In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
P.G.Hamer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Thom Baguley wrote:
>> Herman Rubin wrote:
>> > The UK has effective disenfrachisement of most of the
>> > members of its Liberal party. Also, the US was definitely
>> > set up NOT to be "democratic"; the British democracy has
>> > greatly eroded the rights the people won in the Bill of
>> > Rights and the Petition of Right. Democracy is two wolves
>> > and a sheep deciding the dinner menu.
>> It is true that minority parties such as the Liberal Democrats (typically
>> 15-25% in polls) are disenfranchised by the first-pass-the-post General
>> election system (5-8% in terms of parliamentary seats). However, this is the
>> same FPTP system in the US elections (excluding the Electoral College) which
>> effectiviely disenfranchises Green, Libertarian, Reform etc voters. In my view
>> both would benefit (in terms of fairness) from a more proprtional system.
>The UK system certainly needs a system that allows greater scope for minority
>parties, as the LibDem experience has shown. Both for their own sake, and
>to prevent them inadvertently swinging an election. [Ralf Nader anybody?]
>Can I express concern about some interpretations of `a more proprtional system'.
>In the UK the pressure for voting reform by single-transferable votes (hard to
>argue against) has been hijacked by the suggestion of proportional representation
>from lists generated by the parties. While giving better representation -- in a
>mathematical sense -- I've not met anybody who thinks it is a good idea. Giving
>more power to the party machines just doesn't seem the right way to go.
The single transferable vote has its problems as well. But
the parties are against it, as it easily could enable someone
outside the major parties to get in or to swing an election,
and could even allow minor parties to build up. If there was
not the danger of votes for minor parties being "wasted", we
might well have had 10% voting for them for President, and
even more for state and local positions.
>Peter
There are problems with just about any scheme. In Indiana, a
popular Congressman lost the recent election for governor.
This means that he is now no longer in any elective office;
he would easily have been reelected if he had run in his
district, but this would not have been legal.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
=================================================================
Instructions for joining and leaving this list and remarks about
the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES are available at
http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/
=================================================================
