'Should we change the general election voting system?' poll discussion

Gordon_the_Moron

I'd find it hard to imagine many people voting both Conservative and Labour so will leave the small fringe groups with serious added strength in the second round which will nearly always happen (how often does a candidate get >50% of the total vote using FPTP)

Kered

There is a by-election and there are 5 candidates standing, there is a 37% turnout of eligible voters.
No candidate gets over 50% share of the vote but one of them has 46.7% the next nearest has 39% and the rest are well below the mark but their voters have all marked the candidate that is in second place as their AV, does this mean that this will result in the second placed candidate actually winning the election? and if so when you multiply this result by every seat in the house, does that mean this country will have a second rate parliment and become the laughing stock of the free world?

Gareth_Lazelle

Kered wrote: »

There is a by-election and there are 5 candidates standing, there is a 37% turnout of eligible voters.
No candidate gets over 50% share of the vote but one of them has 46.7% the next nearest has 39% and the rest are well below the mark but their voters have all marked the candidate that is in second place as their AV, does this mean that this will result in the second placed candidate actually winning the election? and if so when you multiply this result by every seat in the house, does that mean this country will have a second rate parliment and become the laughing stock of the free world?

Bottom line is, if the stats you quote are correct:

If it came down to a vote between those top two candidates, the one with 39% would be more popular,

The only reason that candidate didn't win in the first place is because his/her vote was split by the other lower ranking candidates,

So fundamentally: That candidate is the most popular with the voters even if they didn't quite get more 1st votes,

So where's the problem?

Would it be a second rate parliament if the less popular candidate (the one with 46.7% of the initial vote) got in?

Gareth_Lazelle

Or to put it another way - why should the most popular candidate suffer just because a bunch of no-hopers with similar policies stand at the election?

If the other candidates had withdrawn the candidate you cite with 39% of the vote would have clearly won.

Kered

In that case there should only ever be 2 candidates possibly by means of a run off to narrow it down, oh wait a minute thats what the Yanks do and we all know what reliable political leaders that produces.

lukeuser01

wow, current poll is 50/50. If this reflects British public, because of the fact that people supporting AV are more likely to vote in the referendum than those opposed (I think that's true), AV has a good chance of winning. I'm opposed because firstly, AV favours candidates that the least people hate rather than the most people like, and secondly, it's misleading as some people think it addresses the issue of how a party's proportion of national votes doesn't reflect it's number of candidates, which it doesn't. However, I don't want Proportional representation either (for the same reasons as other people, that each MP should have a responsibility to the people who vote them in).

Gareth_Lazelle

Kered wrote: »

In that case there should only ever be 2 candidates possibly by means of a run off to narrow it down, oh wait a minute thats what the Yanks do and we all know what reliable political leaders that produces.

Not quite - the Yanks really only have two viable parties too... But I think we do need a system that encourages more than two parties (even if I personally object to some of the parties).

And FPTP isn't it, because it encourages a political environment with only two major parties (and do you really think that there are only two sorts of people in the UK?).

Elections will always come down to two parties in the end, however many candidates there are (you start with a bunch of candidates, at the end there is only one. At some point in the process there will only be two viable candidates),

But to suggest that anyone voting for any other party shouldn't have a say in the final result is essentially saying that only labour/conservative voters should get a say in running the country.

And maybe that's why we end up with so much tactical voting (if you only get a say by voting for one of those two, most folks will vote for one of them).

attemptingmoneysaving

I would like to see people and parties that a good number of voters feel strongly about represented.

Also, voting should then be mandatory - if voters know their preferences will be represented, they are all more likely to vote. Has to include the 'no confidence in any of these' option though...

For me, if the BNP gain power, shows I need to be more involved in politics....to prevent it...

rpb

Gordon_the_Moron wrote: »

Yes your right ... but the fact remains you could get the bottom 2 get 1 first choice and no first choice respectively, the bottom one is eliminated and second one down could then have a ton of second choice votes and end up winning, therefore 1 person's first choice of candidate wins the election

No, sorry, still wrong. If the bottom candidate gets no first choice supporters they will be eliminated. But only the second choices of their supporters will then be counted. They had no first choice votes so it will make no difference. There are no second choice votes to transfer.

In the second round, the second last candidate (with one vote) will be eliminated. Then, only the second choice of that single voter will then be used in the third round. Not only will this one single vote make very little difference, but so what? That voter's preferred candidate has been eliminated, so it's perfectly reasonable to let him/her state which of the remaining eligible candidates they would prefer. Why should they not have a say in choosing between the remaining candidates?

I think the problem you have demonstrated is that many people still don't understand how AV works, and believe it creates bizarre results. In fact it is our current system that causes bizarre results, as we have seen, and which also makes things worse because its operation encourages/rewards tactical voting. AV fixes some (not all) of the bizarre behaviour of FPTP.

The anti-AV crowd always claim that second choice votes mean winning candidates don't have the support of the voters, which is rubbish. If I vote for candidate A with a second choice of candidate B, and A gets eliminated, I WANT B TO GET IN - that's the whole point! He/She is my second choice and my first choice is out! I prefer B over all of the remaining parties so if B gets in, that's good! I voted for B and support her! (Not as much as I supported A, but it turns out A had little support.)

With FPTP, I either vote tactically (i.e. not for my preferred candidate), which is ridiculous, or I vote for candidate A, they have little support and don't get in, and in effect I am denied the right to choose between the remaining candidates - it is left up to all of the non-A supporters to decide the result of the election! :eek:

So the fact remains, AV, although not perfect, is quite similar to FPTP. But AV has a number of significant democratic advantages, and no significant democratic disadvantages compared to FPTP.

[Deleted User]

lukeuser01 wrote: »

wow, current poll is 50/50. If this reflects British public, because of the fact that people supporting AV are more likely to vote in the referendum than those opposed (I think that's true), AV has a good chance of winning. I'm opposed because firstly, AV favours candidates that the least people hate rather than the most people like,

The problem with that is that under FPTP you can end up with a candidate that (of the main contenders) people like least. Under AV, that's next to impossible.

and secondly, it's misleading as some people think it addresses the issue of how a party's proportion of national votes doesn't reflect it's number of candidates, which it doesn't.

That's not a case of AV being misleading, but of people failing to understand it. It does what it does, and doesn't do what it doesn't do. That it doesn't do what nobody should be claiming it does is not, in itself, a reason to oppose it.