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In a PR system, your vote would increase the number of seats for your party by 1/100,000. In a FPTP system, your vote has a higher chance of deciding the election, though it's an all or nothing effect. In expectation (of the vote's effect), there probably isn't a major difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Yes, but the application of this all or nothing effect isn't random, it's down to where you live. Hence, we have some voters who have no effect on the outcome and some voters who have a disproportionately high effect. This is not democratic. It usually doesn't matter too much because the outcome of elections has been definitive enough that party who won the popular vote had the most number of seats and formed the government. With an election this close, the imbalances in the current set up (which favors Labour rather heavily) as well as problems of FPTP are going to be problematic.Quote:
In a FPTP system, your vote has a higher chance of deciding the election, though it's an all or nothing effect
I think my current favored solution is to keep FPTP for the commons, but have proportional representation for a newly democratic House of Lords, which would also have increased powers.
Of course there is a huge difference. In the present system they are ruled by the party with the plurality, in PR you are always ruled by the majority.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
No, you're not. There are plenty of PR systems with minority governments. Canada comes to mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
So what you're saying is that anyone who doesn't live in the safest of seats has a larger effect on an election than does anyone in a PR system...Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
You are wrong, 'minority' governments are a misnomer. In a parliamentarian system the government by definition has the confidence of the majority in parliament. The majority in parliament can represent a mere plurality of the votes in a first past the post system. In a PR system, there is no such distortion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Election day ... here we go.
Already had about 6 people phone me to ask if I'd voted yet.
Will go vote after work. Pretty much decided who to go for, both locally and nationally.
About to go and vote :)
Although I'm highly partisan and want a particular party to do well (and another to do badly), its nice to see people vote whichever party its for.
Seems loooooads of people my age are going for the lib dems. In fact, its making me reconsider my choice: if this many facebooking fucktards love the lib dems, there must be something wrong.
Desperately trying not to start facebook debates on politics...
Didn't draw a penis. :(
Also, I voted Lib Dem before it was cool.
Students are utopian. The Lib Dems are utopian. Not exactly a surprise.
I just did one of those voter advisories on the Telegraph website and came out as most compatible with Lib-dem.
Looks like a hung parliament for now. But probably Cameron is the new PM.
Man, i have to admit that im enjoying seeing the BNP candidate get booed in all three seats so far.
They had a place on my drive how where a few of them flew a flag every day and i havent failed yet to give them the finger as i pass. Useless racist thugs.
Edit - for those of you who arent in the uk and fancied watching this the BBC has usually got the best coverage.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/liveevent/
I think I'm going to bed. This count is slower than shit in a narrow pipe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spawnie
"The Queen will have her government...she must be activated by the constitution...don't criticize her..."
man, I thought our electoral process was strange.
I'm seriously fucked off. Thousands and thousands of voters have been turned away. Fucking disgraceful.
Maybe next time we should get Robert Mugabe to make sure our votes are free and fair
:mad:
Maybe they should have tried voting on time rather than in the last minute. It's so typical to blame 'authorities' when it's really just people who made a poor judgement. People could have known and should have known that the law doesn't allow even for people to get a chance to vote if they haven't been handed their ballot at 10.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Right when the scrolling said "queues have been turned away" my connection died. Must have been a bunch of people writing in at the time and my poor old machine just couldn't handle it.
So what happened?
Variations of 'doors of polling stations being closed at 10pm', regardless of possible queues. People in those queues were denied a possibility to vote.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
Does that happen often over the pond? Over here, the time you line up is the cut-off time. They must figure the polling stations get bogged down inside, especially if hoards show up after work (3pm to 7pm is a bad time to vote). But then most of our voting places are manned by volunteers, lots of senior citizens, and some of the smaller places don't have the technology the big cities get....
Yeah well most results wont even start being counted until tomorrow, iirc. It wasnt designed to be a spectator sport.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
Surely more like hundreds and hundreds?Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Like 4 constituencies and not more than a couple of hundred in the worst one...
Maybe people should follow the electoral law and vote on time?Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Some people were apparently turned away after queuing for an hour and a half.
Most of the people were turned away after coming to the polls after 10 PM.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
So, poor planning on the voters' part is now an example of electoral fraud/corruption?Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
I mean seriously, I hate government more than all of you combined, and even *I* think that's really stretching it.
If you join the queue to vote over an hour before the polls close you shouldn't expect to be unable to vote. Not enough tellers working seems to be the problem: not the voters fault.
On the contrary, if you wait until 9 PM on election day to vote, you take your chances.
The rules are the rules. If you don't have a ballot by 10 PM, you can't vote. If anything, breaking the law just to have more people vote would be undemocratic.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
If you get in line (queue) before the deadline, I think that means you should be able to vote. No matter how long it's taking inside the facility to move the fucking line along.
Most people who were standing in line were given a ballot. :noob: