[Closed] How are you voting today?

Let the English pick the govt for you 😉

[quote=ninfan said]Next Prime Minister anyone?

Now where have I seen that image before....

Prime Ministerial you say?

Maybe not so much...

[img] [/img]
She hangs in a buffalo stance.....

Counting doesn't start till tomorrow but locally Labour are sounding confident for Marvin.

It'll probably come down to second preferences in a run-off. Unfortunately, very few people understand how the system works so very few voters will decide the outcome.

epicyclo - Member

It's the d'Hondt voting system which is corrupt, not the people. It a separate vote used for the regions in Scotland. (We use FPTP for the constituencies.)

It's [i]not[/i] a separate vote, that's the entire point.

Northwind - Member
It's not a separate vote, that's the entire point.

It's on a separate ballot paper, and you can vote contrary to your constituency vote, so it is separate no matter what they call it.

scotroutes - Member
And how would you propose to solve this conundrum?

Easy, one vote, one value.

Epicyclo, you're fighting a losing battle. It's not corrupt. It's not perfect either and there are legitimate criticms, yours are fantasy level though.

It's not a separate vote. It's a top up system to balance out the first past the post system used in the first ballot which is completely non proportional.

[quote=epicyclo ]

scotroutes - Member
And how would you propose to solve this conundrum?

The most exciting thing about today is whether Ken will get through an interview without mentioning Hitler, two down two fails, third time lucky.

Easy, one vote, one value.

That is just restating what you want to do. It does not explain how

Free milk for everyone
HOw will you do this?
I will give free milk to everyone

The D'Hondt system is a widely used system of PR, it has pluses - it has minuses. There is often a huge call for PR on here to provide a "fairer" system - see earlier discussion on this thread - this normally happens after the poster's side has lost.

[quote=mefty said] two down two fails, third time lucky.

Downfalls ? 🙂

If I was Corbyn then I'd be planning for a tragic accident involving Ken - maybe falling into an an industrial meat-mincing machine, or having a grand piano falling on his head from a great height.

Its like he's got nazi tourettes

maybe falling into an an industrial meat-mincing machine, or having a grand piano falling on his head from a great height.

An accident in the showers....

Industrial Meat Mincing machine is more efficient, this is covered in the Shock of the Old, in probably the grimmest chapter of a book on technology I've ever read.

Ken's loving the attention, he's the lefts version of Britney Spears 😆

Ken's loving the attention, he's the lefts version of Britney Spears

Toxic?

SNP - 63 seats = 49% of the seats on 46.5% of constituency votes
Tory - 31 seats = 24% of the seats on 22.6% of constituency votes
Labour - 24 seats = 19% of the seats on 22.0% of constituency votes
Greens - 6 seats = 5% of the seats on 0.6% of constituency votes
LibDems - 5 seats = 4% of the seats on 7.8% of constituency votes

(some rounding there)

So, apart from the Greens and LibDems, the PR system has ended up roughly delivering a proportional return. Remember that the Greens don't stand in all constituencies anyway.

TBH the deeper Ken digs himself, the easier it is for Corbyn to bury him.

epicyclo - Member

It's on a separate ballot paper, and you can vote contrary to your constituency vote, so it is separate no matter what they call it.

It's categorically not separate. The constituency vote affects the list vote. Not trying to be a prick, but is this just that you have no idea how it works? Because that's really how it sounds.

Put simply, the constituency vote being FPTP produces skewed undemocratic results. The list vote then attempts to compensate for that, in a way that if you look at it in isolation looks more skewed and undemocratic, because it broadly counters the skew of the first.

Put simply, the constituency vote being FPTP produces skewed undemocratic results.

FPTP is still democratic, it is just a different system.

would be fair to call FPTP less democratic I reckon.

would be fair to call FPTP less democratic I reckon.

+1. FPTP isn't undemocratic, but it just leads to a lot of people effectively being disenfranchised by living in safe seats etc.

+1. FPTP isn't undemocratic, but it just leads to a lot of people effectively being disenfranchised by living in safe seats etc.

This

My constituency didn't even have a candidate in my preferred party (Green) and the SNP got 50%+ of the vote, so what's the point

[i]It's categorically not separate. The constituency vote affects the list vote. Not trying to be a prick, but is this just that you have no idea how it works? Because that's really how it sounds. [/i]

I think the point they are trying to put forward is as a Voter you can vote for a specific person (lets say Labour) as your constituency MSP and then vote for an entirely different party (Conservative) on the other paper.

So for me in a Conservative constituency (and no way will I vote blue), I voted SNP for the MSP (no chance getting in, but the next strongest candidate) and then Green for the party as a couple of independents in the parliament will be handy.

mefty - Member

The most exciting thing about today is......

just how spectacularly the goalposts have been moved. Though very quietly and with almost no one noticing.

