To ask about proportional representation?

[malificent7]

I resent having to vote tactically.. id like to vote with my heart.
Ive heard that proportional representation is a good way foward.
Cananyone explain it and is it a good idea?

We have PR in Ireland, sometimes we have single party government, but more often recently we have coalitions.

Each constituency votes for individuals for that constituency and then subsequently the government is formed. the party leaders do not choose the TDs.

Well he's always been quite ethically flexible, hasn't he? Cough, brown envelopes of cash, cough

PR is not one system. There are a variety of different systems all with advantages and disadvantages. The political culture and history of the country involved also play into how well the system works.

The USA and the UK like adversarial legal and political systems I don't think that helps wider society.

Today, I feel like the UK deserves what it gets. Politicians shouting and not listening, people get the politicians and the political system they deserve.

STV with multi member constituencies is preferable to party lists IMO. Retains more of a local link and allows people to express preference for individual candidates not just parties but would give more proportional results.

Australia has PR, (and compulsory voting) and they are in the family of cultural backgrounds as us. (clearly).

*same family

Re British culture of political cooperation. Or not; There's a huge thread running about an IP who is angry her DH voted a certain way. So many posters on that thread are saying they couldn't bear to live with someone who didn't share their political views. We're a politically tribal nation, I think.

Sorry arty. I stopped to make tea while drafting my last post, it wasn't a riposte to yours.

Do you think maybe newer nations are different somehow, though? Maybe because of weaker class structure? Or history of pioneer needing to pull together?

I was all for PR until the last election when something like 20% went to UKIP.

I'm not convinced this is a great argument. The ukip voters do deserve their vote to count (however much I disagree with them).

I'd also imagine we'd get higher turnouts if everyone's vote actually counted. It's hard to get the motivation to bother to vote when you live in a very safe seat and you'd like pretty much anyone to win than the incumbent, or where you don't want to vote for one of the parties that actually win seats.

I didn't think your post was a riposte. :)

Interesting question about newer nations- you might well have a very good point.

This is quite a good video about first past the post. m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

I like the mixed system of AMS - we use it in Scotland, Wales and the London assembly.
It uses fptp for local representatives then pure PR to assign list representatives to larger regions. The pr reps are "top ups" so essentially they also account for all the second-places in the fptp vote.
It also means that if you really hate your fptp local rep then you usually have more variety of regional reps who you could approach with issues too.
Once it's all totted up it's almost exactly % votes = % seats
Unfortunately the 2011 referendum didn't give choice - it was AV or no AV.

There must be loads of different ways in which variants of proportional representation could work ie you vote twice in your constituency, once for your constituency MP, once for a party. Then all the party votes are tallied up and 'extra' MPs elected on the basis of those. So in a safe Tory/LibDem marginal seat a voter could vote Lib Dem for the seat and Labour for the party. Or the Single Transferable Vote where you vote for candidates in order of preference and candidates have to pass a threshold to be elected.

I think the divisive and dualist nature of our government is disastrous for real democratic progress. Compromise, consensus and discussion are all crucial if we're to build a cohesive society without marginalised and disenfranchised sectors.

There are also videos about various proportional representation systems too.
Mixed-member PR: m.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU

STV: m.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

AV: m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

For those interested in the videos which MiladyThesaurus posted, I also recommend CGPGrey's other videos on elections.

Unfortunately after rejecting the half way house of the alternative vote, I cannot see STV or AMS or another form of PR coming soon for Westminster elections.

One of the things I have noticed about devolved administrations or national parliaments where there are systems of PR of whichever form is that they appear to have a much wider range of people elected, not just overwhelmingly white middle class men from certain professions. Two of the three devolved administrations are led by women, the Irish are shortly going to have a gay man of non-Irish heritage as Taioseach (Prime Minister) and of course, the German Chancellor is a woman.

Of course, that would be why we were offered a referendum on AV rather than a proper system of proportional representation. Can't have Parliament in any way representing the country.

Single-seat constituency AV isn't a compromise between FPTP and PR. AV is a majoritarian system. The aim is to secure and improve the chance of majority support for the winner in each constituency. It's also sometimes known as instant runoff. It has more in common with the system the French use (for presidential and parliamentary elections) than it does with PR. It can result in less proportional outcomes than FTPT.