yvranx The German system sucks! Look at how many people still go vote: barely 50 %! Why? Because it doesn´t matter who you vote for! They all do the same shit!
Germanys system is still horribly undemocratic. You elect some persons and partys who promise you more education and healthcare and tax cuts and you end up with the same rotten liars every time. Direct democracy works and with the internet there is no administrative problem anymore, watch Switzerland.
Except that there are a few fundamental problems with direct democracy. 1. Not all the referendums can be boiled down to a simple ''yes'' or ''no''. 2. Not every person is as knowledgeable The Internet might take away administrative problems, but it will bring security problems. Nobody wants there election results getting altered because it got hacked. Also Switzerland is a semi-direct democracy. Just some short points. Direct democracy might work fine on a local level, but on the national I see more downsides than upsides.
How isn't it? They had large support from a large area, whereas the SNP, for example, had a large support from a small area. In regional representation you need to have the most regions, I think the AV vote should be done but other than that keep the system the same.
@Jake L its not about what's best for the country, it's about how the views of the people are represented in parliament. Yes UKIP are a shit party, and part of their popularity in 2015 was due to voters unwilling to vote for labour or the conservatives, much rather like the referendum itself, and voting as a protest against the government. However they were the 3rd largest party in England by vote, but only got 1 seat. That is simply unfair, regardless of ones opinion about the party.
@@RonaldHapchwarae You can have regional representation and a more proportional system, they're not mutually exclusive. STV is an example of a system that both has local representation and is proportional(ish).
And it's that attitude that meant AV was rejected, as I see it. Most people I have spoken to didn't actually want AV, they wanted AV+, PR, STV or some variant on those, or something else entirely. To me at the time, voting to change to AV wasn't really a step in the "right" direction it was just the smallest change that the current establishment would entertain. I think there are plenty of people who want to change to a new system, but until there is a proper consensus on what that system should be, we have to stick with what we have. Sure FPTP has its flaws but, for me, I like the fact that I have ONE person who I can call to account when they vote in national issues as well as local issues, and I like the simplicity in the way that they are elected to the constituency (most votes wins). I would also very much like to see an official "vote for none" option, but that's a different matter for another day.
Would you prefer our nation end up like Italy? A bickering parliament of 300+ members that can't pass anything due to the overdiversity of political beliefs and lack of agreement?
@@magnusbruce4051 AV would have been a big step in the right direction, because at the very least it would fix the spoiler effect and eliminate the need for tactical voting. It's not perfect, but it's still leaps and bounds better than FPTP.
All this is irrelevant as all parties have similar policies and will always follow the money. Politics as it stands now is just a self serving dinasoar that simply do what the money tell them to do, ie banks and big business. When people vote they just give it some form of legitimacy
+The Critic's Review i disagree ok our economy is better with the tories only because they have cut all of our services but it like someone winner the lotto only to give it away he should put all the money back in the uk
Excellent video. I'm very impressed by the depth and the presentation style. It's concise yet detailed at the same time and is very pleasing to the eyes and ears.
I have to say this is the best video I have seen on the subject. Every other video I have seen has focused entirely on the downsides of FTTP and the upsides of alternative systems, or focused entirely on the upsides of FTTP and the downsides of alternatives. This seems to be one of the only videos that acknowledges there will be trade offs in every election, and the best system is subjective depending on the which trade offs you're willing to have.
In 2011 we had a referendum costing £75m in which just 32% of the voters wanted to replace First Past the Post with Alternative Vote. As the turn-out was only 42.2% of the registered electorate, this means that c. 1 person out of 7 registered voters was interested enough to seek a change to AV (and more like 1 in 8 of the electorate if you factor in one 2011 estimate that 6m eligible voters were not registered). Another vote just seems like a waste of money.
In 2005, the winning Labour party gained more seats (355) than the 2015 conservatives (330) with a smaller percentage of the vote (35.2% - versus 36.9%). You can tell the left of centre, embittered thieving agenda in the accent of the narrator. To give readers some valuable insight, remember 13% voted for UKIP. Looking at the overall vote percentages for all the parties and what the parties stand for, a conservative government was the most just result.
Edit: The worst part of first pass the post is that it can give majority power to a minority, as happened in this election. The conservatives can now rule without having to compromise even if they are only backed by 37% of people. If the system was actually representative of the population the conservatives would have needed to make a coalition with one or more other parties. They would have needed to listen to other parties and come to a compromise. That is how democracy should work, if you can't actually get a majority you should have to compromise with other parties. Today's system kind of pretends that the conservatives have a majority backing them when they really don't. Easiest way to fix this system is just to scrap the regional representation. But there a way to fix the system and still keep it. By having a number of seats (maybe 1/3 of the total) that aren't linked to regions. These seats gets distributed after the regional seats in a way to even out the distribution to make the final national parliament as closely as the popular vote at possible. This means you will still have religion representation, but if you don't agree your representative (as going by the vote the majority of people don't), your voice is still heard in the government. Regional representation is a bit stupid in this day and age. A candidate can get to represent a region without having a majority, essentially leaving the majority in that region unrepresented. As in how can I expect this representative to in any way represent me if I voted for someone totally different? Just because we live in the same place doesn't mean that they will care for my concerns. So I would much rather than my representative comes from anywhere in the country, but actually represents the views I voted for. The current system is just broken, there is no argument here. People living in a region with a strong win for one party, have no way to have their voice heard, there vote simply doesn't count. It also makes parties with a regional focus stronger, as focusing on getting a lot of votes in a few regions gives you seats. While focusing on a national issue getting the same number (or more) votes spread around the country gives you no seats just because you are spread out.
ybra You're last point seems to be what happened to UKIP. I haven't researched the situation enough to know if I agree with them or not, but the difference between the popular vote for them and the single seat they won seems really undemocratic to me.
Ruzhong X. I'm not British either, so I'm not up on the specifics of the politics. But it does seem like the system is broken when one party can get 12% and only get 1 seat, and another gets about 3 times the votes but 330 seats. Most of all I find it problematic than a party with only 37% of the vote can now rule unopposed for the next term. While 63% of the country have no say in the laws passed.
ybra I'm not disagreeing with what you have said, but it wasn't just this election where majority power was given to a minority. You have to go back to the 1950s to find a government that got close to 50% of the popular vote (Anthony Eden with 49.7%). The economist has an excellent visualisation of the over (and under representation of parties since 1997: www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/05/britain-s-election-2015-seats-votes-calculator Interestingly, Labour have been the biggest winners from FPTP. Year - Party - Seats / vote* 1987 Tory 1.38 1992 Tory 1.23 1997 Labour 1.47 2001 Labour 1.54 2005 Labour 1.56 2010 Tory 1.30 2015 Tory 1.38 * For example, in 1992 the Tories won 52% of seats (336/651) with only 42% of the vote -> 52 / 42 = 1.23
oobayly Yes, but there doesn't need to be a 50% party to have a working government. If one party can't get 50% on their own they have to enter a coalition with some other party. And this will result in the 2 (or more) parties having to compromise on some questions. Which is good, as clearly a party that isn't backed by a majority should have free reign to do whatever they want. Look at the Nordic countries for example. There haven't been a 50% party in ages. But rather the parties with similar politics form coalitions.
ybra Again, I'm not disagreeing with you at all - some of Ireland's (where PR is used, and where I grew up) most successful governments have been coalitions. I was disappointed to see the drubbing that the LibDems received (though not surprised) as I felt that a continuation of the coalition in the UK was the best option. They kept the Tories "honest" for the last five years, and now we've lost that - as conservative (with a small C) as I am, I was not happy to see a Tory majority. My point about the percentages was more that I was getting annoyed at seeing claims that the past two governments weren't "legitimate" as they didn't have a popular majority, whilst conveniently ignoring that Labour's governments were even less representative of the popular vote. I would like to see a similar setup to Ireland - where we have fewer larger constituencies with multiple MPs and a full PR system. The problem is that three main parties (Tory, Labour & SNP) are all benefiting from FPTP and their supporters won't want to see a system that reduces that stranglehold. There was also the disgusting amount of FUD and lies (AV will mean people will have to vote for BNP candidates) during the run-up to the AV referendum in 2010, and this will happen in future votes.
One small effect that you didn't mention was the comfort with which an MP takes their seat, if they get a majority of votes in their constituency or close to a majority, they feel secure in their seat and may be emboldened to vote in the way that their party wants more often, but if they get just a few more votes than the opposing candidate then they may feel less secure in their seat for next election and be more wary of that when voting in parliament.
