers flying round a little easier to handle, while keeping the proportionality.
(Hoping a few little HTML tags work okay…)
And then there’s the computerised versions, which divide the surplus proportionately so every ballot gets redistributed, being worth less and less each time, but let’s not go there…
And html tags worked fine; a longer explanation than I was going for but clearer than I could have done it I think, so thank you.
How STV could work in Britain…
A handy guide from MatGB. Comments also worth a read. In other news, is anyone out there in Tom Watson’s constituency? I may need a favour………
The Australian senate is elected by STV. The ballots are scanned into a data base which handles the calculations. When votes are transferred every paper gets counted and transferred.
To look at the 10 candidate example, the lowest candidate would be excluded and their votes would transfer. If you voted 1 for Candidate Bush and he was excluded your vote would to the candidate you marked 2 on your ballot paper. That process would fairly quickly, assuming the Conservatives exchanged preferences, bring a Conservative candidate above the lowest position.
Ultimately, repeating the process would bring 2 of the Conservative candidates to the head of the list.
When a candidates gets a quota (more votes than needed for election) their votes get transferred at a fractional value. The quota is subtracted from their total vote giving a surplus. The surplus is then divided by the number of papers being transferred to get the new value.
Computerised scanning? That’s interesting to know; I know that STV is used, but the details don’t tend to get as much coverage.
From my understanding, the Aus system is complicated a bit by the compulsory voting and having to preference everyone? Or is that misinformation put about by the antis? I’ve heard about donkey ballots and similar in critiques.
Gone completely off compulsory voting as an idea, horribly undemocratic. But RON candidates seem like a plan.