To think that there will be little option but to change the current First Past The Post system after this election.

[OneNight]

The prospect of change may well have been rejected in 2011 but I am reading some new figures which estimate that in this general election, under the current UK FPTP system, the average MP could be elected with less than 46% of the votes cast. (Edinburgh West could well be won with just 25% of the votes on current predictions.)

This can not be good for democracy and I have noticed even people on this board questioning whether they'll bother to vote at all under the current system. I'm sure that voter apathy with voter turnout below 70% since 2001 could well be a result of some people thinking that their vote simply could not count.

I can't see how any party could credibly reject a change although they may well wish to argue on the shape that any change might take.

Our system has flaws, but we should be proud of what we do have!

I'm not proud of an illegal war fought in my name.

Would you not feel uncomfortable though silveroldie2 if you lived in a country which was governed by people for whom the majority of the country had not voted?

AV only fixes that if you believe that a third preference vote indicates as strong a support for a candidate as a first preference vote. If I say I want a coffee, or a cup of tea, or failing that a glass of water, I'm going to be happier with the coffee than a glass of water, and having me the water and expecting me to enthuse is pushing it a bit. You could easily end up with a government consisting mostly of second preferences. It's a legitimate outcome, and you can argue it's both a reasonable and a fair outcome; it's a very long way from a government for whom the majority of the country has voted.

And that's pretty much why the AV referendum failed: the people opposed to it were opposed to it, and the people in favour of it weren't actually in favour of AV, they were in favour of either what they wished AV would be, or some form of PR. FPTP has a lot of problems, but AV doesn't fix many of them, and PR creates its own, particularly the almost complete extinction of independents and the creation of an even stronger party whipping culture than we already have. Whips in control of closed lists makes the current party system look positively benign.

Lurking - a move to PR wouldn't have changed that, the Labour party won around 40% of the vote and 43% of the seats in 2001, they would still have been the party in power and most of the MPs would have been the same.

If anything, most PR systems that mean MPs are much more reliant of their party's central office's decision to keep them in a job would mean you'd get less objections and questioning of the party line.

If I say I want a coffee, or a cup of tea, or failing that a glass of water, I'm going to be happier with the coffee than a glass of water ... you could easily end up with a government consisting mostly of second preferences.

Personally I don't have a problem with that. Rather that than the 'all or nothing' feeling one gets with FPTP.

DinosaursRoar has pretty much said what I would have said in my response.

Whips in control of closed lists makes the current party system look positively benign

Hence my liking open primaries ...

Hence my liking open primaries

But those are the parties' decision, not the electoral system. Look at the US: some state parties have have primaries, some caucuses, some just nominate a runner. You can't have an electoral system which forces open primaries, because that makes the internal operation of parties part of the law.

Personally I don't have a problem with that. Rather that than the 'all or nothing' feeling one gets with FPTP.

For the avoidance of doubt, I voted "Yes" for AV, although with a heavy heart.

As I said, the Tories have flirted with it. Maybe a compromise compromise would be closed primaries, where the party constituents can choose their candidate.

One infuriating aspect of UK "democracy" is seeing people parachuted into "safe" seats just to get into parliament (Boris Johnson). Although to be fair, if the great voting public stopped being so sodding tribal, it would help an awful **ing lot.

How many people have you heard declare "I'll always vote " ?

Really ? Have you any idea what policies are ?

No, but I'll always vote .

Well, my friend, in that case, will crap all over you - because they don't need to do anything to get you to vote for them.

My MiL is a prime example. She grumbled bitterly about "the Tories" when she had to apply for ESA instead of IB. Shouldn't have voted Labour then - it was their policy.

namechange0dq8

same here (with same heart). The thinking was once the principle of changing the electoral system was accepted (it's not set in stone), then we could work towards what would work.

I'd love it if PR was introduced here. I hate living in a safe seat for a party I wouldn't vote for in a heartbeat. What's worse is that I can recognise that their new candidate is actually a really great candidate [instead of the retiring and self serving individual who's been there for donkeys years] and that the other parties have approved a bunch of people who are imo a disaster and just there to be representative because the party believes that they haven't a hope of being elected. I hate feeling that my vote has been wasted.

In Ireland, each constituency has on average 5 MP's [TD's] so you could vote for your top pick and then have your 2nd preference votes transferred to the next candidate and so on down the line. So you'll give your top pick/1st vote to your candidate of choice but your vote transfer can still count as a vote to get a Green candidate in for example, once the first few seats have been won.

