Just look at these charts if you think First Past The Post voting is fair, democratic or efficient. It is unfair to parties but, more importantly, it is unfair to voters. It is self-evidently undemocratic. It is inefficient, because it does not produce the Parliament or Government, for which the people voted.
The charts are reproduced by kind permission of Professor Denis Mollison of Herriot-Watt University who created them from the BBC’s statistics.
As the Speaker doesn’t participate in debates or ask questions in the House, his constituents sometimes feel unrepresented although he may raise their problems privately with Ministers. Because it is conventional for the main parties not to oppose the Speaker in elections, his constituents sometimes feel disenfranchised.
As is often the case, STV in multi-member constituencies offers a solution.
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1. In 2011, voters preferred disproportionate FPTP to disproportionate AV, but they were not offered PR.
2. It is undemocratic for a party to govern the country with as few as 40% (sometimes fewer) of the votes.
3. FPTP is unfair on voters, because they don’t get the Parliament or Government they voted for.
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All PR systems have the pro that they are self-evidently fairer and better than FPTP in terms of proportionality between political parties, but
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I’ve posted ten faults of First Past The Post (Winner takes all) voting to the link below. Please tell me if you think of more faults.
The original is also in the Make Seats Match Votes facebook group, which I recommend to you.
Someone recently wrote on Facebook, “If you think, for example, that a rich white male can represent underprivileged women from ethnic minorities just as well as one of those women’s peers could, then you are very sadly mistaken.”
There would have been a tremendous outcry if she had reversed that and said an underprivileged woman from an ethnic minority could not represent rich white males. A well-paid, highly educated female barrister can represent an unemployed, badly educated man in court and parents can represent their children in many ways.
There seems to be confusion between
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STV Action recommends you to join the new electoral reform Facebook group, STV Technical, if you are interested in the technicalities of STV, such as calculating quotas: http://www.facebook.com/groups/174665706660004/about. There’s no subscription.
STV Technical as an ally of, not a rival to, STV Action and other PR groups but a very dedicated one, focussing on the technicalities of STV and leaving the groups free to concentrate on campaigning.
STV Action recommends you to join the new electoral reform Facebook group, Make Seats Match Votes (MSMV): http://www.facebook.com/groups/213803319205218. There’s no subscription.
This post is based on information kindly supplied by Richard Lung.
The reports, where the politicians are their own referees – Hansard Society MPs, Labour Party Plant Commission; Jenkins Report (under secret Blair tutelage) – generally favour an Additional Member system.
The reports by independent referees generally favour STV: Kilbrandon, Kerley, Sunderland, Richard, McAllister, and the Councillors’ Commission. Also, the independent Citizens’ Assembly in British Columbia, Canada, recommended STV overwhelmingly.
Further, STV is slightly favoured by Arbuthnott (for Scottish Euro-elections), Helena Kennedy Power report, Tylor report (for House of Lords).
Click on https://stvact.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/comparison-of-fptp-and-its-two-main-uk-challengers-2.pdf to see a comparison of FPTP and its two main UK challengers against a number of features. Decide for yourself which of the features listed are important to you, and see how the different systems compare.