8 months ago we were told by right-wingers, Blairites and the Tory press (and a few on here) that Corbyn as Labour leader would result in electoral melt-down for the Labor Party with a catastrophic collapse in its vote.

That, we were assured, was a one hundred percent certainty.

However now with the goalposts firmly replanted we are told that under Corbyn's leadership Labour just simply won't do well enough to win the next general election.

And that, of course, we are told, is also a one hundred percent certainty.

Now unlike the crystal ball gazing right-wing pundits I don't know with one hundred percent certainty what the 2020 general election result will be. On balance I think Labour [i]probably[/i] fail to win the next general election.

Because despite the GE being 4 years away much work still needs to be done to reverse the Tory/Labour/LibDem neoliberal consensus of the last 20 plus years. It has resulted in widespread voter apathy and generally discredited the whole political process and UK politicians.

But I do know that Labour under Corbyn doing almost as well in the 2016 local elections as they did in the 2011 local elections (when they received a 10% swing) isn't a "disaster".

Especially when you consider that the Blairites right-wingers in the party, in collusion with the Tory press of course, did their utmost to sabotage Labour's chances.

EDIT : With reference to the Scottish result that clearly is a disappointment for Labour but the collapse in the Scottish Labour vote predates Corbyn, and there's no evidence that Scots were put off Labour because it is consider to be too left-wing under Corbyn.

Or that Tony Blair's preferred Labour leader, Liz Kendal, would have had Scots running to the polling stations so that they could vote Labour.

My vote has no impact whatsoever against the tide in the North East ...

Ernie - fwiw I would happily vote for Corbyn but wouldn't take a shite in Dugdales mouth if she was starving.

Conversely I have more time for Scottish Tories than the eejits down south. Davidson and co seem to be more into social conservatism than sociopathic conservatism.

Northwind - Member
...Not trying to be a prick, but is this just that you have no idea how it works? Because that's really how it sounds.

No, it's ok. I do understand how it works, but I think it's plain wrong in its application.

You still can protect minority parties by using a regional vote system.

The regional vote allows for the possibility of single issue parties, eg a particular green project, anti-wind turbine, pro cycling or whatever, so it is good, but it should not be affected by the constituency vote, and all votes should have equal value.

[url= http://www.ukpolitical.info/General_election_polls.htm ]I don't understand why people are still going on about Corbyn's unelectability?[/url]

I do understand how it works

If the constituency vote didn't affect the regional vote then the SNP would have around 110 MSPs. Hardly a representation of voting across the country

Ernie - fwiw I would happily vote for Corbyn but wouldn't take a shite in Dugdales mouth if she was starving.

Well yesterday for the first time in 20 years I voted for the Labour Party, I didn't want to do it (I was still having doubts as I walked to the polling station) But I did it because it was the right thing to do.

epicyclo - Member
Northwind - Member
...Not trying to be a prick, but is this just that you have no idea how it works? Because that's really how it sounds.
No, it's ok. I do understand how it works, but I think it's plain wrong in its application.

You still can protect minority parties by using a regional vote system.

The regional vote allows for the possibility of single issue parties, eg a particular green project, anti-wind turbine, pro cycling or whatever, so it is good, but it should not be affected by the constituency vote, and all votes should have equal value.

so 2 x FPTP systems? that just means you'll have 2 seperate results that are unrepresentative.

Ernie I think Labour need to come up with a strategy that normalises, not a coalition as that won't happen, but an atmosphere in england where they aren't afraid of the SNP being the party to back a labour gov on an issue by issue basis.

Osborne was already setting his stall out on twitter this afternoon about the big bad snp.

[img] [/img]

In Scotland NuLab are in such dire straights that even the UK party having a far-left leader hasn't helped. It shows just how bad a position they're in when coming 3rd in Scotland wasn't enough for either their UK or Scottish leaders to resign immediately.

They're going to decide what they stand for, including on independence, and then start rebuilding credibility when they know what their platform is.

seosamh77 - Member
so 2 x FPTP systems? that just means you'll have 2 seperate results that are unrepresentative.

If it was up to me, I'd have PR.

2 separate systems has advantages. One lot elected for constituency issues, the other on more general issues.

Countries like Australia do this. You have a constituency vote for MPs, and a statewide vote for senators. Of course, that's 2 houses, but it's easy enough for folk to understand. (PR helps too.)

Any system where the votes have equal value is not unrepresentative, or least less unrepresentative than the others.

scotroutes - Member
'I do understand how it works'
You really don't
If the constituency vote didn't affect the regional vote then the SNP would have around 110 MSPs. Hardly a representation of voting across the country

It would be an exact representation.

