PR and extremists

[ewx]

A few people have expressed the objection to PR that it might lead to BNP MPs (I think twelve is the figure currently being bandied around). Rather than repeat my responses to that each time someone says it:

1. Some of the BNP votes may be protest votes. The BNP

Comments

[thegreatgonzo]

Given the election of Ian Paisley Jr I don't think we even have to wait for an outburst to find out

[imc]

Choosing an electoral system to disadvantage a specific party is fundamentally dishonest.

What about to disadvantage all minority parties? It's been pointed out that some real-world PR systems discount any votes from each region that amount to less than 5% for a party in that region.

Some of the BNP votes may be protest votes.

I'd be interested to know what basis there is for this. I can think of much better ways to protest. :-)

I need a politics userpic.

Me too.

What about to disadvantage all minority parties?

[ewx]

Some form of that effect is surely inevitable, e.g. any party that gets less than T/N votes for turnout T and N total seats is out of luck. So unless someone is arguing for direct democracy, where to put the threshold is ultimately an implementation detail.

Re: What about to disadvantage all minority parties?

[baljemmett]

Implementation details are exactly what I'd be interested in hearing before I offered up a vote one way or other -- presuming we get a referendum, of course...

There seems to be a lot of "PR as magical pixie dust" around at the moment, and personally whilst I think it'd be a good idea if suitably implemented I would also like to see a) some link to a 'local' MP retained, since at least some of us have MPs who are actually local and do a good job at it, and b) potentially an overall reduction in the current number of MPs. It looks to be a tough juggling act to combine PR with either, never mind both.

Re: What about to disadvantage all minority parties?

[fanf]

STV can give you both (a) and (b) with no trouble at all, though it gives you multiple MPs for each much-bigger constituency.

[fanf]

http://heady.co.uk/politics/cameron_clegg_lib_con_talks.jpg

[ewx]

403 l-(

[fanf]

Crap. It was Cameron as Travolta and Clegg as Newton-John doing "Summer Lovin'."

[mstevens]

The one BNP voter I know a) refuses to listen to reason and b) states that they're only voting for the BNP because they know there's no chance they'll get i.

[jiggery_pokery]

Bravo! Excellent post. I support your four points completely.

I fear that a lost referendum (and the press barons would fight hard for such a thing) will be seen by the anti-voting-reformers as an excuse to kick the issue into touch for a generation; I dearly hope for a Lib-LD coalition that proposes AV as a bill without referendum (and, ideally, STV through referendum) though it seems increasingly unlikely to me - and I fear that it wouldn't even pass as a bill because there are so many small-c conservatives even within Labour. Bah.

So do I. It would be tempting to steal something from the ERS.

[fanf]

The British Columbia experience is sobering. The first referendum on STV got 57% of the vote which wasn't enough to get the 60% threshold required; they asked again a few years later and STV was resoundingly rejected :-(

[baljemmett]

Uhr, isn't STV just a funny foreign term for AV? (Or vice versa, depending on your point of view!)

To be honest, although I would most likely vote in favour of AV at a referendum, I wouldn't be too impressed if it were simply pushed through without consultation merely to curry favour with the smallest of the three main parties!

[fanf]

AV is preferential voting (number candidates in order of preference) with single member constituencies, known in the US as instant-runoff voting. STV is preferential voting with multi-member constituencies, known in Oz as Hare-Clarke.