First Past the Post Sucks, stop using it

[skywake]

I was looking at the results in Canada because I like looking at how elections run. Then I realise you guys, like a lot of other places, still use first past the post... why? It's a horrible system. Stop using it. And just to make a point of this here are two seats from the last election in Canada and the last one in Australia. In both cases I'd argue that the result that FPTP would have delivered (or did deliver) was not what the voters wanted.

 

 

For the Canadian result you can't really guess what the Two Party Preferred result would have been because they don't have preferential voting. But I think it's fairly safe to assume that the Conservatives would have one that seat. Same deal in Australia. In this particular seat the Greens got 20% of the vote which wasn't enough to be in the race for the seat. Those votes then strongly flowed towards the Labor party, as you'd expect.

 

About 80% of the time the result is the same either way. Purely because under FPTP people vote strategically. But sometimes the result is bull, and ontop of that strategic voting means that you're punished for voting for a minor party. Which is also bullshit. So stop using it

 

/Psephological vent

[thekeemo]

[skywake]

I think it's worth adding an analogy for people who think that FPTP is a good system. You've got a group of people at a party and you want to decide what takeaway you should get. Because you're such a buzzkill instead of getting a bit of everything you decide to do a show of hands on the options. Here are the results:

 

Fish and Chips: 25%

Meatlovers Pizza: 24%
Supreme Pizza: 24%

Hawaiian Pizza: 21%

Chinese: 6%

 

.... Fish and Chips was the most popular option, so you get Fish and Chips. Is that the right choice? Of course it isn't! The vast majority of people wanted some kind of Pizza. There were just more options on the Pizza side of things so the vote was split. It's the same thing with results I posted for the couple of seats earlier.

[Yoinkerman]

That's why I voted liberal, he has promised to change the first past the post precisely because everyone knows how bunk it is. We need some sort of proportional, no first past the post or two party system.

[skywake]

That's why I voted liberal, he has promised to change the first past the post precisely because everyone knows how bunk it is. We need some sort of proportional, no first past the post or two party system.

Well that's good news, interesting that it has become a political issue. It's always to save themselves when they push for (or against) that sort of change. But there's no questioning that preferential voting is orders of magnitude better. It's not proportional, it still tends to result in a "two party system" but the end result is a lot closer to what the voters want.

 

As someone in a country who has preferential voting I often am not even that sure about which party I want to put in the top spot. But that's not the point of it, the real power of preferential voting is in the ability to pick who you don't want to vote for. With FPTP you only get the option to pick one party to support. With preferential voting? You could literally make a vote that was "anyone but the conservatives", and that vote would do precisely that regardless of who you put at #1. That's far more powerful than having to pick and possibly getting it wrong.

[Mug]

I think the issue (at least here in the UK) is that most of the voting electorate vote for the two main parties which both benefit from the FPTP system. If I supported the Conservative Party for example (currently the biggest) then I would do what's in their interests (by campaigning for the FPTP system). There was a referendum held about 5 years ago during the last conservative government which unanimously showed that the British wanted FPTP rather than alternative vote. It's unfortunate but true.

 

So we can't keep having referendums until we get the result that we prefer so we'd better suck it up. It's horribly undemocratic but it's here to stay for a while.

 

We're almost as undemocratic as the Second Reich.

[skywake]

There was a referendum held about 5 years ago during the last conservative government which unanimously showed that the British wanted FPTP rather than alternative vote. It's unfortunate but true

The problem is that it's always in the interest of those elected to maintain the system that elected them. No matter how garbage it is. The problem is that preferential voting gives you the freedom to vote for a minor party without having to worry that your vote is being wasted. And the idea that a minor party might win a seat? That scares the crap out of the major partys.

