A case for electoral reform

[mirrorshard]

(simplistic, obviously, but it's a nice illustration)

If the number of seats won reflected the popular vote (as reported by the BBC, with 634 649 of 650 649 seats declared), we'd have this.

CON 235
LAB 189
LIB 150
UKIP 20
BNP 12
SNP 11
Green 7
Alliance 1
Other 24

(and one still to come)

Comments

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Gordon Brown's just made the case for a referendum in his statement!

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

So has David Cameron!!

With various caveats about strong, stable govt, but even so...

[oneplusme.livejournal.com]

Just one problem: where would you find 12 Nazis bright enough to sign their names on the forms?

(Living as I do in seat so safe the Tories could put up Vlad the Impaler and still get over 50% of the votes, PR can't come soon enough.)

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

They might not be bright but they could still cause a hell of a lot of trouble. Israel has PR and is constantly battling with coalition governments with extremist minorities getting underfoot. I can't really think of a political system that would give the nice parties more power without letting the nasty parties in as well. Give the European Court of Human Rights power of veto over which parties can run for election?

[sleetersoulfire.livejournal.com]

Why is everyone concerned about the nasty parties getting a few trifling seats? Everywhere I look at this issue there are people decrying PR because it would give the BNP 12.5 (I think that's the figure quoted most often) seats in Parliament.

So what? 12/13 seats is nothing. Sure, sometimes a vote might be won because the BNP were to support the government where the government lost the support of its own backbench, but in such a situation you'd have ample indication that it was the Wrong Thing to do - the BNP support was what got it through.

People DESERVE the representation they vote for. If they vote BNP they deserve BNP, no matter how unsavoury you find their policies. There would almost certainly be fewer BNP voters if there was actually the probability of them winning anything. Your 'protest voters' would dry up very quickly if their protest resulted in someone actually being granted a seat.

The current system is broken. Seriously, and fundamentally, broken. People vote for who they don't want in many, many areas because of the 'two horse race' mentality that comes with SMSP electoral systems makes them vote for the lesser of two evils. In PR they could vote for who they wanted and be rewarded with some representation of their views. The best way to get people away from nasty parties is to give those parties enough rope to hang themselves with, not to ban them.

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

I don't think Alliance 6 can be right: they only got 0.1% of the vote.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

From the updated figures, you're right; I'll amend what I've put to reflect the new BBC figures now all the constituencies have declared. Cheers for the pointer.