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.

I live in one of the safest Tory seats in the country

How many seats are there where the winning party's majority is larger than the number of people who didn't vote? Not many.

Correction it is apparently the safest conservative seat.Richmond in North Yorkshire

Namechange How would more people turning out make my vote carry any more weight?

How would more people turning out make my vote carry any more weight?

Depends if they vote for or against the incumbent.

As if that will happen now. AS IF! Under the current system the Conservatives have returned a majority despite all the polls in the run up to the election. They will use the results as a reason to say "Look how popular we are! Look how well our Plan is working!"

We had the chance in 2011 the country gave a resounding NO. British people clearly are afraid of any kind of change, apart from when the need is overwhelming such as in 1945 and 1997. Mind you the AV we had on offer in 2011 was such a watered down and crappy option, it was actually no option at all.

Could someone please explain the FPTP vs the Alternative vote system to me, as I can't quite understand it and I'd like to be better informed?

I have googled it but I need anything to do with numbers explained in very simple terms to me as I am dyspraxic.

If yesterday's votes had been used in a PR system, this is what we would have:
Con 240;
Lab 198;
UKIP 81;
Lib 50;
SNP 31;
Greens 25

Does a SINGLE person want to own up to still wishing we had PR?

blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-parliament-proportional-representation/20893

sparechange

You can't necessarily extrapolate from the results under an FPTP system to PR because of tactical and protest voting. Under a PR system people might not vote tactically because their vote will count towards their chosen party. In seats where UKIP appeared to have a chance of winning they lost (with the exception of 1) yet they got high votes in seats where they weren't expected to do so well. So maybe people like the idea of voting UKIP to scare the big parties more than they like the reality of UKIP MP's.

I don't think we can simply map the results across and say with certainty this is what would have happened.

People were afraid the far Right party would pick up loads of votes after NZ changed to PR. They didn't.

You are either for PR or you're not. You can't be a supporter of PR except when it looks like there will be more UKIP MPs.

I'm looking at the theoretical 25 green MPs and thinking of the difference they might make. Or the 50 LibDems compared to the 8 they now have.

However like Chaz says, you can't extrapolate PR results from FPTP results.

You can roughly guess at the proportion of seats against votes cast if you use party list system, but few countries use that system. Israel maybe. Every other system of PR is too difficult to work out because you would never know people's second preferences, for example.

There are systems which would help and we could have larger constituencies and the mp quota topped up from a party list to ensure the proportion of seats is fair. This gives representation and fairness but would give us continual coalitions in government.

The Lib Dems have not been represented fairly with regard to votes/seats ratios for all my adult life. It is nothing new and this will never change while it suits the two main parties.

NZ has the system you describe, Milly (I think; 1 vote for your MP and the other for the party, which is used for the list MPs). There is currently a majority National government (similar party to the Conservatives) and I think this is their second majority term, though not certain about that.

We did have coalitions for at least 1996-2008ish.

I could not remember who went with this system. Thanks for your info. It has the huge advantage that you get to see a localish mp and your vote counts because of the list. I am not against coalitions but this election probably turned on the fact that the English majority did not want to have a coalition involving nationalists from a country of 5 million and voted to avoid that. Probably the management of the economy played a factor but UKIP got millions of votes without spelling out much about their economic policy - apart from the obvious. The situation in Scotland means Labour will really struggle to win now unless they really get to grips with the English electorate and win those marginals.

Agree sparechange.

I argued against PR a few days ago and cited Israel as an example of why I don't want it.
I'm starting to re-think in the light of the result we've had though.

Is it worth having PR now in the interests of making people feel their vote counts? If we don't then we might lose the last chance of saving the Union, though I doubt if the Conservative government will consider it.

sparechange. Plaid Cymru doesn't feature in your list of parliamentary seats under PR. Would they have none?

One thing to take account of is that the nature of the vote counting might influence how people vote or whether they even vote in the first place. I know many people who have said 'No point in even voting here' but perhaps they would feel differently if it was some form of PR. I'm not sure that you can transpose completely votes under the current system to votes under any new system.

eno
Plaid Cymru, the DUP and Sinn Fein all got around 0.6% of the total vote so no, under PR they wouldn't get any seats.
Most PR systems have 5% as the cut off point to avoid a situation where lots of single issue people get elected which would make forming governments much much harder.
That said, we have had some effective independent MPs in the UK who have been elected on the back of single issues like saving a local hospital.

I've collected some objections to alternative systems I spotted on a quick scan through the thread...

A lot of people don't understand proportional representation, and a lot of people see it as a Euro threat (Johnny Foreigner again).

I quite like that I vote for a person, not a party list.

The only real difference is that we would have to entertain nutjobs like UKIP in an actual government setting

you then end up with "A group" and "B group" MPs - the people who are deemed important, get to go on the list

These are almost entirely addressed by my favoured system: every constituency gets the candidate with the most votes as its MP, but the voting power of candidates within parliament is proportional to the total number of votes cast for their party across the country. So any party mainstream enough to get at least one MP represents the full weight of everyone who voted for it, when voting on legislation.

This is simple for the public to understand:-

1. You cast exactly one vote, for the candidate/party you prefer. (same as FPTP.)
2. Whoever gets the most votes is your MP (same FPTP.)
3. Almost every vote counts, because even if you don't get the constituency MP you voted for, your vote will be represented in parliament by an MP from your party who was elected elsewhere. (Not like FPTP, fixes what is wrong with FPTP.)

(This doesn't completely address the objection to UKIP, however I note that this system does potentially exclude minority parties that have a lot of supporters thinly spread. I think of that as an anti-extremism measure, though supporters of UKIP and the Greens might feel differently, as they are the parties who are at risk of exclusion.)

With this system, the voting system stays the same as far as the public is concerned. All they need to take on board is one extra fact: every vote for a political party will count, as long as that party gets at least one MP.

The "complexity" needed to guarantee a fair split of power is confined to voting (on legislation) within parliament, and only needs to be understood by those involved.

A lot of people don't understand proportional representation Of course they do.It's about as straight forward as it gets.Party with most votes gets to form government

The only real difference is that we would have to entertain nutjobs like UKIP in an actual government setting
Not a UKIP fan myself but who decided what a nutjob party is. Four million people being silenced cannot be viewed as democratic.

I think it would have meant a faster and more consolidated rise of UKIP. said AuntieStella

But, surely, that is what democracy is all about?

Just read in The Sunday Times that Cameron is going to change the electoral boundaries as a priority. The redrawn version will probably give the Conservatives another 20 seats.

PR is receding ....

That's my opinion too. You are either for a more representative system, or you're not. Even if it does let in "nutjobs like UKIP". Because on the other hand it will let in people who may have a lot of support but who are generally being excluded from government, like Green politicians.

Here's a list of all the countries in Europe that use FPTP

1. United Kingdom

Funny isn't it? Ordinarily UKIP would use that as a reason to hail FPTP.

Just read in The Sunday Times that Cameron is going to change the electoral boundaries as a priority. The redrawn version will probably give the Conservatives another 20 seats.

And lock Labour out of Westminister for decades. How can we say we have a democracy when only one party has any realistic chance of being elected?