[Politics] Voter Identification.

[Sid in the Sharknado]

Except there's no proof it would improve it. Although some people have a mindset that says it would. We had a referendum on it; they came second. All those wasted votes, eh?

An STV system would demonstrably improve how representative the election results are of the votes cast. As would a PR system but I have other objections to that.

The referendum was on a specific change to the voting system, not on the principle of reform. And yes, I could have had a lie in that morning and it would have been a better use of my time.

Genuine question, can you give any advantage of our current system, or specific reason why you want to keep it?

 

[Chicken Run]

county based voting could be sensible alternative.

Not really as that won’t remove those nasty Tories if you use Sussex as an example [emoji23] No we need to find a way to stop people voting Tory [emoji106]

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

The biggest electoral fraud is that a party who polled 43% of the vote, could end up with an 80 seat majority, giving them the opportunity to bring in draconian laws to insist on photo ID so voters opposed to them can be lawfully prevented from voting against them in future elections.

Our electoral system is shambolic,fit only for the dustbin of history.

With PR, everyone votes for a candidate from a party, and the outcome is almost always a coalition so nobody ever gets the government they voted for. I have no time for the tories (especially now) and am a member of the labour party, but I don't begrudge the tories their recent victory. They won.

I wouldn't feel any better if they were forced into in a coalition with the liberals, a la 'call me Dave'. All that happened there was liberals ended up hating their own leader for 'compromising' with Dave (which is unavoidable in a coalition, FFS), and Dave decided to mitigate against another coalition by going shit or bust over Brexit, confident of a win that would get his nutters off his back for good. Dave would have been better off letting the liberals shack up with Milliband for a bit as HMG, presiding over Austerity, then charge in like the tories did after the post war austerity and rationing, winning a landslide on the back of 'Bring Back Hope'. As a side effect we would have been spared that numpty Corbyn.

Anyway, turkeys don't vote for Christmas so a coalition plan will never be on the agenda from a party with an expectation of a win. Coincidence that the loudest coalition campaigners are always the hapless liberals and hopeless Greens?

Still, labour MPs are capable of occasional monumental self-destructive stupidity (vide 'lets put Jezza on the leadershit ballot, even though I won't be voting for him, ha ha; it will be so inclusive') so I can see them offering PR when they don't need to over some mistaken perception of 'fairness', if Steer Calmer doesn't keep his eye on the ball.

Anyway, I suspect you and I might be in disagreement on this rare occasion

 

[Guinness Boy]

Have you been drinking GB, and there’s me thinking you were pulled to one side and reminded of your role as a moderator [emoji23]

You should probably stop thinking.

 

[GT49er]

An STV system would demonstrably improve how representative the election results are of the votes cast. As would a PR system but I have other objections to that.

The referendum was on a specific change to the voting system, not on the principle of reform. And yes, I could have had a lie in that morning and it would have been a better use of my time.

Genuine question, can you give any advantage of our current system, or specific reason why you want to keep it?

The advantage is that it usually doesn't result in coalitions; the last coalition we had should have been enough to put anyone off the idea.

It would be good if the two major parties, when in power, consulted with the opposition to agree on some long term policies, rather than a to and fro swapping. Can't see that happening, but can't see it happening with PR either. Con/Lib government (watered down policies) gets replaced by a Lab/Lib coalition (watered down policies again). Big improvement ...... not.
The Greens/BNP - probably <1 or 2%. Still wasted votes (just as well in both cases, IMHO).

 

[nicko31]

More ‘poor’ / working class (CDE,s) voted Conservative the Labour in 2019.

Yeap, and the poor are about to get poorer

 

[GT49er]

EasyJet have been accepting my Bus Pass as photo ID for domestic flights for years as does the Post Office when collecting from the Sorting Office

Pity that practice isn't more widespread then - preferably backed up by law.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

With PR, everyone votes for a candidate from a party

If this is a reference to party list voting, it's the main reason why I prefer both FPTP and Single Transferable Vote to PR.

and the outcome is almost always a coalition so nobody ever gets the government they voted for.

I'd suggest that parliament should at least roughly reflect the national vote. If the country hasn't voted for a single party to have majority power then I don't think any party should.

Coincidence that the loudest coalition campaigners are always the hapless liberals and hopeless Greens?