Hi.. interesting vid. Here in Scotland for the Scottish National Elections, we have a combined system for voting, we get 2 votes: 1. primary vote for the seat of the MSP and 2. secondary vote for proportional representation. .. I vote SNP with my primary vote, and either SNP or Green* with my secondary, what this means is I can vote for both a major party and a minor one, being represented twice. It's a fair, equitable system, that ignores no-one. ..and If you didn't know about this system, im glad to inform you of it! have a great day :) *(I have in the early days voted SSP, just because of Tommy Sheridan, I rem the stories about him fighting the poll tax in the 90's ..better days)
I wouldn't discount too quickly the Additional Member System, used in the Scottish Parliament Elections, where you cast a regular FPTP vote to represent your constituency and a PR vote for a party. The party votes within a region are tallied up and representatives are drawn from a regional 'list' in proportions to reflect votes cast.
One thing people keep forgetting is that the SNP had a lot less candidates. If it was proportionate than they both should also have the same number of candidates. So the SNP had approximately 60 candidates compared to UKIP 600, but only got 4 times less; thus SNP got it proportionately.
7:57 I'm not sure that it follows that Conservatives are over-represented almost entirely by this 'spoiler effect'. You threw away approximately 100 of the analysis seats where other partys would have benefited (I'm assuming split Labour/Scot Nats) as winners from the same effect and did not attribute so the viewer is invited to guess. I suppose you can argue the dicussion is about being governed rather than being represented. But representation is the basis of government and the only reason for having elections and not just sticking with heredity. I like how representation based on _geographical_ constituency is assumed to be a good or necessary or essential aspect of any modern democracy, but did the Greeks have consituencies? Up until 1950 universities elected their own MPs (and did so by 'PR' I believe) Certainly geography is convenient to use when it suits to argue against larger multi-member constituencies - and thus to argue that going proportional is 'too hard'- but now we've go the internet you see.
Pauls SecondChannel Good criticism. Perhaps I should have properly explained the core assumptions I made when analyzing the election data. The reason I didn't perform the same analysis on those excluded 104 constituencies - aside from the insane amount of time it would have taken - is due to the reasonable assumption that all votes not cast for the governing Conservative Party were cast in opposition to the governance of the Conservative Party. This is an assumption about the motivations of voters, which hypothesizes that voters in those 104 excluded constituencies are unlikely to have selected the Conservative Party as their 2nd preference vote. I consider this assumption reasonable because (1) data from the national popular vote has seen no change in popular support for the Conservative Party; and (2) huge losses by the Liberal Democrats to UKIP - which are two ideologically divergent parties - share the common denominator of opposition to the governing party. If UKIP didn't seem so viable to voters, the Liberal Democrats would likely have held their ground in Parliament. If neither of these 3rd parties seemed viable, it's probable that Labour would have made substantial gains, perhaps even winning a majority. It all depends on _why_ people are voting and how their behaviour would change if they thought their vote was for a candidate that couldn't win. Historical election data certainly suggests that the conservative vote is a slight minority in the UK (~40%), but that the liberal vote is frequently cut in half by multiple left wing and centrist parties which each compete against a single unified conservative vote. A more nuanced analysis of the election which attempts to quantify some of my - I maintain - reasonable assumptions would be very interesting to look at. Most punditry, however, is concerned with trying to model future election outcomes rather than critically examining the failings of the current system.
Why isn't it possible that if the third parties weren't considered viable, their voters would have defected to the Conservatives? You assume that everyone who didn't vote conservative would have preferred Labour over the Conservatives (as they are the other major party), which is quite a claim to make.
raptokvortex A lot of people do switch over like that, especially during the New Labour years when they drew in a lot of conservative voters, or during the Thatcher period where a surprising amount of more left leaning people went right because they promised self-advancement. When there's two parties, and one party isn't doing what you want, you do vote for the other. that's what makes the system so scummy.
My country is certainly an example of the pitfall of a strictly two party system you mention toward the end of your video. What is supposed to be the "liberal" party has been for the last 25 years pursuing a "run to the center" policy while what is supposed to be the "conservative" party has also been running to the right in order to "fire up the base". The Overton Window effect has caused this elusive "center" in America to ever shift rightward. Consequently, today we have liberals in America virtually disenfranchised as each election we often have to choose between the conservative Democrat and the radical right wing Republican. If we don't vote or vote 3rd party, the radical Republican wins, as happened in 2010 and 2014. If we do vote for the conservative Democrat, it validates their party's strategy that liberal voters have no where else to go and so we can be ignored. Taking back our party is the current challenge facing progressive Americans, climbing out of a pit which I'm sure progressives elsewhere would like to avoid.
DeistPaladin On the USA: You are mistaken in your claim that the "center" has been shifting rightward. In actuality, the opinionated-center is dissolving into more right-wing and more left-wing groups. However, you are right in saying that the coalition of left-wing non-activists and radicals known as the Democratic party has been targeting "the center." They just haven't been doing it by changing their policy. They've been doing it by controlling the majority of media and education and thereby making the national average more and more "progressive." (Conservatives hold their ground by creating alternative media "strongholds" that are just as biased, simply in the opposite direction. This further contributes to the national split.) To recap: Democrats are more "progressive" than ever (in recent history, that is). The compromised-center is dissolving, splitting into more radicalized extremes. The country is on average becoming more. progressive," not less.
Joel Duggins What alternate reality are you living in and how can I move there? Anyone still clinging to the idea that our corporate American media is controlled by the Democrat Party, much less by progressives, should have been disabused of this delusion during the W Bush administration when our media turned into a bunch of shameless cheerleaders for the Iraq War and then swept it under the rug after it became clear we'd been lied into it. Any American citizen who wants to know what's really going on in the world must turn to the BBC and other foreign sources. Furthermore, it has become painfully clear that there are two standards for journalists in our media in the US, depending on whether you are perceived as liberal or conservative. If you are liberal or running a story favorable to liberals, you are skating on thin ice. Your career hangs by a thread. One mistake and you are fired, gone, canned, sacked, never to be seen on air again. If you are a conservative or run a story favorable to conservatives, there is no way to get fired, no matter how many mistakes you make. At worst, you will be taken off air for 30 days or so before you're back again. See Dan Rather and Laura Logan for an example of this contrast. As for the Democrat Party, are you on drugs or do you, like most American conservatives, think history began in 2009? The Democrat Party is now more progressive than under Franklin D Roosevelt? More progressive now than under Lyndon Banes Johnson? In actuality, and by this word I mean the actual actuality and not the imaginary land of Fox Noise, President Obama is an Eisenhower conservative, not a liberal. Warren is a liberal, not a radical. Republicans are just batshit crazy. We can't even call them "fascists" without insulting fascists. At least fascists could govern. The GOP is so nuts that all they can do is sabotage. The very fact that I'm having to argue recent history, some of which happened within nearly everyone's memory, shows just how detached from reality the GOP has become. I'm observed that American conservatives are doing well to remember what happened last year, never mind during the last administration. This goes to support my original point of how the two party system can catastrophically fail. To my friends across the pond, please don't let this happen to you.
DeistPaladin The Bush administration prosecuted several fortune 500, banking, and investment fraudsters. Under Obama - zero. Bush administration held regular press briefings. Under Obama - hardly any.
Steve Nichols The Obama Administration has settled numerous lawsuits against large banks. I also don't know what you are talking about press briefings. I am pretty sure the Obama administration has at least one a day.
Why not have a tournament-style election where only two candidates are voted on at a round leaving the loser eliminated, but everybody gets to cast a vote for their favorite candidate of each round? So if you voted green but lost, you still get to vote for purple or whatever in the next round and your vote is not wasted.
@daro2096 No. AV keeps single-member constituencies but instead of just voting for 1 candidate you rank them in order of preference. It keeps most problems that FPTP has but eliminates the spoiler effect.
thebatmanover9000 It's the reason why we only have Democrats and Republicans and why a third party will never gain any real traction. That's one of the biggest overlaps anyway.
Another possible system would be something similar to what they have in Germany, where they have a first-past-the-post system to elect constituent MPs, then assign additional MPs from party lists using the d'hondt method taking into account the seats already assigned to bring it closer to a proportional share of MPs, until it's proportional within a certain margin of error or it's reached a certain quota of MPs.
In my opinion, the First Past the Post system is an awful method of voting for a country that had 7 party leaders in the debates. We simply need a better system to better rerpesent all parties competing accross the political spectrum.
I have no clue, i voted ACT. I like there idea on free market zone in Christchurch. I live in Sweden now though, where i vote for the liberal party. Are you also a libertarian?
Singapore has first past the post which seems to work as there are usually only 2 candidates her constituency and the opposition parties tend to decide beforehand which seats to contest. So the elected MP always gets a majority.
