Re: Replace ‘first past the post’ voting with ‘Proportional Representation’.

THAT one I'd gladly sign...a definite ..YES.

Re: Replace ‘first past the post’ voting with ‘Proportional Representation’.

In the long term you get more stability. Because no one party can rule on its own, the government always consists of coalitions, never far out of the political middle, never on a wing. It may be left or right out of the center, but you never get the revolutionary changes in policy you get in the usa and to a lesser extend, in the UK.

Re: Replace ‘first past the post’ voting with ‘Proportional Representation’.

Me too May! Obviously for different reasons.

Re: Replace ‘first past the post’ voting with ‘Proportional Representation’.

Hi Vanily
Whilst you are correct to say that my thread has indeed asked a question related to people supporting a petition to change the UK electoral voting system, I am certain that contextually there is no reference made within the thread to either your own and/or for that matter anybody else’s UK residential rights/property status. Given these facts kindly explain the rather defensive nature of the above post.

Re: Replace ‘first past the post’ voting with ‘Proportional Representation’.

It was UJ that said I did not live in England and asked why I was replying

to a question about voting change

I was not been defensive just quoting facts that i still own a house in England knowing he does not

If I had my way only house hold owners would be able to vote and before you you ask
Yes I think Genghis khan was a bit of soft lefty

Re: Replace ‘first past the post’ voting with ‘Proportional Representation’.

For you Julie darlin' - STV explained:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLH_w5kHJpA

Re: Replace ‘first past the post’ voting with ‘Proportional Representation’.

My Dad fought against people like you in Spain in 1936 when he fought against Franco's fascist forces.

Re: Replace ‘first past the post’ voting with ‘Proportional Representation’.

Hi Julie
Proportional representation is a voting system which seeks to ensure that each faction, group, or party in the electing population is represented in the elected assembly in proportion to its size. The idea is that seats in parliament should be allocated so that they are in proportion to the votes cast, meaning a party that received one-third of the vote as a whole could only expect to receive one-third of the seats in parliament.

Opponents of proportional representation will usually say that it leads to instability and irresponsible government.

Within the thread ‘Meg’ correctly points out that in 2011 the UK public have already had a vote on changing the electoral voting system. However, that vote was for a scheme called ‘ALTERNATIVE VOTE (AV) which is often incorrectly described as Proportional Representation.

To be clear AV is a system or procedure for selecting a candidate who can command a ‘majority’. It works by voters ranking candidates. First preferences are counted, and any candidate with more than half of them is elected. If no candidate is elected, the candidate with the fewest first preference is eliminated and their votes redistributed; this is repeated as often as required until a candidate wins more than half the valid votes cast.

AV is used in French national elections and by British trade-unions and the Labour Party internal elections. AV though is a “majoritarian voting system”, it does not achieve proportionality in multimember assemblies.

Re: Replace ‘first past the post’ voting with ‘Proportional Representation’.

Please excuse my ignorance on lack of knowledge regarding proportional representation. I have just started reading up on it and trying to take it in.

Instead of having one person, one vote in each of the areas where one would go to vote. That area, depending on its size, would instead have a number of seats.

For example, if there were 10 seats up for grabs in that area and the Tories usually always win, under PR, if they got 40% of the vote, they would gain 4 seats. If the second most popular party came in second with 20% of the vote, they would get 2 seats. And so on.

Is that how it works? So say, if Nigels party only got 10% of the vote, instead of losing, he would get at least 1 seat to represent us.?

Please could someone tell me if I am correct. If so, I quite like the idea of PR as it would prevent us being stuck with the usual two numpties parties and more opportunity for other parties to represent their supporters.

Our area has been a Tory safe seat since 1835! losing only once to the Liberal Party in 1904 and regaining it at the next election. (PR would definitely put the wind up their sails).

Re: Replace ‘first past the post’ voting with ‘Proportional Representation’.

Also, could someone explain to me what happens under PR, if, say in an area with 10 seats, the major players have won most of them, what happens if there are two parties down the list with just one seat left and they both took exactly the same amount of votes? hardly likely I know, but would still like to know how they would divvy that one remaining seat?