| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:How can we finally ditch FPTP voting system - who would do it? | |
| Posted by: | David Fox | |
| Date/Time: | 01/06/15 17:55:00 |
| Richard wrote: "I'm not sure that anything more complicated than AV will ever gain acceptance with the public" STV can hardly be called complicated: vote 1-2-3... in order of preference. If anyone can't come up with a preference, then it won't matter to them who wins :^) Ireland has multi-member constituencies with STV, where a constituency can have 3, 4, 5 or 6 MPs (TDs). That gives the flexibility to have fewer MPs in a sparsely populated area, and more in an urban environment, so no MP need be too remote from the voter. To me, the great advantage of STV over the list system is not only that it links an MP to a specific constituency, but that voters can choose the flavour of conservative/liberal/socialist they want, as each party will put up several candidates, so if you don't like the hard right/far left, you've can still vote for your party of choice, but needn't support the more extreme (or indeed wishy-washy) elements if you don't want to. It also means that if, say, George Galloway were to stand in the constituency, and (like me) you're allergic to cats, you could vote for every one else on the ballot paper except him.... I think the list system was probably devised to make people realise that FPTP isn't so bad - it really only plays to the control-freak tendency in political parties, as they can easily put their chosen few near the top of the list, leaving anyone who dares to be independent with the prospect of being so far down the list that they might find it hard to get elected even in a one party state. |