I'm also currently a member of the labour party.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

The advantage is that it usually doesn't result in coalitions; the last coalition we had should have been enough to put anyone off the idea.

It would be good if the two major parties, when in power, consulted with the opposition to agree on some long term policies, rather than a to and fro swapping. Can't see that happening, but can't see it happening with PR either. Con/Lib government (watered down policies) gets replaced by a Lab/Lib coalition (watered down policies again). Big improvement ...... not.
The Greens/BNP - probably <1 or 2%. Still wasted votes (just as well in both cases, IMHO).

Arguably the current major parties are effectively coalitions anyway, in most countries Jacob Rees Mogg and Ken Clarke wouldn't have been in the same party for many years, or Tony Blair and Jeremy Corbyn.

Since the start of the 20th century 12 elections have produced hung parliaments, coalitions or majorities so small that another election was required almost immediately. That doesn't include the 1918 election (won by the a Conservative dominated coalition led by Lloyd George) or the National Governments through the 1930s to 45. While that's significantly better than straight PR systems would manage it's hardly infallible.

On the other end of the scale, at the last election the SNP won over 80% of seats contested, with just 45% of the vote.

 

[Kuipers Supporters Club]

Yeap, and the poor are about to get poorer

So it’s poor people fault for voting Conservative, so they deserve what they get? Nice.

 

[portlock seagull]

Or they're disenfranchising themselves!

Personally, in this day and age, it seems nonsensical not to have identity cards. Seems the only ones against are those with illegal intent or those that just want right to be awkward!!!

This. It’s so typically British not to have in the name of freedom and rights, whilst maintaining a comedy of alternatives (that’s the collective noun for multiple f*** ups) all of which are unsuited. Not to mention the enormous cost and inefficiency involved.

 

[Kuipers Supporters Club]

The advantage is that it usually doesn't result in coalitions; the last coalition we had should have been enough to put anyone off the idea.

It would be good if the two major parties, when in power, consulted with the opposition to agree on some long term policies, rather than a to and fro swapping. Can't see that happening, but can't see it happening with PR either. Con/Lib government (watered down policies) gets replaced by a Lab/Lib coalition (watered down policies again). Big improvement ...... not.
The Greens/BNP - probably <1 or 2%. Still wasted votes (just as well in both cases, IMHO).

BNP would have had 13 seats under PR (2010) now I know that’s what people voted for, but still a frightening prospect having people like that in Parliament. Makes me nervous of PR and prefer STV.

Personally I think the 2010-15 coalition was good. They inherited a complete mess and it also kept the right of the Conservative party in a box, which was only let out after 2015.

 

[Pint of Ale and a Burger]

National ID cards are a massive infringement on our civil liberties and a slippery slope towards the public being owned by the state.
Voter ID is not needed for the reasons they give,it is just another attempt at getting national ID cards into use.
Neither of these IDs will benefit the civilian population and we should all be resisting their implementation now for future generations.

 

[dsr-burnley]

I'm referring to votes within a constituency. If the candidate who comes 2nd receives 8000 votes, then the winning candidate needs 8001 to win. Any further votes for the winner are worthless. Similarly all of the votes for all the losing candidates make no difference at all to the result.

The point of the STV system is to ensure every vote counts. So the constituencies are bundled together (East Sussex might become a single constituency with 8 seats), and the votes for losing candidates are redistributed based on 2nd preferences, as are votes for winning candidates beyond the number of votes needed to win the seat. All the votes are counted, you still vote for a candidate instead of a party, you still have a reasonably local representative, and the result generally gets somewhere near reflecting the vote share. Everybody's happy.

So if 45% vote Tory, 45% vote Labour, and 10% vote Liberal, then everybody's happy because the 90% who voted Tory or Labour and the 10% who voted Liberal all get exactly the same weight to their votes? I would have thought that in that scenario, the 10% who voted Liberal get the power behind their votes because they are the ones who decide who will be PM and who will be the governing party. The 90% votes are worthless because they cancel each other out.

And of course you no longer have a local MP. I think that matters. I can recognise my local MP; I have met him and have talked to him. I knew the previous one, too. I could at least recognise the two before that.

The EU elections had multi-member constituencies; did anyone ever see, recognise, or even know the name of their raft of MEPs?

 

[Gwylan]

BNP would have had 13 seats under PR (2010) now I know that’s what people voted for, but still a frightening prospect having people like that in Parliament. Makes me nervous of PR and prefer STV.