As CCHQ, this of course peaked my interest when it was suggested to me. It was a very well put together video, however aside from explaining first past the post, you should have explained the campaigns too. Aside from our campaign being ran by strategist Lynton Crosby to win specific seats, far superior to David Axelrod (I should give an example of when I was outside a constituency count on election night and a Labour volunteer told me that they canvassed all constituents without targeting specific voters - whereas the Tories targeted waiverers and UKIP supporters; a database we'd spent the past 5 years building whereas Labour's campaign only kicked in come 2014). Next is the wedge strategy, otherwise known as "divide and conquer". Pollsters were confused as to how we managed to increase our share of the vote in our target seats despite huge percentage rises for UKIP. This was due to moving the idea of a Labour/SNP coalition to the forefront of people's minds to gain traditionally left-wing voters. The Lib Dems collapsed to the extent only we predicted, I said they would win under 10 seats since 2013. The majority of their seats were formerly Tory and reverted to their traditional representation. Lastly, a campaign isn't won on a negative campaign. You can throw the odd "dead cat" on the table, but when the Labour Party makes its main policy not privatising the NHS and the more astute people are aware it's a myth that we ever would, its never going to work; especially not against a solid platform of economic plans for the future which is a far more positive message. (There is a lot more that won us the election, the blatantly obvious aspects such as the Labour leadership, however the former points are not ones people often care to mention.)
It's true that there are several issues with FPTP but there are also issues with PR. A pure PR system will (thankfully) never happen in the UK. I'm in favour of a 'List' system like we have in Scotland. Reduce the number of constituency MPs and introduce multi candidate Regional constituencies. The system will not be entirely representative but it will ensure that smaller parties with a significant share of the vote return a larger number of MPs.
A very pedantic correction: 02:18 - Bercow, the Speaker, is not a member of the Conservative Party: all Speakers must renounce any affinity to political parties on assumption of the office. This message is approved by Hairsplitters Ltd.
+0954jamesa1 Yes, but when Conservative governments win anywhere you'll always get the left screaming and blubbering about how "unfair" the system is. Until their side gets into power under the same system. Then it's called democracy.
I was hoping you would have ended the bit about Alternative Vote (aka IRV) and STV by saying "both of which are currently in use in Australia". We use IRV for the House of Representatives, with 150 seats to fill, and STV with the Senate, with 76 seats to fill (12 from each state and 2 per territory). Unfortunately, the Senate papers end up resembling small tablecloths as a result. It's not uncommon to have 100 candidates on the Senate paper.
I think the ERS actually predicted that (usually) the Tories would have done better under IRV (AKA AV) this time around, the spoiler effect didn't help them.
I'm from Greece and even though we use a more proportional system, it's even worse than the one in the UK. First party gets a 50-seat bonus. And so in many regions, there are MPs elected which have far less votes than candidates who were not elected. I believe the ideal system is a combination of first-past-the post and proportional. You allocate a number of seats with the current system and then you allocate the rest of the seats with proportional representation. The elected candidates come from party list in which voters choose their preferred candidate. The election threshold could be set at 5% of the vote Let's say that the number of constituencies in the UK is reduced to 450 and another 200 seats are allocated with the proportional system. You can also split the 200 seats to English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish ones. So Scotland which has 8% of the UK's population could get 16 out of 200 seats. With SNP getting 50% of the vote there, they would have elected at least 8 MPs. But also Labour, Tories and LibDems would have more Scottish MPs.
Looking at the screen about 3min into the video, it seems that if we want proportionality (and I certainly do) what we need is multiple members representing each constituency. As such, why do you only mention AV and STV as viable alternatives, what's wrong with the Additional Member system used in Wales and Scotland? In fact, without additional members, AV on its own is not proportional.
The first eight and a half minutes of this video was excellent. The ending was very seriously flawed. Most of the video provided an effective, reasonably fair, and very well explained description of how First Past the Post works and its' strengths and weaknesses. The problem with the video is that it did not really go into the issues with other systems. I was quite astonished when at the very end the video suggested Alternative Vote as a possible solution without even mentioning that 1) AV is NOT a proportional system and in some circumstances can produce even more skewed results than FPTP, or that 2) The UK actually had a referendum on the possibility of changing to AV less than five years ago, and the electorate overwhelmingly rejected the idea.
Point and case: When you have poor representation on a local level, you are guaranteed to have poor representation on a National level. If the UK wants to retain a similar election process, but make the vote proportional on the local level, then one solution could be to still vote for different candidates from different parties locally, but with the difference being that the vote is proportional on a county by county basis. To start off, Each county would be able to designate a number of legislate seats relative to its population size. During the election process, If a candidate, or a 'team' of people get say 36% of the votes, they would be able to designate as close to 36% seats that single county can provide for office. The seats they designate do not necessarily have to be someone from their own party, and in fact they do not necessarily 'have' to be in a party to get elected - just as long as they get enough votes to designate a seat, which if they are a troll party, is unlikely. Combine this system with the Alternative vote system, and you will be set pretty well. Yes - this system would require more legislative seats than the UK already uses.
I used to be a fan of two round voting. The problem with that is that it still has the problem of two main parties getting everything while the smaller ones get knocked out. Alternative voting is a better system because it allows people who dislike both main parties to swap votes to other small parties, possible even enough to actually have a chance. I don't like PR because I believe MPs should represent their constituencies first and that people should be voting for the person not just the party tag.. With PR you vote for the party not the person. Who decides which person from the party actually gets a seat? Who decides which seat? You also still get the situation of people 'elected' to a seat even though the majority in the district voted for someone else just because people in other constituencies also voted for that party.
Scarletpooky You could have a mixed party-list proportional representation and FPTP, where a proportion of the seats are constituency seats, and the proportional representation fills up the remainder of the seats, so that the share of the seats is more proportional than a system using only FPTP. This system is used for elections for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, and is used in Germany for elections to their parliament. As for the part about not being able to decide which candidate gets the seat in a party list system, you don't have to use closed list, as they do in elections with PR in the UK. You could use open-list, where you get to select the order in which the candidates get elected in the party list, and the order will be decided using a system like single transferrable vote.
I think MMP (mixed-member proportional representation) would be a better solution. Basically top-up members based on proportionality after the plurality votes from FPTP have been taken. That is what they have in Germany.
Its also worth nothing that while the Conservative win in 2015 kicked up a massive stink over unrepresentative government, the same effect gained Labour a large majority in 2005 despite having only 1/3 of the vote (35.2%, less than the Conservatives won on in 2015). As well as to a less effect in 2001 and 1997 (40.7% and 43.2% of the vote respectively). Only a handful of the UK's government since WWII have been elected on a genuine votes cast majority. The only reason it was such a big deal this time was that Labour supports, so certain of their victory, patting themselves on the back on social media sites were dismayed that in-fact, people didnt agree with them.
I believe that people don't really care about regional representation as much as they did in the past. The larger-scale issues of the whole nation are becoming more important than local ones, especially with younger people, to an extent where a more proportional system would be more suited for Parliament
The uk should adopt a similar system to what scotland has for hollyrood elections where there are a certain number of seats as well as regions that elect 6msp's per region based on vote percentage. It a mixture of both first past the post and proportional representation.
Thig ar Latha 96 I was wondering why he didn't mention that (it's called the Additional Member System). It seems to work well in Scotland and can even lead to stable majority governments (to Labour's annoyance). There's also Mixed-Member Proportional representation which is used by Germany, but that seems to be unfavourable towards smaller parties. They have a threshold of 5% of the vote to gain seats via the party list, which led to one party losing all of its 96 seats when their share of the vote fell to 4.8%. I think it would also require the establishment of a federal system (but that's something I would be very happy to see).
Tom McGrath the voting system needs to be changed as this election showed. Im an snp supporter but i dont think its fair that snp got 56 seat while ukip and greens got only 1 and yet had many times the votes as the snp did.
Thig ar Latha 96 Yes, it does, though I imagine that's unlikely to happen in this Parliament. Most Tories will probably be against voting reform as will a substantial portion of Labour.
Thig ar Latha 96 this is exactly what i've been talking about for months. i find it a little ironic that Labour don't support a PR system in UK elections even though they implemented it in Scotland
At some point in the future, is it conceivable to have all votes be digitized such that information is at the fingertips in regards to all issues, and individual votes count toward the whole instead of simply the local/represent? Also it would be nice if there was a 1 to 5 rating for each instead. ^-^;
The idea of local representatives made sense at a time. But in today's modern world, we no longer vote for our local electoral district, but for our country. The idea of local representatives just doesn't make sense anymore.
People complaining about the 'unfairness' of the SNP winning 56 seats with 1.45million votes DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT THE SNP ONLY RUN IN SCOTLAND, THEREFORE WINNING 1.45MILLION VOTES IN A NATON OF 5.2MILLION (SCOTLAND) IS EQUIVALENT TO WINNING 14.5MILLION VOTES IN A NATION OF 52MILLION (ENGLAND). Nothing unfair about it whatsoever.
