A Can of Man
Je suis aware
FPP is far better. Basically if someone wins the election, I want to know that they are in charge.
My new rant about things...
MontyB
All-Blacks Supporter
The thing with FPP is that you almost always end up with one party government.
A lot of people like this (myself included) because it generally brings stable and effective government although it has its negatives as well ie it is not necessarily representative of the general vote and it is possible to get a majority government with a less than 50% popular vote.
On the whole I preferred the Single Transferable Vote system as it was genuine proportional representation but you always got a winner however I suspect most people saw it as confusing.
A Can of Man
Je suis aware
I know it's got it's cons but I'd prefer it over ending up with several years of coalition governments... in which case you've got yourself years of paralysis.
Plus, if you don't like what that elected party did, the people can choose the other parties next time and give them a proper shot.
Plus, if you don't like what that elected party did, the people can choose the other parties next time and give them a proper shot.
MontyB
All-Blacks Supporter
I think you are assuming that people are capable of changing their vote, most people I know would vote for their traditional party even if they put a chimp up for office. In a lot of cases party support is almost inherited we have people who vote the way they do because their parents supported the party and thats good enough for them.
Oddly enough even though I hate MMP it suits my voting style as I support the local labour (center left) candidate because I think he is the best guy for the job but prefer a conservative government so I usually end up splitting my vote along individual and party lines.
perseus
Active member
It has happened:
Tião, a bad-tempered chimpanzee, was put forward by the anti-establishment Brazilian Banana Party (Partido Bananista Brasileiro) as a candidate for the Rio de Janeiro mayoralty in 1988. The campaign's slogan was "Vote monkey - get monkey" (because people were tired of voting for one platform and then seeing the elected officials implementing another one). Tião received over 400,000 votes, coming third.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_as_electoral_candidates
They can even get voted in as mayor, take this case.
The Other Guy
Spam King
In the 1968 election, a group of students put a donkey up for election. He finished second or third in a primary. Can't remember which one.
The Other Guy
Spam King
Wasn't it Donald Rumsfeld who lost an election to a dead guy?
perseus
Active member
Of course these are really protest votes, in the UK our method is to vote for the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. In fact I know the leader quite well and have attended annual meetings in a local pub. Their defence policy was to declare war on France using peashooters as weapons off the cliffs of Dover, or something like that!
http://www.omrlp.com/
Missileer
Active member
A popular vote is no better than anarchy. That was not the way the founders meant for things to be decided, by mob rule. That simply encourages buying votes with promises that can't possibly be fulfilled. If a politician promises everything for nothing, then the ones who vote for him/her become a bloc who are ignorant to the facts of life that success is not won through sloth and procreation at the expense of taxpayers. It has never worked and never will.
mmarsh
Active member
True. I made a mistake here, I said popular vote went I meant to say parliamentary system -as opposed to the electoral collage. We should adapt the systems found in Canada and Europe, they seem to be more accurate, fair and harder to cheat.
Take the 2000 election as an example. Gore beat Bush by over 500,000 votes (1/2 a Million people) and we STILL got Bush. Any system that allows that to happen is a flawed system.
perseus
Active member
The same sort of thing happens in the UK, representation in government is based on seats or constituencies typically covering districts of 50-100k people each. If one party has enough of these to form a majority they form a government irrespective of the % of overall vote.
There is a more serious problem with this sort of system though. For example say you have two dominant parties, the third although significant in number will have limited representation. Say two of these three parties believe in approximately the same thing, but their vote is split then they will gain far fewer seats between them than one slightly stronger party that believes in something different. This effectively happened in the 80s allowing Thatcher to dominate with only about 40% of voters in the country preferring a right wing government. After allowing for those who didn't or couldn't vote for one reason or another I suspect the figure is nearer 30%
The result of all this was a drastic move to the right by the split party (labour /SDP liberal) in an attempt to minimise the vote going to the conservatives. Today we have three right wing parties with the left being marginalised altogether.
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