Fair voting system. UK elections

[HolyLight]

Of course, that's not the point. The point is the whole idea of "ideological parties" and "popular voting".

The thing is, not voting will never help change anything anyways.

Unless you are suggestion a revolution?

[loftar]

The thing is, not voting will never help change anything anyways.

>implying voting does help with anything
I very consciously did not vote, because voting is still a vote for the voting system. There's no way to change the party system from within anyway. I'm not at all arguing for a violent revolution (how masonic of me would that be), but any ideological change needs to come from the outside of the party system as such. It is well worth noting, of course, that any meaningful ideological change that happen as it is never comes from within the parties anyway; it's always from think-tanks or institutions or other kinds of opinion-forming organizations.

I'd argue the UK is still in many ways better off, however. At least you've kept your personal voting system around instead of truly institutionalizing party voting (as far as I can tell, at least). Letting go of that and institutionalizing parties even further would certainly be a step in the wrong direction, at least. If I were you, I'd protect that with much greater zeal than I would protect the interest of any particular party.

[TomBarry]

Of course, that's not the point. The point is the whole idea of "ideological parties" and "popular voting".

Why are political parties bad exactly? I only vote for party members because if you vote for a party member then you can be fairly sure they are going to follow the party whip which in turn is going to follow the party manifesto (in theory at least). I would be furious if my elected representative went against the party whip because of their own opinions. For example, someone voting against the whip in something like gay marriage or abortion rights because they are religious. I guess you could say that it's my fault for voting for the party instead of the candidate though lel.

Independents have the same issue in that they can follow their own moral compass instead of their constituent's wishes. So I suppose my main argument would be that political parties are predictable so you know what you're voting for. Where as independents can largely do what they want once they're elected, although I know you're going to argue political parties can too and I wouldn't disagree with that too much. Also, I don't know how you're able to make a stable government without having political parties. Or maybe you don't like independents either and prefer something akin to direct democracy? Although I think that's a bit silly too, for me a stable government which can run the state and follow a somewhat long term plan is much more important to me than achieving idealistic representation of the citizens. I think referendum on controversial issues solves the problem of idealistic representation anyway.

I'd argue the UK is still in many ways better off, however. At least you've kept your personal voting system around instead of truly institutionalizing party voting (as far as I can tell, at least). Letting go of that and institutionalizing parties even further would certainly be a step in the wrong direction, at least. If I were you, I'd protect that with much greater zeal than I would protect the interest of any particular party.

I'm not too sure what you mean by "institutionalizing party voting"? Do you mean party list or something? Because in PR-STV independents can poll as high as the leading parties. E.g. the 2014 Irish local elections independents are the third largest "party". Although this mostly happens in local elections because the party whip is only really used for the budget tbh. In the general elections most people don't bother to actually vote for independents because it's sort of pointless as I already said. But independents are polling as the largest "party" in Ireland at the moment, but I doubt people will actually waste their vote on the day.

[trungdle]

New and game changing ideas got killed because of the party, which is usually late in the current situation, having to deal with their "manifesto" that is outdated and such.
I personally think the Founding Fathers were right to fear such a system and try to stay away from it. But, as stated, I think people will do everything they can to resist others' ideas and form themselves a party, forcing new comers to do it their way.

[TomBarry]

New and game changing ideas got killed because of the party, which is usually late in the current situation, having to deal with their "manifesto" that is outdated and such.
I personally think the Founding Fathers were right to fear such a system and try to stay away from it. But, as stated, I think people will do everything they can to resist others' ideas and form themselves a party, forcing new comers to do it their way.

That's true, but I think it's much better that things slowly change in politics. I quite like to have a stable society and the only way you are going to rapidly introduce "new and game changing ideas" is for a revolution which doesn't sound like much fun to me.

[Spazzmaticus]

Boy, these boards got really political all of a sudden.

It does seem rather absurd that a party winning 12% of the popular vote would get less than 1% political representation. You certainly get a feeling of the "Tyranny of the majority". Majority based systems really punish smaller parties like that. With the Unites States you can always make the case that a strong, clear majority would be necessary given the size of the nation. The Uk hardly seems large enough for that to be a convincing argument.

As for party politics, to quote Winston Churchill; "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."

[HolyLight]

If any change is to happen in any direction is must happen from within and a party/person with the ideological change would need to be in power to make such changes, yet with how the system is currently set up it makes it hard for this to happen.

It really is a sad situation most of us live in.

[Syndarn]

it's probably corrupt somehow anyway. In Finland one politician went to another area and voted for himself. When they counted votes in that area he got zero votes. Where did his vote disappear? They still don't know.

[DarkNacht]

Proportional voting is the only way to go over there and change to the way we make electoral districts are the only way to fix ours.

Proportional voting is one of the worst voting systems, even in democratic systems political parties should be banned not encouraged.