Techmage 45 even when the system is set up in such a way to prevent a majority government (like we have in Scotland) the SNP still managed to create a majority government so I guess their support is still large enough whatever the system
Let's keep in mind here (England) that constituency borders a drawn in favour of the Labour party. Not only that, but politicians on all sides are quite happy with border arrangements as they are because it gives them more of a chance to win their seats even if their party doesn't win the overall election. Take Nottingham as a perfect example of how local politicians vote to separate their constituencies to save their own jobs. en.wikipedia.org/?title=Nottingham#/media/File:GreaterNottingham-map.png Notice that the area outlined in purple is the City of Nottingham. Then take a look at the following map: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Parliamentary_constituencies_in_Nottinghamshire#Results Notice how the city is surrounded by Conservative councils. This is common in most cities in Britain. That's because local councils like it that way. It's the only way they can fabricate some kind of social borders between the urban, suburban, and rural citizens.
This video seems to ignore that in the 185 "potentially subject to split opposition vote" constituencies, many of the 104 non-Conservative results might have only landed non-Conservative due to a split conservative-ish vote. After all, it wasn't just the left-wing vote that was split. This 104 could potentially outweigh the 81, making this video terribly flawed. (see 7:10 - end of video)
I feel we should introduce a second post system like France. So after the first post, where everyone avoids the 2 party system of labour vs conservative. Then the remaining parties can make a coelition to either the 1st place or 2nd place party. Then the second election campaign begins.
perhaps this should be done in conjunction with a updating of the house of lords? maybe regional seats in the other house and a PR system in the commons? this would give some meaning when voting for the second house
331 is the correct figure - the Speaker plus the three deputies are equally split from the government and opposition parties so as to not disturb the overall majority. So unless you want to exclude the deputies - in which case it would be 329 C, 237 Lab...
What about the Mixed Member Proportional system? It works well here in New Zealand. It is an integrative system allowing a genuine representation of the population and ensures that Government must be collaborative and inclusive.
You can't just go on votes vs seats. It's all by region, your vote is basically wasted in big cities if you are voting for the favored candidate. Here I the USA it works bc if it was just plainly popular vote it would basically be up to our 10 largest cities which are almost always guaranteed to go liberal
The actual main reason for why UK elections are so unrepresentative when comparing votes to winners is the lack of a runoff. If, in the case of a result in which all contending parties got less than 50% of the votes plus 1, the two leading parties held a second consecutive election only between them, then the results would be more representative, and the "single representative per constituency" principle would remain. The UK doesn't need a proportional system (in fact, many suggest it would be a disaster without other several reforms), they just need a runoff to ensure that whoever wins won with the majority of votes.
Maybe the German voting system is interesting for you because it combines local representatives with a representative parliament witout the two solutions you a refering to.
The problem with proportional representation (Germany's system) is you get a load of coalitions. No single party can win. If this were implemented in the UK, neither Labour or the Conservatives would have a majority of the seats without merging with UKIP or the SNP.
I am from Germany and in my opinion this is voting system is the worst in the world. In germany all people have two votes. The virst vote for the local representative and the second for the whole party. The first vote is the same as in the UK, but the second more important: When a party reaches at least 5%, they will get seats in the parliament depending in the percentage. Then it is unimportant, if they won any constituancy.
As bad as the American electoral college is, we could modify it into a proportional system. So instead of each constituency voting, vote as one of the 9 regions (plus Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Each 100,000 voters represent one MP bound to his party's electoral vote. So here's how it works: Greater London has 8.6 million people, and they therefore get 86 MPs. But unlike in America, where one party wins ALL the delegates, we should divide it up by population. In London, Labour got 43.7% of the vote, therefore they get 43.7% of the MPs (38). Tories get 30, UKIP get 7, Libdems get 6, Greens get 4, and so on, until you hand out all 86. Under this system, the parliament in total would have about a 3 point misrepresentation error (down from 47).
No mention of MMP (Multi Member Parliament) which is a great system they use in other countries such as New Zealand and in Scotland and Wales for their national elections
This is how Abraham Lincoln won presidency in the United States in 1860. And this is also what the United States would look like if we had 8 parties winning seats.
This doesn't really represent any of the countries outwith England, as they have different populations, do have their own parliament outwith UK [English] Parliament, only have devolved control and have different voting systems like the AMS in Scotland. SNP's 56 seats may seem like a lot, but given the AMS system which is more democratic, and the difference in population and different country, it does work out.
Tories-UKIP-LD is the most plausible I think. No way a Green party aligns itself with the Conservatives. I didn't realise that UKIP and the Tories wouldn't have the requisite votes together.
A system similar to the American one, where states that each have different political issues that concern them, and each with different economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal statuses, would be best. Proportional Representation in theory sounds great, but in reality only listens to the people who are in the highest population centres.
Joshuapooleanox No. We should have a system where constituencies more accurately reflect their representation of their socio-economic status. It tends to be that people in the city have more money, and therefore follows that politicians only need listen to people with power and money to get elected.
Not sure why some of UKIP are getting annoyed at the FPTP system, they got what they wanted without winning seats, that being an EU referendum from the PM.
I was expecting an expose of the reasons why the Conservatives won rather than a critique of the electoral system. I totally agree with the point made elsewhere that disavows the idea that somehow you can only be represented by an MP of your own choosing. MP's specifically are required to represent all constituents. Furthermore no candidates win by default, they win by getting the most votes in their area. Can you imagine a proportional system in the 2019 General Election? Good grief, we would still be arguing Brexit even now. Our present system allows for one thing, the house to be swept clean. Errant individuals and administrations, even errant opposition, can be kicked out and royally so. Michael Portillo ( and the Tories in general) got a terrific beasting in1997. The Lib Dems got theirs in 2015 and Labour got theirs in 2019. No cost party lists to hide the apparatchiks or unpopular. Our system may seem a little odd but I support it.
The spoiler effect did benefit Labour more than the Conservatives though, since UKIP split the right wing vote. The Conservative majority would actually be slightly larger under AV.
Scotland played King Maker and had a huge part in having Tories in power by voting SNP and not Labour...as a collective the country can now pander to the will of the Scottish people because our votes are essentially more valuable than other parts of the country (similar to swing states in the US like Florida.
I favor the German system, where you have locally elected representatives, and still get a parliament that represent overall votes.
yvranx The German system sucks! Look at how many people still go vote: barely 50 %! Why? Because it doesn´t matter who you vote for! They all do the same shit!
kirafan68
Voter Turnout in the last general election, Germany: 71.5 %, USA 58.2 %, UK 66.1 %. Looks like the German systems works fine.
you still have Belgium where it is your duty to vote not your right
Germanys system is still horribly undemocratic. You elect some persons and partys who promise you more education and healthcare and tax cuts and you end up with the same rotten liars every time. Direct democracy works and with the internet there is no administrative problem anymore, watch Switzerland.
Except that there are a few fundamental problems with direct democracy.
1.
Not all the referendums can be boiled down to a simple ''yes'' or ''no''.
2.
Not every person is as knowledgeable
The Internet might take away administrative problems, but it will bring security problems. Nobody wants there election results getting altered because it got hacked.
Also Switzerland is a semi-direct democracy.
Just some short points. Direct democracy might work fine on a local level, but on the national I see more downsides than upsides.
I don't like ukip, but I don't think its fair they got so few seats
How isn't it? They had large support from a large area, whereas the SNP, for example, had a large support from a small area. In regional representation you need to have the most regions, I think the AV vote should be done but other than that keep the system the same.
Ronald Hapchwarae the people who voted UKIP made up a significant part of the Electorate but were completely ignored.
@Jake L its not about what's best for the country, it's about how the views of the people are represented in parliament. Yes UKIP are a shit party, and part of their popularity in 2015 was due to voters unwilling to vote for labour or the conservatives, much rather like the referendum itself, and voting as a protest against the government.
However they were the 3rd largest party in England by vote, but only got 1 seat. That is simply unfair, regardless of ones opinion about the party.
@@RonaldHapchwarae You can have regional representation and a more proportional system, they're not mutually exclusive. STV is an example of a system that both has local representation and is proportional(ish).
I love UKIP
Yet we rejected the Alternative Vote in 2011 and this is the result. To be honest I would like to see STV used instead.
And it's that attitude that meant AV was rejected, as I see it. Most people I have spoken to didn't actually want AV, they wanted AV+, PR, STV or some variant on those, or something else entirely. To me at the time, voting to change to AV wasn't really a step in the "right" direction it was just the smallest change that the current establishment would entertain.
I think there are plenty of people who want to change to a new system, but until there is a proper consensus on what that system should be, we have to stick with what we have. Sure FPTP has its flaws but, for me, I like the fact that I have ONE person who I can call to account when they vote in national issues as well as local issues, and I like the simplicity in the way that they are elected to the constituency (most votes wins).
I would also very much like to see an official "vote for none" option, but that's a different matter for another day.
Would you prefer our nation end up like Italy? A bickering parliament of 300+ members that can't pass anything due to the overdiversity of political beliefs and lack of agreement?
