To think PR would be more democratic

[MoonriseKingdom]

I feel that first past the post is a big element in why so many people feel disenfranchised.

Con 331 seats 11.3 million votes
Lab 232 9.3m
SNP 56 1.4m
LibD 8 7.9m
DUP 8 184k
UKIP 1 3.8m

These figures seem grossly unfair. I am a very lefty labour voter living in a safe labour seat. My lib dem voting DH's vote barely matters.

Now I can't stand UKIP and don't want them to have influence. However, there are apparently millions who disagree and why shouldn't their vote be represented? Why should Scotland and NI have such a disproportionate number of seats?

My only reservation about PR is that I like the idea of a constituency MP as someone who ordinary people can go to. However, I am sure there are ways around that.

AIBU - why should we not change?

caroldecker there is PR in every single constituency in Ireland. Not sure what you mean by your post.

"And with pr how do small parties get any seats?"

they don't, local independent candidates will no longer exist.

That is true Gin. As I said before the SNP may have even greater support if everyone had been able to vote for them. No election system is perfect and it may be better the devil you know. However, it just feels fundamentally unfair that a party with millions of votes only get a tiny number of seats.

fundamentally unfair that a party with millions of votes only get a tiny number of seats

You do not know how those millions of people would have voted if they were voting under PR though.

^"And with pr how do small parties get any seats?"

they don't, local independent candidates will no longer exist.^

Not true, there are plenty (some say too many) local independent candidates in Ireland.

I think it is very hard to know which way votes would go under PR. I disagree that UKIP would get substantially less as I don't see how generally they are a tactical vote. It is more likely that people voted for the big parties to keep UKIP out. Eg If I had been in South Thanet I would have been tempted to go against my political leanings and vote Conservative.

The loss of the independent local candidate would certainly be a downside.

I do believe that smaller parties would do better under PR as people are currently put off voting for them and 'wasting' a vote.

There were people being interviewed on the TV who said they voted for UKIP as a protest vote, knowing they wouldn't win.

George The Irish system has a transferable preference system. To work across the whole country (genuine PR) you would need to let everyone rank every candidate in the country, which is clearly impractical.
You therefore break the country into groups which cover, say, 4 constituencies. Each voter then ranks the candidates and, after all the counting, the 4 top preferences are chosen.
However, a small party, which may make up 5% of votes spread evenly across the country, would not get enough votes in any area to get any seats and certainly not 5% of the seats. In Australia, which has PR, smaller parties do about as well as under FPTP as do the large parties.

I find that quite reassuring really if it means that less people would vote UKIP under PR. Surely that means people would think carefully about voting under PR because their vote would really stand for something. I would be more tempted to vote Green which is currently a really wasted vote in my constituency.

But they'd really be wasting a vote voting for an independent candidate, who would have no hope of gaining enough votes to get a seat?

Some sort of hybrid system might work? So fptp for constituency seats, and pr for upper house? Or some additional pr seats?

There is no perfect system that is practical and maybe it is a case of better the devil you know. However, the current voting system feels to be stuck in the past where their was really only two parties. I worry the current system is adding to apathy and feelings of disenfranchisement.

So the answer is PR-STV then? Preserves the existence of small parties, the local independent candidate and the constituency link.

I am pleased smarter people than me are working out the logistics

I totally agree PR, allocated constituency MP and ability to sack them - some combination of that would work.
I hate that Nick Clegg looked so broken and felt he'd failed when they got loads of votes

I agree that a Con-Ukip coalition is a scary thought but I think PR is so much fairer and would force parties to work together as a matter of course rather than the two-party schoolboy slanging matches that seem to be a feature of our political landscape. On most issues a bit of balance is a good thing and I would like to see a government based on cooperation and sharing ideas and decisions.

PR-STV in Ireland in 2011 created a majority of 60 (113 seats from 166) for FG and Lab coalition on 54% of the vote, whilst a true % PR would give them just 12, so not perfect either.

Statistically in my opinion this election proves the current system is unfair.

However I think the actual results, with ukip gettin 3.8m, means every other person in the country would vote against it is there's a referendum as this would be seen as much better than such a big Ulip influence in parliament

System sucks, we had a chance to change it but the people voted no.

The referendum went the way it did because ultimately, most people don't actually care about electoral reform. It happens every election - someone works out the seats in a PR system, everyone is all wide eyed and shocked for a couple of days (and in more recent years posts it all over social media with #fairvotesnow etc) and then promptly forget about it until the next election when it happens all over again, and then it's all 'oh this is so awful' once again.

The 2010 election was the most 'unfair' in terms of vote distribution in British history, yet most people can't even remember the referendum on electoral reform a mere year later.

I think that if we had PR then the % of votes gained by each party would be quite different to the results of May 7.

PR might encourage those who feel disenfranchised in safe seats to get out and vote.

Part of the good thing about PR is it stops lunatic fringe parties getting seats. As demonstrated by UKIP...