Comments on: STV in the Tron

By: jgg

jgg — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 22:35:34 +0000

A slight side-debate with Tom S about Australia:

Tom S: “You can stop numbering any time you want. You can also vote “above the line�? which means it goes with the parties predecided preferences. ”

As you say voting above the line means you allow the parties to allocate preferences. However those parties preference lists do rank ALL candidates.

Similarly if you look at the ballot paper for the Federal Senate - and I concede this ballot may vary between states; I only know Victoria for sure - it says you MUST rank all candidates or vote above the line for your vote to be counted at all.

If you go below the line and you stop numbering before all candidates are ranked, your vote is discarded as invalid. As you say ranking all candidates yourself is pretty tedious but it is that or vote above the line. Stopping part way is an invalid vote. I am sure that is one of the key reasons why voting above the line is so popular!

By: Ben Wilson

Ben Wilson — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 19:34:36 +0000

That’s funny, I like MMP for getting rid of national. But they’ll be back, and they’re talking these days about bringing back the glorious old FPP which served them wonderfully. Remembering such glorious triumphs as securing government with less total votes than Labour, and Values party always getting zip.

By: TomYoung

TomYoung — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 13:08:55 +0000

Jgg: that’s not entirely correct. You can stop numbering any time you want. You can also vote “above the line” which means it goes with the parties predecided preferences.

The differculty comes if you’re anal retentive and want to allocate all preferences and mess up (miss a number, double up, etc) then you’re entire vote is informal.

I think stv is better for regional stuff, but quite like mmp for national.

By: Ben Wilson

Ben Wilson — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 00:42:34 +0000

I’m not really bitter on extremists anyways. I think they should be tolerated, given a voice. People can make up their own minds if it’s crap. Plenty of perfectly sound ideas have come straight from ‘extremists’. It was once considered extremist to think the world was not the centre of the universe. Democracy itself was an idea of extremists once.

By: bjchip

bjchip — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 00:30:42 +0000

The beauty of the STV solution is that they’d have to get a preference from enough people to poll over 5%, in other words that many people would have to vote for the fundie party ahead of every larger party…. and that would mean that they’d HAVE to withdraw their tentacles from the other moderate - right parties… or get nothing at all.

respectfully
BJ

By: Ben Wilson

Ben Wilson — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 23:39:15 +0000

Yes, give them their one seat and see who wants to be their allies. I think that kind of inclusion actually serves the purpose of taking the edge of disempowered fundies - they have to negotiate to be part of a coalition and all that, instead of just wielding hidden influence. Makes them more moderate. And if not, who cares? No one will ally with them, except in dire need.

It would be a wierd government though - probably a lot more tiddler parties. You could call them extremists, but I don’t think just because a party is small means it’s extreme - I wouldn’t call either Anderton or Dunne extreme.

By: bjchip

bjchip — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 22:01:31 +0000

It may also be a way of keeping the fundies out of the drivers seat of the major parties however, the stealth tactics and other abuses of the system (in the USA in particular, but also the EB here), would be far less handy. They could get a voice, and seats and they would have their own party and not prop up (or subvert) others. I do believe that the end result would be far clearer and probably fairer to them as well as to us.

In the USA the fundies have their hands on the controls of the Republican party. The system gives them control of the most powerful military machinery on the planet… yet almost nobody knows who is actually calling the shots.

I am a firm believer that “Fundamentalism stops a thinking mind”, but I also like the idea of a participatory democracy that allows them a voice and exposes their ideas and ideals in pure form. It’s hard to argue with them the way its set up now, but in any actual argument I have never failed to send them back behind the wall of their belief, and I have no doubt that the parliamentarians currently occupying the beehive are even more capable of dealing with them in debate.

respectfully
BJ

By: Ben Wilson

Ben Wilson — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:59:32 +0000

Personally if I had to choose a system I would go for one in which referenda figure far more highly. We don’t need representatives making moral choices for us, although I can see having them works for practical things like budgeting and running an education department.

Nice idea to have STV for the electorate votes. Will still give a FPP result, as it does in ozzie, but we’ll get a lot more information about why. Mandates will be clearer.

By: jgg

jgg — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:43:59 +0000

Seems to me that STV for parties at the national level (actually its preferential voting as you are only choosing one party but minor point) is a good idea as it provides an alternative to lowering the 5% threshold.

So you can safely vote for the tiny party of your first choice in the knowledge that, if it doesn’t kick 5%, your vote will go to your next choice, and so on, until it reaches a party which has over 5% (or you run out of ranked parties).

Looking at NZ’s voting record, the main effect of this would probably be to bring fundamentalist Christian parties into our parliament. I do see some irony in advocating greater democracy so those who oppose democracy can have a voice….

Interestingly in Australia you are forced to rank all candidates to have your vote counted. I can see no logical reason for this and would hate to see it applied here - far better to be able to say “I’d rather my vote didn’t count than contributed in any way to electing this person”.

By: bjchip

bjchip — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:15:56 +0000

BJchip, the only reason parties would even NEED to work off the STV system would be the case of not meeting the (rather silly) 5% threshhold needed to enter parliament.

There are two issues here, the 5% rule puts smaller minority parties at a disadvantage but it also encourages a certain amount of maturity in them. It also encourages more stable government, which is (I think) something not being considered as an advantage. It IS an advantage however, if you wish to ever accomplish anything, either as a businessman OR as a socialist.

Taking the threshold to that of the individual seat leads to many many smaller voices and larger (longer to negotiate) coalitions. This is untenable for stable government. 5% is arbitrary and could be perhaps adjusted slightly, but STV does away with the problem in its own way. Is there something difficult about STV for the party vote that I missed? I was under the impression that there was no fairer method of handling any given election… (no method more likely to return a result agreeable to the majority of those voting) but that was one analysis 20 years ago, my information may be out of date.

respectfully
BJ