@@hellboy6507 What's the difference? 650 seats and nobody agrees in anything and a slim technical majority bosses over everyone else?
@@magnusbruce4051 AV would have been a big step in the right direction, because at the very least it would fix the spoiler effect and eliminate the need for tactical voting.
It's not perfect, but it's still leaps and bounds better than FPTP.
I don't know if I praise your animation enough. Amazing work!
All this is irrelevant as all parties have similar policies and will always follow the money. Politics as it stands now is just a self serving dinasoar that simply do what the money tell them to do, ie banks and big business. When people vote they just give it some form of legitimacy
Agreed.
+The Critic's Review i disagree ok our economy is better with the tories only because they have cut all of our services but it like someone winner the lotto only to give it away he should put all the money back in the uk
+Armoured Skeptic AS, you are freaking everywhere. Yet, you haven't been on the Drunken Peasants again.
You're fucking garbage AS.
Didnt expect you here XD
Excellent video.
I'm very impressed by the depth and the presentation style.
It's concise yet detailed at the same time and is very pleasing to the eyes and ears.
I actually prefer this video to CGP Grey's one. I like the channel. Keep up the good work!
A mere foreign onlooker, I enjoyed the last video, so I'm happy to see you follow it up with some wrap-up analysis!
You've made an error at 2:00. You've listed the lib dems having EXACTLY the same amount of votes as UKIP. Pretty sure you didn't mean that.
At 2:12, there is a mistake showing both Lib Dem and UKIP with 3,881099 votes
Tom Dock yeah I was wondering about that.
God these results are so reminiscent of the 2019 Canadian election
I have to say this is the best video I have seen on the subject.
Every other video I have seen has focused entirely on the downsides of FTTP and the upsides of alternative systems, or focused entirely on the upsides of FTTP and the downsides of alternatives.
This seems to be one of the only videos that acknowledges there will be trade offs in every election, and the best system is subjective depending on the which trade offs you're willing to have.
In 2011 we had a referendum costing £75m in which just 32% of the voters wanted to replace First Past the Post with Alternative Vote.
As the turn-out was only 42.2% of the registered electorate, this means that c. 1 person out of 7 registered voters was interested enough to seek a change to AV (and more like 1 in 8 of the electorate if you factor in one 2011 estimate that 6m eligible voters were not registered).
Another vote just seems like a waste of money.
In 2005, the winning Labour party gained more seats (355) than the 2015 conservatives (330) with a smaller percentage of the vote (35.2% - versus 36.9%). You can tell the left of centre, embittered thieving agenda in the accent of the narrator. To give readers some valuable insight, remember 13% voted for UKIP. Looking at the overall vote percentages for all the parties and what the parties stand for, a conservative government was the most just result.
Edit: The worst part of first pass the post is that it can give majority power to a minority, as happened in this election. The conservatives can now rule without having to compromise even if they are only backed by 37% of people. If the system was actually representative of the population the conservatives would have needed to make a coalition with one or more other parties. They would have needed to listen to other parties and come to a compromise. That is how democracy should work, if you can't actually get a majority you should have to compromise with other parties. Today's system kind of pretends that the conservatives have a majority backing them when they really don't.
Easiest way to fix this system is just to scrap the regional representation. But there a way to fix the system and still keep it. By having a number of seats (maybe 1/3 of the total) that aren't linked to regions. These seats gets distributed after the regional seats in a way to even out the distribution to make the final national parliament as closely as the popular vote at possible. This means you will still have religion representation, but if you don't agree your representative (as going by the vote the majority of people don't), your voice is still heard in the government.
Regional representation is a bit stupid in this day and age. A candidate can get to represent a region without having a majority, essentially leaving the majority in that region unrepresented. As in how can I expect this representative to in any way represent me if I voted for someone totally different? Just because we live in the same place doesn't mean that they will care for my concerns. So I would much rather than my representative comes from anywhere in the country, but actually represents the views I voted for.
The current system is just broken, there is no argument here. People living in a region with a strong win for one party, have no way to have their voice heard, there vote simply doesn't count. It also makes parties with a regional focus stronger, as focusing on getting a lot of votes in a few regions gives you seats. While focusing on a national issue getting the same number (or more) votes spread around the country gives you no seats just because you are spread out.
ybra You're last point seems to be what happened to UKIP. I haven't researched the situation enough to know if I agree with them or not, but the difference between the popular vote for them and the single seat they won seems really undemocratic to me.
Ruzhong X. I'm not British either, so I'm not up on the specifics of the politics. But it does seem like the system is broken when one party can get 12% and only get 1 seat, and another gets about 3 times the votes but 330 seats. Most of all I find it problematic than a party with only 37% of the vote can now rule unopposed for the next term. While 63% of the country have no say in the laws passed.
ybra I'm not disagreeing with what you have said, but it wasn't just this election where majority power was given to a minority. You have to go back to the 1950s to find a government that got close to 50% of the popular vote (Anthony Eden with 49.7%). The economist has an excellent visualisation of the over (and under representation of parties since 1997:
www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/05/britain-s-election-2015-seats-votes-calculator
Interestingly, Labour have been the biggest winners from FPTP.
Year - Party - Seats / vote*
1987 Tory 1.38
1992 Tory 1.23
1997 Labour 1.47
2001 Labour 1.54
2005 Labour 1.56
2010 Tory 1.30
2015 Tory 1.38
* For example, in 1992 the Tories won 52% of seats (336/651) with only 42% of the vote -> 52 / 42 = 1.23
oobayly Yes, but there doesn't need to be a 50% party to have a working government. If one party can't get 50% on their own they have to enter a coalition with some other party. And this will result in the 2 (or more) parties having to compromise on some questions. Which is good, as clearly a party that isn't backed by a majority should have free reign to do whatever they want.
Look at the Nordic countries for example. There haven't been a 50% party in ages. But rather the parties with similar politics form coalitions.
ybra Again, I'm not disagreeing with you at all - some of Ireland's (where PR is used, and where I grew up) most successful governments have been coalitions. I was disappointed to see the drubbing that the LibDems received (though not surprised) as I felt that a continuation of the coalition in the UK was the best option. They kept the Tories "honest" for the last five years, and now we've lost that - as conservative (with a small C) as I am, I was not happy to see a Tory majority.
My point about the percentages was more that I was getting annoyed at seeing claims that the past two governments weren't "legitimate" as they didn't have a popular majority, whilst conveniently ignoring that Labour's governments were even less representative of the popular vote.
I would like to see a similar setup to Ireland - where we have fewer larger constituencies with multiple MPs and a full PR system. The problem is that three main parties (Tory, Labour & SNP) are all benefiting from FPTP and their supporters won't want to see a system that reduces that stranglehold. There was also the disgusting amount of FUD and lies (AV will mean people will have to vote for BNP candidates) during the run-up to the AV referendum in 2010, and this will happen in future votes.
very pleased with the amount of research, the fluidity and quality of the presentation, and the conciseness of the video!
One small effect that you didn't mention was the comfort with which an MP takes their seat, if they get a majority of votes in their constituency or close to a majority, they feel secure in their seat and may be emboldened to vote in the way that their party wants more often, but if they get just a few more votes than the opposing candidate then they may feel less secure in their seat for next election and be more wary of that when voting in parliament.
This is very confusing to look at since the party colours are all mixed up.
Hi.. interesting vid. Here in Scotland for the Scottish National Elections, we have a combined system for voting, we get 2 votes: 1. primary vote for the seat of the MSP and 2. secondary vote for proportional representation. .. I vote SNP with my primary vote, and either SNP or Green* with my secondary, what this means is I can vote for both a major party and a minor one, being represented twice. It's a fair, equitable system, that ignores no-one. ..and If you didn't know about this system, im glad to inform you of it!
have a great day :)
*(I have in the early days voted SSP, just because of Tommy Sheridan, I rem the stories about him fighting the poll tax in the 90's ..better days)
I wouldn't discount too quickly the Additional Member System, used in the Scottish Parliament Elections, where you cast a regular FPTP vote to represent your constituency and a PR vote for a party. The party votes within a region are tallied up and representatives are drawn from a regional 'list' in proportions to reflect votes cast.
One thing people keep forgetting is that the SNP had a lot less candidates. If it was proportionate than they both should also have the same number of candidates. So the SNP had approximately 60 candidates compared to UKIP 600, but only got 4 times less; thus SNP got it proportionately.
7:57 I'm not sure that it follows that Conservatives are over-represented almost entirely by this 'spoiler effect'. You threw away approximately 100 of the analysis seats where other partys would have benefited (I'm assuming split Labour/Scot Nats) as winners from the same effect and did not attribute so the viewer is invited to guess. I suppose you can argue the dicussion is about being governed rather than being represented. But representation is the basis of government and the only reason for having elections and not just sticking with heredity.