I don't think performance in a FPTP election is a reliable indicator of how people would vote in a PR election. For example, it's an absolute certainty that the Greens would get a higher vote - they regularly poll about 5% in opinion polls but score about 1 or 2%.

And I'm not sure that far right groups would do massively well either. This would be for two reasons: first of all, the Tories have moved considerably to the right and that will take some of their votes and secondly, PR may well see increased activity from other far right groups. You may see, for example, The Reform Party, UKIP, BNP, Britain First, England Democrats and all kinds of Tom, Dick and Adolf standing, all competing for the same voters.

Yes, there may be some far right MPs but far too few to cause any damage.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

So if 45% vote Tory, 45% vote Labour, and 10% vote Liberal, then everybody's happy because the 90% who voted Tory or Labour and the 10% who voted Liberal all get exactly the same weight to their votes? I would have thought that in that scenario, the 10% who voted Liberal get the power behind their votes because they are the ones who decide who will be PM and who will be the governing party. The 90% votes are worthless because they cancel each other out.

And of course you no longer have a local MP. I think that matters. I can recognise my local MP; I have met him and have talked to him. I knew the previous one, too. I could at least recognise the two before that.

The EU elections had multi-member constituencies; did anyone ever see, recognise, or even know the name of their raft of MEPs?

I'll be honest, I'm going to struggle to be polite in my reply to this. I hope you won't think too poorly of me if I fail utterly.

Any voting system can throw up situations where two parties have the same number of seats, or one party is just short of a majority. We had that with our existing system after the election in 2017 and 2010. John Major's government ended up without a majority before the 97 election. In the 70s this happened on two separate occasions despite there being no significant 3rd party. Either the two major parties find a way to compromise (see modern Germany on numerous occasions), one of the larger parties works with a minor party with compatible views, (lib-lab pact in the late 70s, Conservatives and DUP after 2017) or another election is called (1974, 1923/24, effectively 1964/66). This isn't suddenly a major problem just because the share of seats is more representative of the share of the vote.

Constituency sizes in an STV system are far closer to current constituency sizes than those used for EU elections, the minimum size to achieve something reasonably representative is about 6, which would be a decent sized city like Sheffield or Leeds, or a smallish county like East or West Sussex. Also, unlike the EU elections you vote for the specific candidates rather than the party, so if a candidate is particularly awful or embroiled in scandal or whatever you can avoid voting for them. Conversely if you happen to particularly like a specific candidate from a party you're otherwise not keen on, you can vote for that individual and not any of the others.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

I don't think performance in a FPTP election is a reliable indicator of how people would vote in a PR election. For example, it's an absolute certainty that the Greens would get a higher vote - they regularly poll about 5% in opinion polls but score about 1 or 2%.

And I'm not sure that far right groups would do massively well either. This would be for two reasons: first of all, the Tories have moved considerably to the right and that will take some of their votes and secondly, PR may well see increased activity from other far right groups. You may see, for example, The Reform Party, UKIP, BNP, Britain First, England Democrats and all kinds of Tom, Dick and Adolf standing, all competing for the same voters.

Yes, there may be some far right MPs but far too few to cause any damage.

There are MPs who's views should be regarded as far right in Parliament now, it's just they're Conservative backbenchers who you barely hear about. Similarly far left MPs in the Labour Party.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

I don’t think so..who doesn’t have ID?
If a polling card is sent to your address you clearly have ID. I have several forms of ID, My passport,my driving licence,my rail pass and my staff pass. How many people don’t have ID?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Really?
You think because you can name 4 types of ID that means that all 35m others in the country must have at least 1?

Replace "How many" with "Which types of" and you have the question which inspired the idea for the Photo Id verification in the first place.

 

[nicko31]

Really?
You think because you can name 4 types of ID that means that all 35m others in the country must have at least 1?

Replace "How many" with "Which types of" and you have the question which inspired the idea for the Photo Id verification in the first place.

There are millions with no access to photo ID. This is voter suppression, nothing else

 

[brightn'ove]

Another pointless attempt at pandering to the Facebook fake news morons who think this is an issue (see: USA). There is almost ZERO voter fraud in this country. Things like this always disproportionately affect those who are less likely to vote for the ruling party. Funny that.