Electoral Reform

[flyingcloud]

Why are the Conservatives anti-electoral reform?

I don't know, it was the one good thing about the Lib-Dem's manifesto for me

The status quo usually results in either Tories or the Labour party holding power so neither have a big motivation to change. (Until today for the Labour party, of course, now that they need to win round the LDs ) Mind you, at the moment, there are much more pressing issues than electoral reform required. I think, if it went to a referendum, it would not be a guaranteed 'yes'

How can we justify a system where 22.7% of the country vote for one party and they get 48 seats, and 28.7% of the country vote for another party. Just 6% more, and they get 225 seats. How on earth can we consider this to be fair or just? Or proportionate? For the first time in my entire life I have woke to see results that have made me so tearful. I am not even an avid lib dem supporter. But the fact that the opinions of this country will not be truly reflected makes me feel sad, and sick.

Neither Conservatives or Labour want to share their power with anyone so neither will ever reform so that they are no longer exclusively in charge.

Sorry to come on and rant. I posted this on another thread but it was not the most relevant and did not want to gatecrash. However, i also don't want to start a new thread as there are millions already. Hope its ok.

Because they may lose out. Labour only said they were keen on it as an last minute 'shit we're doing badly in the polls' tactic.

Trouble is that a lot of the 'avid LD supporters' seem to have disappeared. They've lost 6 sitting MPs.... when everyone was expecting them to increase their majorities. This can't be due to people thinking their vote was wasted because they knew they were voting for the majority party in their area. They simply decided, on the day, to vote for someone else.

PR is fairer but it makes it more likely that every election will end up like this in the future... no-one clearly in the driving seat, horse-trading behind closed doors. It's a very different way of running things than what we're used to. Better? Debatable.

that is not true. In my area for example, Lib dem traditionally would NOT have won. So, in order to stop the conservatives getting in, many many lib dem supporters voted labour. Unfortunately, did not work, but only by 1000. So close.

and i think that there were such a surge for conservatives to win, that many voted labour thinking that lib dems just will not win. So a wasted vote does still come in to play.

Or, perhaps some lib dem voters voted conservative for the same reason. Either way, under PR, people could vote as they felt appropriate to do, not tactically, however tactically they think they are being, bearing in mind the average british citizen does not know a great deal about politics and the political system.

What you're describing is tactical voting in a marginal. I'm talking about voting for a sitting MP.... the LD supporters in that area presumably were not voting tactically but voting positively for their MP and, given the polls, should have had their numbers swelled by new converts. This didn't happen.

There was a lot of last minute publicity for tactical voting, which pissed me off, and which will have taken a lot of votes, IMO, away from LD.

Bloody hate tactical voting.

I thought the tactical voting was labour voters voting lib dem to keep the conservatives out? That didn't seem to happen.

Sorry to be dim, but I really don't see how the results can be put down to tactical voting (genuine question!)

Well, there was advice and websites to encourage tactical voting to get a hung parliament; to keep the Tories out; to get the Tories in....big spread in yesterdays Guardian.

You can't put the results down to tactical voting, but while there is advice to do it, we will never actually get a clear picture of who the electorate really wants in government.