I like how representation based on _geographical_ constituency is assumed to be a good or necessary or essential aspect of any modern democracy, but did the Greeks have consituencies? Up until 1950 universities elected their own MPs (and did so by 'PR' I believe) Certainly geography is convenient to use when it suits to argue against larger multi-member constituencies - and thus to argue that going proportional is 'too hard'- but now we've go the internet you see.
Pauls SecondChannel Good criticism. Perhaps I should have properly explained the core assumptions I made when analyzing the election data.
The reason I didn't perform the same analysis on those excluded 104 constituencies - aside from the insane amount of time it would have taken - is due to the reasonable assumption that all votes not cast for the governing Conservative Party were cast in opposition to the governance of the Conservative Party. This is an assumption about the motivations of voters, which hypothesizes that voters in those 104 excluded constituencies are unlikely to have selected the Conservative Party as their 2nd preference vote.
I consider this assumption reasonable because (1) data from the national popular vote has seen no change in popular support for the Conservative Party; and (2) huge losses by the Liberal Democrats to UKIP - which are two ideologically divergent parties - share the common denominator of opposition to the governing party. If UKIP didn't seem so viable to voters, the Liberal Democrats would likely have held their ground in Parliament. If neither of these 3rd parties seemed viable, it's probable that Labour would have made substantial gains, perhaps even winning a majority.
It all depends on _why_ people are voting and how their behaviour would change if they thought their vote was for a candidate that couldn't win. Historical election data certainly suggests that the conservative vote is a slight minority in the UK (~40%), but that the liberal vote is frequently cut in half by multiple left wing and centrist parties which each compete against a single unified conservative vote.
A more nuanced analysis of the election which attempts to quantify some of my - I maintain - reasonable assumptions would be very interesting to look at. Most punditry, however, is concerned with trying to model future election outcomes rather than critically examining the failings of the current system.
Why isn't it possible that if the third parties weren't considered viable, their voters would have defected to the Conservatives? You assume that everyone who didn't vote conservative would have preferred Labour over the Conservatives (as they are the other major party), which is quite a claim to make.
raptokvortex A lot of people do switch over like that, especially during the New Labour years when they drew in a lot of conservative voters, or during the Thatcher period where a surprising amount of more left leaning people went right because they promised self-advancement.
When there's two parties, and one party isn't doing what you want, you do vote for the other. that's what makes the system so scummy.
My country is certainly an example of the pitfall of a strictly two party system you mention toward the end of your video. What is supposed to be the "liberal" party has been for the last 25 years pursuing a "run to the center" policy while what is supposed to be the "conservative" party has also been running to the right in order to "fire up the base". The Overton Window effect has caused this elusive "center" in America to ever shift rightward. Consequently, today we have liberals in America virtually disenfranchised as each election we often have to choose between the conservative Democrat and the radical right wing Republican. If we don't vote or vote 3rd party, the radical Republican wins, as happened in 2010 and 2014. If we do vote for the conservative Democrat, it validates their party's strategy that liberal voters have no where else to go and so we can be ignored. Taking back our party is the current challenge facing progressive Americans, climbing out of a pit which I'm sure progressives elsewhere would like to avoid.
DeistPaladin
On the USA:
You are mistaken in your claim that the "center" has been shifting rightward.
In actuality, the opinionated-center is dissolving into more right-wing and more left-wing groups.
However, you are right in saying that the coalition of left-wing non-activists and radicals known as the Democratic party has been targeting "the center."
They just haven't been doing it by changing their policy. They've been doing it by controlling the majority of media and education and thereby making the national average more and more "progressive."
(Conservatives hold their ground by creating alternative media "strongholds" that are just as biased, simply in the opposite direction. This further contributes to the national split.)
To recap:
Democrats are more "progressive" than ever (in recent history, that is).
The compromised-center is dissolving, splitting into more radicalized extremes.
The country is on average becoming more. progressive," not less.
Joel Duggins What alternate reality are you living in and how can I move there?
Anyone still clinging to the idea that our corporate American media is controlled by the Democrat Party, much less by progressives, should have been disabused of this delusion during the W Bush administration when our media turned into a bunch of shameless cheerleaders for the Iraq War and then swept it under the rug after it became clear we'd been lied into it. Any American citizen who wants to know what's really going on in the world must turn to the BBC and other foreign sources.
Furthermore, it has become painfully clear that there are two standards for journalists in our media in the US, depending on whether you are perceived as liberal or conservative. If you are liberal or running a story favorable to liberals, you are skating on thin ice. Your career hangs by a thread. One mistake and you are fired, gone, canned, sacked, never to be seen on air again. If you are a conservative or run a story favorable to conservatives, there is no way to get fired, no matter how many mistakes you make. At worst, you will be taken off air for 30 days or so before you're back again. See Dan Rather and Laura Logan for an example of this contrast.
As for the Democrat Party, are you on drugs or do you, like most American conservatives, think history began in 2009? The Democrat Party is now more progressive than under Franklin D Roosevelt? More progressive now than under Lyndon Banes Johnson?
In actuality, and by this word I mean the actual actuality and not the imaginary land of Fox Noise, President Obama is an Eisenhower conservative, not a liberal. Warren is a liberal, not a radical. Republicans are just batshit crazy. We can't even call them "fascists" without insulting fascists. At least fascists could govern. The GOP is so nuts that all they can do is sabotage.
The very fact that I'm having to argue recent history, some of which happened within nearly everyone's memory, shows just how detached from reality the GOP has become. I'm observed that American conservatives are doing well to remember what happened last year, never mind during the last administration. This goes to support my original point of how the two party system can catastrophically fail.
To my friends across the pond, please don't let this happen to you.
DeistPaladin The Bush administration prosecuted several fortune 500, banking, and investment fraudsters. Under Obama - zero. Bush administration held regular press briefings. Under Obama - hardly any.
Steve Nichols The Obama Administration has settled numerous lawsuits against large banks. I also don't know what you are talking about press briefings. I am pretty sure the Obama administration has at least one a day.
jeeshadow1 Just not with the president himself.
I know what you're thinking. C'mon 10,000 c'mon 10,000.
Also, can we please nail this silly idea that a voter can only be represented by someone he voted for? It's absurd.
Why not have a tournament-style election where only two candidates are voted on at a round leaving the loser eliminated, but everybody gets to cast a vote for their favorite candidate of each round?
So if you voted green but lost, you still get to vote for purple or whatever in the next round and your vote is not wasted.
Or have a promotional representation and your vote will be counted as each percentage votes. Meaning it is well represented.
daro2096 don't know.
@daro2096 No. AV keeps single-member constituencies but instead of just voting for 1 candidate you rank them in order of preference. It keeps most problems that FPTP has but eliminates the spoiler effect.
Honestly, UKIP and Lib Dems would have joined a Conservative Coalition.
They said never again after their coalition with the Tories.
Why are UKIP's and LD's percentages of the vote different if according to the table, they got the exact same number of votes? Is this a mistake? 1:49
I live in 'Murca.
How does this effect me?
thebatmanover9000 It's the reason why we only have Democrats and Republicans and why a third party will never gain any real traction. That's one of the biggest overlaps anyway.
Owen4004 Libertarians have one senator
Excelent. And CGP's videos are a masterpiece as well
Excellent video! Very well produced and interesting.
Do make more of these, they're wonderful.
At 2:00 you showed the liberal/yellow party having the same amount of people as the purple, but different percentages. Or am i missing something?
Good spot, it's a typo, lib dems got 2.4m votes
+Jacob Bannier shouid not have gone with torys then
Another possible system would be something similar to what they have in Germany, where they have a first-past-the-post system to elect constituent MPs, then assign additional MPs from party lists using the d'hondt method taking into account the seats already assigned to bring it closer to a proportional share of MPs, until it's proportional within a certain margin of error or it's reached a certain quota of MPs.
Why doesn't the UK switch to (full) Preferential Voting?
In my opinion, the First Past the Post system is an awful method of voting for a country that had 7 party leaders in the debates. We simply need a better system to better rerpesent all parties competing accross the political spectrum.
As a kiwi i feel offended that you did not include MMP
I have no clue, i voted ACT. I like there idea on free market zone in Christchurch. I live in Sweden now though, where i vote for the liberal party. Are you also a libertarian?
Cool! Same with me and communist politics haha
Singapore has first past the post which seems to work as there are usually only 2 candidates her constituency and the opposition parties tend to decide beforehand which seats to contest. So the elected MP always gets a majority.
As CCHQ, this of course peaked my interest when it was suggested to me. It was a very well put together video, however aside from explaining first past the post, you should have explained the campaigns too. Aside from our campaign being ran by strategist Lynton Crosby to win specific seats, far superior to David Axelrod (I should give an example of when I was outside a constituency count on election night and a Labour volunteer told me that they canvassed all constituents without targeting specific voters - whereas the Tories targeted waiverers and UKIP supporters; a database we'd spent the past 5 years building whereas Labour's campaign only kicked in come 2014).
