Baroness Warsi was quoted in today's Metro, I can't track down that article but she was quoted as saying the same thing by the BBC about a month ago:
Generations of British reformers have been inspired by that principle. They believed that because each person is equal, everyone should have an equal vote. It took many years for that principle to become part of our politics. But today it stands as the cornerstone of our democracy.
Look around the world and we see the legacy: 2.4 billion people use our voting system. It's the most widely used voting system in the world.
*ahem*
i. World population 6.8 billion (I assume she's referring to total population, rather than electors, which might be 5 billion*).
ii. The USA and India use FPTP, that's 1.5 billion accounted for. The USA appears to have a two-party system, in which case it doesn't matter whether they use FPTP or AV, adn I have no idea about Indian politics.
iii. So that leaves 0.9 billion people in countries using FPTP, and 4 billion people in countries using 'something else' (to the extent they have elections, which most countries do, even single party states).
iv. So as a simple matter of fact, FPTP is not the most widely used voting system, especially if you work on the basis of "number of countries using it" rather than pure population size. Proportional Representation (in one of its many guises) is the most widely used system, and apparently the most widely used type of PR is full-list PR.
*/ahem*
* If she's working on the basis of 'electors', then she might or might not have a point, depending on whether you count "number of countries" or "total population".
Thursday 5 May 2011
More last minute FPTP lies
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16 comments:
Just because it is not used by 50% of the world does not mean it isn't the most widely used single voting system. That 4 billion would be spread amongst a number of other systems.
The USA appears to have a two-party system, in which case it doesn't matter whether they use FPTP or AV
That hasn't always been true. Notably Wilson was elected due to the emergence of the Roosevelt led Progressive Party which split the Republican vote.
Moreover if the argument is that FPTP penalises minority parties then it's hardly an excuse to say the US is a two party system. It strengthens your argument to point to the weaknesses of a system that leads to a two party duopoly.
AC, the single most widely used is full list PR. That does not make it a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a fact.
TDK, yes, it's a circular thing: FPTP -> two party system -> FPTP and so on.
Oh yeah. India's got a lot to recommend FPTP. How many Gandhi's have they had running the country since independence?
India has had a 19 party ruling coalition for quite a few elections now by the way. Single party government under FPTP, who says so?
In the USA the Primary system considerably alleviates the problem of FPTP. Thus the Tea Party members who are also listed as normally Republicansvote for candidates they like. In Britain candidates and indeed policies are virtually entirely imposed from the top, whatever party members want, by "cast iron" Dave.
I don't know much about current India but for 40 years after independence India was a virtual one party state run by the Congress party, until Tajeev Ghandi started several million forced sterilisations, which puissed off people enough to get them out. Arguably not a good example.
right or wrong, warsi is still undeniably a complete feckwit
On the evidence of the post you can't say she is wrong.
Assume the numbers are right.
2.4 billion out of 6.8 billion use FPTP.
You can't just lump all the other systems together and claim they are one system.
Australian AV and North Korean whatever aren't the same.
So unless another system has more than 2.4 billion then FPTP is the most widely used.
It is a bit like electing an MP the one with the most votes wins even if he doesn't get over 50%, you can't just lump the losers all together as One Other Party and elect one of them as MP, or is that how you would like it to work :)
AV appears to be a solution to the problem of having a party in power with a mere 38% of the vote.
Isn't the true problem not the voting system but the boundaries and a paucity of parties that people actually want to vote for ?
The E, yes I can say she's lying because she is lying and the most common system is party list full-PR.
EK: "Isn't the true problem... a paucity of parties that people actually want to vote for ?"
I don't think that's necessarily true. What if we had ten parties - one for pensioners, one for trade unionists, one for racists, one for libertarians, one for landlords etc, all of them equally good in the eyes of their own supporters, but pretty much repugnant to everybody else? One of these parties might win with 11% of the vote or something.
I like UKIP but I won't ever vote for a single issue party.
I suspect the same is true for pensioners, trade unionists, racists, libertarians ...
JT, the original Mahatma never ran the country, he never held office AFAIAA.
NH, a 19 party coalition is really giving it some!
NC, exactly, FPTP can go either way.
Anon, she's WRONG and a f-wit.
EK, UKIP aren't a single issue party, our 2010 manifesto explains/explained more. It was probably far more coherent than anybody else's.
Mark, but UKIP sounds like a single-issue party. Who reads manifestos anyway? They should quietly drop the I and become the UK Party.
B, they did indeed start off as a single issue party 13 years ago (or whenever it was), but they have developed. Obviously, the Powers That Be paint their own incorrect picture, UKIP are nowhere near as right wing as they say (quite liberal in some respects) but obviously there is a Home-Owner-Ist tendency :-(
Few people read manifestos. I have heard people say "I'll vote UKIP because they would [do something or other]" when whatever that is was neither in our manifesto or where out manifesto actually said the opposite.
UKIP did once seriously discuss changing the name but it was agreed that it is so difficult getting some sort of public recognition, that a change of name was just too risky. If you think about it. most party names are quite meaningless and give no indication of what they stand for - e.g. LibLabCon are almost the same in most respects.
Reference to the ever unreliable Wikipedia will allow the more industrious to answer this question. FPTP crops up pretty often - it's good to know that it's used in Burma, for instance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_voting_systems_by_nation
H, ta for that, proves my point. If only Wiki weren't so unreliable, eh?
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