All that said, it does result in a system where coalition governments are far more common. Some work very well, some result in an unstable group of one large party, a small one and a couple of independents who use their position to leverage advantage for their constituency at every opportunity where there is a key vote.
It also takes frickin' ages to count the votes. Jon Snow would be 10 yrs older on election night(s)

I think that that ought to be right. As I said, people will argue about the merits of various systems but the principle of change is surely up for discussion? It seems deeply wrong to me that the average MP could be elected with under 46% of the vote and then you're stuck with it. I hear what people say about the power of the whips and the possible manipulation of party lists in other systems but anyone who imagines that truly independent candidates are generally selected locally in this country is surely short-sighted.

It seems deeply wrong to me that the average MP could be elected with under 46% of the vote

To be fair the votes are potentially shared across more than 2/3 parties so 46% could actually be a very healthy majority vote. There are 6 candidates in my constituency without SNP or any independent candidates or whacko Monster Raving Looney types only UKIP for that

From here on in, the official definition of PR

we would have to entertain nutjobs like UKIP in an actual government setting

It will certainly be interesting if we keep getting hung parliaments and I do wonder if both Labour and the Conservatives could be forced to revisit the issue of electoral reform even though both thought they had put it to bed for good at the last referendum. Not all hung parliaments will be able to stay the course as the current one has. Some alliances or pacts would be more flaky and unstable than others and it would be possible to end up with a second General Election in just a few months if push really comes to shove.

Disillusionment with all of the major parties is a big factor in the upswing of parties who have hitherto been considered fringe parties. Isn't that diluting things perhaps to the extent that the traditional FPTP system might cease to work for any of the parties at all?

It seems deeply wrong to me that the average MP could be elected with under 46% of the vote

Take a straight three-way marginal. Why isn't the candidate with 34% of the vote legitimate?

It will certainly be interesting if we keep getting hung parliaments and I do wonder if both Labour and the Conservatives could be forced to revisit the issue of electoral reform even thoug

Why? Current situation: flaky coalitions. PR: flaky coalitions. How does PR improve the situation?

They will be legitimate, namechange0dq8, in the sense that that is what the current system provides for. Is it fair however that such a person (or persons because it seems that more and more seats are going that way) should be able to speak for 5 years on behalf of the other 66% of voters and possibly in a situation where the views of their party might be radically different to the other candidates.

Is that situation, replicated across the country many many times, liable to lend itself to the engagement of the population in political decision making or might it not lead to disenchantment and disaffection?

I didn't say PR was the answer, just that I would assume all options will be up for discussion with little ruled in or out.

I don't have the solution. It could lead to some interesting times though. We aren't really used to coalitions in this country. The one we have just had was the first in many years.

Is it fair however that such a person (or persons because it seems that more and more seats are going that way) should be able to speak for 5 years on behalf of the other 66% of voters

So what's the alternative? By definition, in a three way marginal, two thirds aren't going to get their first choice. Pretending that a second choice provides the same legitimacy is shifting the goalposts.

I don't know for certain if there is an immediate choice that would command support among the voters but I do think that continuing a dialogue on the matter would be useful. I have learned much about people's views in even this short thread.

I think it's more important first to get rid of the 5 year fixed parliament which was foisted on us in a coalition deal with no real examination of the possible consequences.

For the same reason I feel that reform of our voting system should be done only after very careful consideration. At the moment I can't see that PR is an improvement on FPTP and, as has been said, it could mean a Parliament filled with party line-toers who would never have an independent thought.

I say that as someone who lives in a constituency which is never going to return a candidate from the party I support. Yet often enough the nation as a whole elects a government I support and I can admit that the candidate I won't vote for today is, nevertheless, a decent constituency MP.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It might not be broke yet.

I think House of Lords will go to a PR chamber, I think? With individuals who are accountable to party more than constituents.

The prospect of EDL & BNP getting reps in a new 'Senate' does not fill me with joy.

Isn't our current system a combination of historical accidents? I don't see any end to an investigation into the possible ramifications of fixed term parliaments. But, they're just a bodge to outbodge the previous situation where Gordon could wait indefinitely for his luck to change, before calling an election. There's no logical method of fixing our parliamentary system because nothing about it is logical.

Gordon could wait indefinitely for his luck to change

No he couldn't: parliaments had a maximum 5 year term. There were exceptions, such as there being no general election between 1935 and 1945 but it's hardly difficult to see why a general election in 1940 might have been a little tricky, and in any event the 1935 election had returned a national government.