Next is the wedge strategy, otherwise known as "divide and conquer". Pollsters were confused as to how we managed to increase our share of the vote in our target seats despite huge percentage rises for UKIP. This was due to moving the idea of a Labour/SNP coalition to the forefront of people's minds to gain traditionally left-wing voters.
The Lib Dems collapsed to the extent only we predicted, I said they would win under 10 seats since 2013. The majority of their seats were formerly Tory and reverted to their traditional representation.
Lastly, a campaign isn't won on a negative campaign. You can throw the odd "dead cat" on the table, but when the Labour Party makes its main policy not privatising the NHS and the more astute people are aware it's a myth that we ever would, its never going to work; especially not against a solid platform of economic plans for the future which is a far more positive message.
(There is a lot more that won us the election, the blatantly obvious aspects such as the Labour leadership, however the former points are not ones people often care to mention.)
Really brilliant summing up of a complex election!
It's true that there are several issues with FPTP but there are also issues with PR.
A pure PR system will (thankfully) never happen in the UK. I'm in favour of a 'List' system like we have in Scotland. Reduce the number of constituency MPs and introduce multi candidate Regional constituencies. The system will not be entirely representative but it will ensure that smaller parties with a significant share of the vote return a larger number of MPs.
A very pedantic correction: 02:18 - Bercow, the Speaker, is not a member of the Conservative Party: all Speakers must renounce any affinity to political parties on assumption of the office. This message is approved by Hairsplitters Ltd.
Awesome editing.
Subscribed
Has everyone forgot what happened 10 years earlier? Labour majority: 66 seats (55.1% of total), vote share: 35.2%!
Conservatives won fair & square.
+0954jamesa1
Yes, but when Conservative governments win anywhere you'll always get the left screaming and blubbering about how "unfair" the system is. Until their side gets into power under the same system. Then it's called democracy.
I was hoping you would have ended the bit about Alternative Vote (aka IRV) and STV by saying "both of which are currently in use in Australia".
We use IRV for the House of Representatives, with 150 seats to fill, and STV with the Senate, with 76 seats to fill (12 from each state and 2 per territory). Unfortunately, the Senate papers end up resembling small tablecloths as a result. It's not uncommon to have 100 candidates on the Senate paper.
I think the ERS actually predicted that (usually) the Tories would have done better under IRV (AKA AV) this time around, the spoiler effect didn't help them.
I like the video, but there's an error. At 2:00, the figure for Liberal Democrat votes is the same as for UKIP.
Annotations aren't working yet :(
This is the best video I have seen on the subject, ever.
I'm from Greece and even though we use a more proportional system, it's even worse than the one in the UK. First party gets a 50-seat bonus. And so in many regions, there are MPs elected which have far less votes than candidates who were not elected.
I believe the ideal system is a combination of first-past-the post and proportional. You allocate a number of seats with the current system and then you allocate the rest of the seats with proportional representation. The elected candidates come from party list in which voters choose their preferred candidate. The election threshold could be set at 5% of the vote
Let's say that the number of constituencies in the UK is reduced to 450 and another 200 seats are allocated with the proportional system. You can also split the 200 seats to English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish ones. So Scotland which has 8% of the UK's population could get 16 out of 200 seats. With SNP getting 50% of the vote there, they would have elected at least 8 MPs. But also Labour, Tories and LibDems would have more Scottish MPs.
+DarthFederer0000 how do you have good English then
+Baji Scipio Dārayav Aurelius “Hemu Rawal Domitian” Julian Venizelos Nalwa I don't understand your question, sorry.
DarthFederer0000 your english
any new videos?
Very nicely done! Keep the good work!
excellent summary and explanation
Looking at the screen about 3min into the video, it seems that if we want proportionality (and I certainly do) what we need is multiple members representing each constituency. As such, why do you only mention AV and STV as viable alternatives, what's wrong with the Additional Member system used in Wales and Scotland? In fact, without additional members, AV on its own is not proportional.
How does gerrymandering fit into the results? How are the districts created? How often are districts redrawn? Thanks for the interesting video.
Didn't the UK settle the electoral reform issue in 2011?
The first eight and a half minutes of this video was excellent. The ending was very seriously flawed.
Most of the video provided an effective, reasonably fair, and very well explained description of how First Past the Post works and its' strengths and weaknesses. The problem with the video is that it did not really go into the issues with other systems. I was quite astonished when at the very end the video suggested Alternative Vote as a possible solution without even mentioning that 1) AV is NOT a proportional system and in some circumstances can produce even more skewed results than FPTP, or that 2) The UK actually had a referendum on the possibility of changing to AV less than five years ago, and the electorate overwhelmingly rejected the idea.
Point and case: When you have poor representation on a local level, you are guaranteed to have poor representation on a National level.
If the UK wants to retain a similar election process, but make the vote proportional on the local level, then one solution could be to still vote for different candidates from different parties locally, but with the difference being that the vote is proportional on a county by county basis. To start off, Each county would be able to designate a number of legislate seats relative to its population size. During the election process, If a candidate, or a 'team' of people get say 36% of the votes, they would be able to designate as close to 36% seats that single county can provide for office. The seats they designate do not necessarily have to be someone from their own party, and in fact they do not necessarily 'have' to be in a party to get elected - just as long as they get enough votes to designate a seat, which if they are a troll party, is unlikely. Combine this system with the Alternative vote system, and you will be set pretty well. Yes - this system would require more legislative seats than the UK already uses.
I used to be a fan of two round voting. The problem with that is that it still has the problem of two main parties getting everything while the smaller ones get knocked out.
Alternative voting is a better system because it allows people who dislike both main parties to swap votes to other small parties, possible even enough to actually have a chance.
I don't like PR because I believe MPs should represent their constituencies first and that people should be voting for the person not just the party tag.. With PR you vote for the party not the person. Who decides which person from the party actually gets a seat? Who decides which seat? You also still get the situation of people 'elected' to a seat even though the majority in the district voted for someone else just because people in other constituencies also voted for that party.
Scarletpooky You could have a mixed party-list proportional representation and FPTP, where a proportion of the seats are constituency seats, and the proportional representation fills up the remainder of the seats, so that the share of the seats is more proportional than a system using only FPTP. This system is used for elections for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, and is used in Germany for elections to their parliament. As for the part about not being able to decide which candidate gets the seat in a party list system, you don't have to use closed list, as they do in elections with PR in the UK. You could use open-list, where you get to select the order in which the candidates get elected in the party list, and the order will be decided using a system like single transferrable vote.
I think MMP (mixed-member proportional representation) would be a better solution. Basically top-up members based on proportionality after the plurality votes from FPTP have been taken. That is what they have in Germany.
Is this ideal model of voting the method we have in Australia: proportional voting, tied with legally compulsory voting?
Its also worth nothing that while the Conservative win in 2015 kicked up a massive stink over unrepresentative government, the same effect gained Labour a large majority in 2005 despite having only 1/3 of the vote (35.2%, less than the Conservatives won on in 2015). As well as to a less effect in 2001 and 1997 (40.7% and 43.2% of the vote respectively).
Only a handful of the UK's government since WWII have been elected on a genuine votes cast majority. The only reason it was such a big deal this time was that Labour supports, so certain of their victory, patting themselves on the back on social media sites were dismayed that in-fact, people didnt agree with them.
I believe that people don't really care about regional representation as much as they did in the past. The larger-scale issues of the whole nation are becoming more important than local ones, especially with younger people, to an extent where a more proportional system would be more suited for Parliament
The uk should adopt a similar system to what scotland has for hollyrood elections where there are a certain number of seats as well as regions that elect 6msp's per region based on vote percentage. It a mixture of both first past the post and proportional representation.
Thig ar Latha 96 I was wondering why he didn't mention that (it's called the Additional Member System). It seems to work well in Scotland and can even lead to stable majority governments (to Labour's annoyance).
There's also Mixed-Member Proportional representation which is used by Germany, but that seems to be unfavourable towards smaller parties. They have a threshold of 5% of the vote to gain seats via the party list, which led to one party losing all of its 96 seats when their share of the vote fell to 4.8%. I think it would also require the establishment of a federal system (but that's something I would be very happy to see).
Tom McGrath the voting system needs to be changed as this election showed. Im an snp supporter but i dont think its fair that snp got 56 seat while ukip and greens got only 1 and yet had many times the votes as the snp did.
Thig ar Latha 96 Yes, it does, though I imagine that's unlikely to happen in this Parliament. Most Tories will probably be against voting reform as will a substantial portion of Labour.
