Thanks to everybody who voted in Round Two - as the option '2' didn't get a single vote, I will eliminate '2' and '3' and move on to the final round; how many members should a constituency have - 1 or 5?
By definition, a multi-member constituency entails some form of proportional representation (it would be a bit daft allocating all five seats as one bloc), as opposed to a single member constituency, which would be first past the post, even if you could soften this somewhat by having transferable votes (i.e. modified tactical voting) which might ease the stranglehold of the two main parties in the UK, but would mainly be for the benefit of the other large-ish parties like the Lib Dems, SNP and Plaid Cymru.
As ever, the poll gets closed as soon as I notice that more than twenty votes have been cast, although I'll hang on a bit longer if there's no clear lead. As ever, thanks to everybody who takes part, much appreciated.
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Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Fun Online Poll - Final Round!
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7 comments:
Just goes to show how the UK electorate are dumb/ignorant to PR when many votes were for one MP.
I don't want to sound shirty, but I am not dumb or ignorant of PR, and I have voted for one MP per constituency.
I do not support PR. I would far rather people voted for parties other than the main two, but I still prefer first past the post.
As and when a 'minority' party gets in, they will need to have the ability to make changes to policy. That will require a strong parliamentary majority.
PR will not deliver the changes that need to be made because it inevitably results in coalition.
In the EU I am supposedly represented by 10 MEPs. I actually feel less well represented than I do by my one MP (for whom I did not vote).
Jonathan Miller
JM, that's why I do these polls - if people really prefer FPTP (as masochistic as that is) then that is the end of the matter AFAIAC.
All political careers end in failure, so I might as well start mine in failure and get it over with!
Mark,
I am glad that you are standing.
I stood for UKIP as a district councilor a couple of years ago. I came third (behind the Conservatives and 'Liberal' Democrats - no Labour candidate) with just over 100 votes, which I though was reasonably good.
At least I beat the Greens!
Good luck!
Jonathan Miller
It's not strictly true that the only choice for multi-member constituencies is either PR or allocating the seats as a bloc - when England still had multi-member constituencies, as I believe it did as late as the 1940s in some parts, the voter had as many votes as there were members and was permitted to cast no more than one vote for each of as many candidates as he had votes; much like multi-councillor wards in local elections. The result is much more like first past the post than PR, but allows the voter to discriminate between candidates of the same party.
Anon, that's another good way of doing it, but I'd prefer one-man-one-vote, and you vote for an individual candidate.
Whether seats are then allocated
a) to the top 5 candidates; or b) according to how many votes a party gets (with individual candidates then ranked by personal votes, not by place on party list) is a different topic (an independent counts as one 'party' for these purposes).
I'm warming towards the open list system you suggest as (b). I've tended to favour STV, but for constituencies of more than about 4 or 5 members, the open list is starting to look a better option.
The Single Non-transferable Vote approach in (a) is a system I'm less keen on. It can easily result in a party getting more votes in a constituency, but winning fewer seats, especially if they have one stand out candidate in the constituency.
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