Brian The Dog on 22/4/2010 at 14:58
The Lib Dems are the 'cool guys' if you are Stronts :laff:
The main reason the Electoral Commission are not having internet voting is they're worried about fraud - they're still sorting out postal voting after the fiasco last time round (my memory's a bit hazy but there were allegations of dead people voting, some party members helping people fill in the forms, etc). Things like:
- making sure people don't vote twice (relatively easy)
- making sure the person who voted was actually who they say they are (tricky)
- what happens if the voter's internet goes down whilst sending your vote to the relevant people (tricky)
- the need to distinguish between a virus that is casting a vote and a real person (tricky since ISPs usually allocate different addresses for people each time they connect).
etc etc.
I recently met a programmer who said that you are only proficient in a language when you can tell all the flaws in it - E-voting I guess is similar, it sounds good until you study how it would work and then you come across lots of problems. Not saying they're insurmountable, and e-voting should be the way things happen in a century or so, but it ain't going to happen for the next few years.
The main thing they'll have to sort out next Parliament is the way our votes count, since the recent rise in LibDem support has made us all sit up and take note that they could win more votes than Labour but get only 1/3 of Labour's seats :(
SD on 22/4/2010 at 16:20
Quote Posted by Brian The Dog
The main thing they'll have to sort out next Parliament is the way our votes count, since the recent rise in LibDem support has made us all sit up and take note that they could win more votes than Labour but get only 1/3 of Labour's seats :(
You are right, it is a national scandal that the Lib Dems could get 32% of the vote, be the biggest party and wind up with 15% of the seats. Compare with Labour, who got 35% last time and 55% of the seats.
And some people still argue that there is no case for electoral reform? I don't care who you are or who you support, this is a rotten, undemocratic system that relegates two thirds of voters to passive observer status and doesn't give anyone what they voted for.
Who knows, maybe Labour might finally give us that referendum on electoral reform that they promised in their 1997 manifesto!
D'Juhn Keep on 22/4/2010 at 21:22
Abandoned the 2nd debate for the snooker.
Steve Davis 5-2 up against Higgins!
Matthew on 22/4/2010 at 22:51
Cameron came across better in this debate, to me at least, but it was hilarious how desperate he seemed to be the one who said 'change' as often as possible this time around.
Clegg again did very well and honestly continues to impress me more and more.
Brown, I thought, actually performed much better than he has done in the past (Gordon: raise the salary of whoever convinced you to stop spouting statistics), but not well enough I would think.
jay pettitt on 22/4/2010 at 23:42
I think what did it for David Cameron this time is that in the last debate he was trying to articulate Conservative policy, which seems to have gone awol - whereas this time he had something to keep him focused - trying to score points from Clegg.
And forgodsake. Cameron can't possibly believe that he's coming into this election with a manifesto offering the electorate substantial change. Perhaps I'm too cynical - but more likely his campaign advisors are copy-pasting bits out of the Obama campaign - coo, perhaps we should say "change" over and over...
Brown I think did okay again - if we hadn't had a decade of under-performing Labour government I might think he was electable.
The lad Clegg held his own. Last time he made a mark by being personal, and personable. If he'd have repeated the same party trick he might have looked a bit one-trick-poneyish - so I was happy this time around to see him being punchy instead.
Mostly though I'm getting a little bit of election fatigue: the exact same squabbling points being repeated over and over is starting to grind.
Aerothorn on 23/4/2010 at 01:30
Man, I wish I was in Britain to see/experience all of this. Sad, I know.
Seriously though your voting system confuses the hell out of me. The electoral college has pretty serious issues but you don't get disparities like the ones Stronts was quoting.
Matthew on 23/4/2010 at 09:31
jay, I pretty much agree with all of that.
I was very nearly going to vote Conservative & Unionist Future in this election and in the last week or so I considered them as one of my two options along with the Lib Dem-aligned Alliance Party - until one of the big beasts in the Tory Party decided that getting their supporting newspapers to run four front-page Clegg smears on the same day was the best way to win an election. Fuck that noise.
If Peter 'Dark Lord' Mandelson says you've gone a bit too far then you know you've not just gone too far, you've tumbled over the precipice.
SD on 23/4/2010 at 09:38
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
Seriously though your voting system confuses the hell out of me.
It's pretty straightforward, in application at least. The UK is divided up into 646 constituencies, much like the US is divided up into 435 congressional districts, and like congressional elections, it requires a simple majority to win each seat.
With three major parties and any number of minor parties standing, it's extremely common for individual MPs to be elected with 30-35% of the vote in each area.
The discrepancies in seats won versus votes cast come about simply because it's winner takes all. It benefits a party to be very strong in some geographical areas and weak in others rather than moderately strong everywhere. You get nothing for second place, and the Lib Dems are second in a lot of places.
Because the system benefits the two largest parties, there, rather cynically, is no real appetite for implementing a fairer voting system.
Brian The Dog on 23/4/2010 at 10:11
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
Man, I wish I was in Britain to see/experience all of this. Sad, I know.
Seriously though your voting system confuses the hell out of me. The electoral college has pretty serious issues but you don't get disparities like the ones Stronts was quoting.
If you want to see how bizarre things can get, check out the (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8609989.stm) BBC swingometer and try moving the bars (on the left) around to get different situations in the Commons (on the right).
While I'm not a LibDem fanboy like Stronts, I do think it's ludicrous that a party can get 30% of the vote but only 16% of the seats. The Electoral Commission try and keep constituencies roughly equal in size, but they can only do so much.
Quote Posted by SD
Because the system benefits the two largest parties, there, rather cynically, is no real appetite for implementing a fairer voting system.
Although the Lib Dems do get clobbered by this system, the Tories also lose out a bit as well. The real winners are Labour, but since they're unlikely to win a clear majority this time round, you might be able to persuade them (or the Tories if you do a coalition with them) to change the system - the Tories are more likely to change the system, but I'm guessing you're more likely to join a coalition with Labour.
june gloom on 23/4/2010 at 13:24
Quote Posted by SD
You get nothing for second place
To paraphrase my favourite (fictional) asshole lawyer, "election is war, second place is death."
That said, 646 constituencies in an area as small as the UK seems rather ridiculous to me.