Tom McGrath it should be up to the people not the politicians
Thig ar Latha 96 this is exactly what i've been talking about for months. i find it a little ironic that Labour don't support a PR system in UK elections even though they implemented it in Scotland
At some point in the future, is it conceivable to have all votes be digitized such that information is at the fingertips in regards to all issues, and individual votes count toward the whole instead of simply the local/represent?
Also it would be nice if there was a 1 to 5 rating for each instead. ^-^;
The idea of local representatives made sense at a time. But in today's modern world, we no longer vote for our local electoral district, but for our country. The idea of local representatives just doesn't make sense anymore.
People complaining about the 'unfairness' of the SNP winning 56 seats with 1.45million votes DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT THE SNP ONLY RUN IN SCOTLAND, THEREFORE WINNING 1.45MILLION VOTES IN A NATON OF 5.2MILLION (SCOTLAND) IS EQUIVALENT TO WINNING 14.5MILLION VOTES IN A NATION OF 52MILLION (ENGLAND).
Nothing unfair about it whatsoever.
Secular Scot Its still nowhere close to a majority.
50% of the votes being represented by 5% of seats. Sure sounds fun
Techmage 45 even when the system is set up in such a way to prevent a majority government (like we have in Scotland) the SNP still managed to create a majority government so I guess their support is still large enough whatever the system
This is so much better than CGP Grey.
CGP Grey makes his videos a bit more accessible and less information heavy. Difference in style, better in a sense, worse in another
What about MMP or AV+?
Let's keep in mind here (England) that constituency borders a drawn in favour of the Labour party. Not only that, but politicians on all sides are quite happy with border arrangements as they are because it gives them more of a chance to win their seats even if their party doesn't win the overall election.
Take Nottingham as a perfect example of how local politicians vote to separate their constituencies to save their own jobs.
en.wikipedia.org/?title=Nottingham#/media/File:GreaterNottingham-map.png
Notice that the area outlined in purple is the City of Nottingham. Then take a look at the following map:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Parliamentary_constituencies_in_Nottinghamshire#Results
Notice how the city is surrounded by Conservative councils. This is common in most cities in Britain. That's because local councils like it that way. It's the only way they can fabricate some kind of social borders between the urban, suburban, and rural citizens.
This video seems to ignore that in the 185 "potentially subject to split opposition vote" constituencies, many of the 104 non-Conservative results might have only landed non-Conservative due to a split conservative-ish vote.
After all, it wasn't just the left-wing vote that was split.
This 104 could potentially outweigh the 81, making this video terribly flawed.
(see 7:10 - end of video)
I feel we should introduce a second post system like France. So after the first post, where everyone avoids the 2 party system of labour vs conservative. Then the remaining parties can make a coelition to either the 1st place or 2nd place party. Then the second election campaign begins.
because FPTP is not designed represent the people but to keep the establishment in power
perhaps this should be done in conjunction with a updating of the house of lords? maybe regional seats in the other house and a PR system in the commons? this would give some meaning when voting for the second house
I don't see why they couldn't have the welsh system nationwide. It's an overlay of regional lists with constituency elections.
331 is the correct figure - the Speaker plus the three deputies are equally split from the government and opposition parties so as to not disturb the overall majority. So unless you want to exclude the deputies - in which case it would be 329 C, 237 Lab...
What about the Mixed Member Proportional system? It works well here in New Zealand. It is an integrative system allowing a genuine representation of the population and ensures that Government must be collaborative and inclusive.
You can't just go on votes vs seats. It's all by region, your vote is basically wasted in big cities if you are voting for the favored candidate. Here I the USA it works bc if it was just plainly popular vote it would basically be up to our 10 largest cities which are almost always guaranteed to go liberal
You also forgot the Mixed Member Proportional parliament or Additional member voting system already used in Britian
The actual main reason for why UK elections are so unrepresentative when comparing votes to winners is the lack of a runoff. If, in the case of a result in which all contending parties got less than 50% of the votes plus 1, the two leading parties held a second consecutive election only between them, then the results would be more representative, and the "single representative per constituency" principle would remain. The UK doesn't need a proportional system (in fact, many suggest it would be a disaster without other several reforms), they just need a runoff to ensure that whoever wins won with the majority of votes.
Maybe the German voting system is interesting for you because it combines local representatives with a representative parliament witout the two solutions you a refering to.
What did he use to make this video?
The problem with proportional representation (Germany's system) is you get a load of coalitions. No single party can win. If this were implemented in the UK, neither Labour or the Conservatives would have a majority of the seats without merging with UKIP or the SNP.
I am from Germany and in my opinion this is voting system is the worst in the world. In germany all people have two votes. The virst vote for the local representative and the second for the whole party. The first vote is the same as in the UK, but the second more important: When a party reaches at least 5%, they will get seats in the parliament depending in the percentage. Then it is unimportant, if they won any constituancy.
I like the current system.
As bad as the American electoral college is, we could modify it into a proportional system.
So instead of each constituency voting, vote as one of the 9 regions (plus Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Each 100,000 voters represent one MP bound to his party's electoral vote. So here's how it works:
Greater London has 8.6 million people, and they therefore get 86 MPs. But unlike in America, where one party wins ALL the delegates, we should divide it up by population. In London, Labour got 43.7% of the vote, therefore they get 43.7% of the MPs (38). Tories get 30, UKIP get 7, Libdems get 6, Greens get 4, and so on, until you hand out all 86. Under this system, the parliament in total would have about a 3 point misrepresentation error (down from 47).
I live in New York City and I hate the Electoral College!
Is it now time to change the voting system in the UK
No mention of MMP (Multi Member Parliament) which is a great system they use in other countries such as New Zealand and in Scotland and Wales for their national elections
PR - STV works in Ireland very well. I can't understand why people in the UK accept such an unfair system.
This is how Abraham Lincoln won presidency in the United States in 1860. And this is also what the United States would look like if we had 8 parties winning seats.
This doesn't really represent any of the countries outwith England, as they have different populations, do have their own parliament outwith UK [English] Parliament, only have devolved control and have different voting systems like the AMS in Scotland. SNP's 56 seats may seem like a lot, but given the AMS system which is more democratic, and the difference in population and different country, it does work out.
This is still relevant today
If had been a "fair" election, I am positive that their would have been a coalition between the Tories and UKIP.
Johnnie Walker Well it would have either have been Conservative-UKIP-Green or Labour and every other party (Assuming its the PR system)
Tories-UKIP-LD is the most plausible I think. No way a Green party aligns itself with the Conservatives. I didn't realise that UKIP and the Tories wouldn't have the requisite votes together.
The tory's would have had 240 seats Labour 213 UKIP 83 lib dems 53 SNP 23 Greens 24 if its PR.
A system similar to the American one, where states that each have different political issues that concern them, and each with different economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal statuses, would be best. Proportional Representation in theory sounds great, but in reality only listens to the people who are in the highest population centres.
.. No it just listens to the most people. That's the definition.
Joshuapooleanox Which is where the most people live. But a country is not entirely made up of large urban areas.
So we should add in a few votes for the farmers? To ruin the ability of the people in the city?
Joshuapooleanox No. We should have a system where constituencies more accurately reflect their representation of their socio-economic status. It tends to be that people in the city have more money, and therefore follows that politicians only need listen to people with power and money to get elected.
But then you are limiting the voting rights of the city folk, who are the key economic engines. Why they often limit millionaire taxes.
Things are simple: Not one representative per region and no majority governance.
Not sure why some of UKIP are getting annoyed at the FPTP system, they got what they wanted without winning seats, that being an EU referendum from the PM.
Question, where were the complaints when in 2005 the Labour won a majority of seats in Parliament with only 35% of the vote?
Dario Gagliano His channel probably did not exist in 2005
Why did you colour the Lib Dems as yellow and the SNP as grey, rather than the Lib Dems as Orange and the SNP as yellow?
I was expecting an expose of the reasons why the Conservatives won rather than a critique of the electoral system.
I totally agree with the point made elsewhere that disavows the idea that somehow you can only be represented by an MP of your own choosing. MP's specifically are required to represent all constituents.
Furthermore no candidates win by default, they win by getting the most votes in their area.
Can you imagine a proportional system in the 2019 General Election? Good grief, we would still be arguing Brexit even now.
Our present system allows for one thing, the house to be swept clean. Errant individuals and administrations, even errant opposition, can be kicked out and royally so. Michael Portillo ( and the Tories in general) got a terrific beasting in1997. The Lib Dems got theirs in 2015 and Labour got theirs in 2019. No cost party lists to hide the apparatchiks or unpopular.
Our system may seem a little odd but I support it.
The spoiler effect did benefit Labour more than the Conservatives though, since UKIP split the right wing vote. The Conservative majority would actually be slightly larger under AV.
Scotland played King Maker and had a huge part in having Tories in power by voting SNP and not Labour...as a collective the country can now pander to the will of the Scottish people because our votes are essentially more valuable than other parts of the country (similar to swing states in the US like Florida.