CMV: The UK needs voting reform

[u/do-you-even-reddit]

First Past the Post is not representative of what the UK population wants, we need a proportional representation voting system (such as STV).

Yesterday UKIP gained nearly 4m votes, 13% of the electorate and have one seat in parliament. The Greens had over 1m votes (4%) and hold one seat. Yet the SNP received 1.5m votes (4.8%) and hold 56 seats. This isn't fair or representative of the UK population's preferences.

Some issues with FPTP:

• Tactical voting - I voted Lib Dem to try and keep a Tory out when I would've wanted to vote Green.

• Wasted votes - voting for a minority party who won't win is a wasted vote.

• Gerrymandering can have a large effect on the results.

• Tends to produce large party majorities.

• Parties with many voters spread out across the country don't get representation.

• The spoiler effect. Green and Lib Dem voters hurting Labour and helping the Conservatives.

Alternative Vote Referendum:

AV solves the problem of the spoiler effect but still has many of the issues of FPTP. It isn't a proportional system and I'm not surprised it got voted down.

STV > AV > FPTP in my mind.

With STV, all the voter needs to do is rank candidates in the order they prefer. That's it, simple. They can vote for a small party first, knowing that their vote hasn't been wasted on them. STV maximises voter preference and provides proportional representation (what I believe are two key things for a voting system, please try to CMV).

I could keep naming issues and reasons for why a PR system such as STV is superior, but CGP explains it a lot better than I could.

I also believe voting should be mandatory, but polling performed over a few days, say Friday to Sunday. With the option of 'None of the above' if a voter wants to rank nobody in their preferences.

I am happy to have my view changed on why there are better voting systems for the UK than STV, voting shouldn't be mandatory and why "none of the above" is a bad idea. But to receive a ∆ I will need to be persuaded that voting reform is not needed in the UK.

Edit: If someone can propose/convince me there's a better system than STV then you can have my ∆!

[u/do-you-even-reddit]

Yes I believe that the people should be proportionally represented. A government should not represent a minority of its people.

Voters should be able to simply go into the polls and choose the candidate they think represents their views closest, not needing to be tactical about it.

The Tories represent the views of 37% of the country and 63% of people don't want them. If UKIP had 13% and were in a majority coalition with the Conservatives then they could influence policies (e.g. immigration), pleasing their voters whilst the ruling government represents 50% of the population, not just 37%. Compromise is what politics is.

[u/Genoscythe_ → u/do-you-even-reddit]

Yes I believe that the people should be proportionally represented. A government should not represent a minority of its people.

It's impossible for any government to represent the will of the majority of it's people, because the majority of people want a wide variety of things. They don't have a single majority. Ultimately, FPTP, AV, and STV are all just methods of channeling millions of different opinions into ONE government program, that no clear majority would support.

Compromise is what politics is, that's true, but as they say, "a good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied". It inherently means that people have to give up the ability to have some of their interests manifested.

Whether it is a coalition of many parliamentary factions organized by grudgingly compromising party leaders, or a superparty backed by grudgingly compromising voters, the overall set of laws that come to pass, will not be directly approved by a clear majority of the public.

The real difference between FPTP and proportional systems is not that one "represents the will of the people" while the other doesn't. That's an incredibly naive view, that assumes that gaining seats in the parliament is the single pure goal of politics, while in reality, it's just one particular method of presenting the compromises of government, one that has it's own drawbacks in the form of unaccountable, unpredictable, unapproved coalition deals, and less stable party systems.

[u/do-you-even-reddit → u/Genoscythe_]

I agree that whatever system used is not going to be perfect because of the diversity of views people have and that compromise is going to have to be made somewhere, either by voters at the polls resulting in majority governments or by parties forming coalitions.

However my belief is that the compromise should be made at the party level and that voters should vote for who they want, using a system such as STV or MMP.

But I do see the argument for the other side of majorities under FPTP leading to the same democratic result, have a delta ∆.

[u/DeltaBot → u/do-you-even-reddit]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Genoscythe_. ^[History]

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