How would it not be a representation when that's the way people voted? (I know the formula applied, I just reckon it is plain wrong because it adjusts the vote values)

My list vote was worth 1/6 of a conservative vote - what is fair about that? When did I become 1/6 of a citizen?

On the other hand if my council rates and tax bill could be adjusted accordingly it may look more attractive... 🙂

Rather than stuff around with a dodgy and obscure system, we should dump it and switch to Proportional Representation.

(For folk wondering how to calculate the number of angels on a pinhead, it's worth looking at the [url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method ]d'Hondt system[/url])

we've got 4 separate systems.

council
holyrood
westminster.
europe

I'd agree each system used could be improved. but consider how shit austrailian MPs seem to be I think the issue is more than just the system of voting.

btw the AMS system is still PR, you might not get it and it might be far from perfect, but it's still PR and much preferable to the westminster system..

we use stv for the council election, I guess thats the same as the austrailian one.

I'd rather we just picked one form of PR and used it across the board in all elections, so we all got used to it.

we use stv for the council election

I'd quite like them to adopt STV for English council elections too. A number of my professional organisations use STV for elections and it doesn't seem all that difficult to understand...

I can't find a link but I believe Malcolm Bruce claimed he and Donald Dewar chose the d'hondt system to stop the SNP. He made the claim in a speech in the house of commons. Most sources say d'hondt was chosen to try to prevent any single party from dominating Holyrood

[quote=gordimhor ]I can't find a link but I believe Malcolm Bruce claimed he and Donald Dewar chose the d'hondt system to stop the SNP. He made the claim in a speech in the house of commons. Most sources say d'hondt was chosen to try to prevent any single party from dominating Holyrood

gordimhor - Member
I can't find a link but I believe Malcolm Bruce claimed he and Donald Dewar chose the d'hondt system to stop the SNP. He made the claim in a speech in the house of commons. Most sources say d'hondt was chosen to try to prevent any single party from dominating Holyrood

I actually think d'hondt is fair enough. Malcolm Bruce's comments say more about his ego than anything else

An SNP politician was on the radio yesterday saying that the number of seats they got was in line with their vote share, and that they weren't unhappy about that. The d'Hondt system is still better than FPTP.

I'm in Edinburgh central.
Voted Green, got Ruth Davidson. To be fair, I quite like her - think she is a good politician although I don't agree with a lot of her policies.

Glad SNP lost their majority - had it their own way too long, they need more scrutiny/opposition.

Hope they team up with the green msps in some kind of pact. Would like things pulled a bit further left/eco and for the greens to be taken more seriously (and hope they step up and do well once they have to actually deliver on their policies)

Been on a DoE hike and only just seen the results up here. Glad the greens have gained but wonder how labour come back. The only way they can keep their "SNP bad" mantra going is if they jump into bed with the Tories, and that went down REALLY well after the ref. One point, With regards to Eenie; if JC was leader of Scottish Labpur, they might represent the party people used to vote for up here, I think a Labour Party that took back their policies from the SNP they might start to grow again...Oh and somebody else leading then that the car crash that is Kezia. Scots want a left wing Labour Party.

Scots want a left wing Labour Party

Is that because (rhetoric aside) the SNP is anything but?

Yes that will be it, good point...why have you never made it before?

tbh It depends what you are calling left wing, are free prescriptions, education, bus passes etc left wing? in the context of where the centre line is in politics these days probably. But not particularly what i would call left wing, renationalisation agendas are out on the fringes, and just aren't part of the main stream really, barring lip service.

tbh all this election really told us is that Scotland is split 50/50 along nationalist lines. Scottish nationalist v British nationalist. I think policy scutiny has been put to side for the time being.

tbh I'd like to see everyone shut up about the constitutional question for 4 years, govern away and then they can re-start campaigning on the basis of a new ref at the next scottish elections.

If the people don't vote for another referendum after that, I'd put the question to bed for my lifetime.

Though I doubt that'll happen, as both sides of the nationalist argument want to keep it in the spotlight, for different reasons.

tbh I'd like to see everyone shut up about the constitutional question for 4 years

There are plenty of other constitutional matter we can be busying ourselves with in the meantime, such as reform of the Lords, and the West Lothian question. 😛

duckman - Member
...Scots want a left wing Labour Party.

I think if Labour became a separate Scottish governed party (ie genuinely autonomous from London), reverted to being the voice of the working class and became again the party of Home Rule they'd get back to full strength at the expense of the SNP.

However, I doubt there is anyone in the party hierarchy who has not been tarnished by their love fest with the Tories, so it would require a clean sweep, and so it's probably a political generation away.