 

But the reality is a bit more mundane. Of the 150 seats in the last Australian election only 11 were contests that didn't involve the two major partys, most of those were won buy the guys who got the highest primary vote. Of the 11 contests that weren't between the two majors 8 were won by candidates who had the highest primary vote, effectively the same result FPTP would have given. The 3 that weren't? They were all independents who got the 2nd highest primary vote but ended up beating a major party candidate, because the people who voted for other party would rather an independent win.

[dalekphalm]

The problem is that it's always in the interest of those elected to maintain the system that elected them. No matter how garbage it is. The problem is that preferential voting gives you the freedom to vote for a minor party without having to worry that your vote is being wasted. And the idea that a minor party might win a seat? That scares the crap out of the major partys.

 

But the reality is a bit more mundane. Of the 150 seats in the last Australian election only 11 were contests that didn't involve the two major partys, most of those were won buy the guys who got the highest primary vote. Of the 11 contests that weren't between the two majors 8 were won by candidates who had the highest primary vote, effectively the same result FPTP would have given. The 3 that weren't? They were all independents who got the 2nd highest primary vote but ended up beating a major party candidate, because the people who voted for other party would rather an independent win.

Well as you may know, the Canadian Federal Election happened last night. The Liberal Party won a SWEEPING victory, with 184 (out of 334) seats in parliament. This means they will form the next Government, and it will be what we call a "Majority" government (Because the Liberal Party holds more than 50% of seats in parliament).

 

The Liberals (As well as Green Party and NDP - New Democratic Party) support a form of Instant-Run-Off voting.

 

The general idea is that you still vote in each seat in Parliament (Member of Parliament). You rank each candidate in your local riding. So lets say they are like this:

 

John Smith - Liberal

Joe Boe - NDP

Jane Sane - Green

Frown Brown - Conservative

 

Lets say that I want to vote for Conservatives, but I absolutely hate the Liberals and Green Party, and would do anything to prevent them from winning. I would then vote as follows:

 

 

John Smith - Liberal

Joe Boe - NDP - #2

Jane Sane - Green

Frown Brown - Conservative - #1

 

In this case, I've voted for Conservative as my first choice, and NDP as my backup. If Conservatives get eliminated during instant-run-off, my second choice is then tallied as my vote instead.

 

Let's say I'm a leftist/socialist. My vote might look like this instead:

John Smith - Liberal - #2

Joe Boe - NDP - #3

Jane Sane - Green - #1

Frown Brown - Conservative

 

In this scenario, I'm voting for Green Party, but when they get eliminated, my vote then becomes Liberal. If Liberal Candidate wins a clear majority (50%+), then my third choice is ignored. If Liberal is eliminated, then my third choice is counted, etc.

 

The main difference between the system you described, is that in your system, it instantly eliminates all choices except for the top two. With the system I describe, the eliminations happen in stages, to ensure everyone's top preferences are noted.

 

Just as an interesting fact:

This is the break down of the "Popular Vote" (What actual people voted for, hard percentage wise)

 

Party                        Seats Elected     Vote Totals     % of Vote

Liberal                      184                       6,928,514        39.5%

Conservative Party    99                        5,597,565        31.9%

New Democrat           44                        3,460,288        19.7%

Bloc Quebecois         10                        818,652            4.7%

Green Party               1                          605,637            3.5%

 

So the Liberal Party won the most votes and seats. However, they won far less than a clear majority in total votes. This is because of the Member of Parliament electoral system. You aren't voting for the Prime Minister, you're voting for your specific local Candidate. 60.5% of Canadians actually voted against the Liberals. However, if we combine the "left-ist" votes (NDP and Liberal), they would still defeat the conservatives (Right leaning republicans).

 

Anyway, the Liberal Government promises to introduce some form of Instant Run-Off electoral reform while in power. Side-note, they also plan to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana, for those "420 yolo" folk out there.

[skywake]

The main difference between the system you described, is that in your system, it instantly eliminates all choices except for the top two. With the system I describe, the eliminations happen in stages, to ensure everyone's top preferences are noted.

Well no, because what I'm talking about is precisely the same thing. It has been the system for voting in pretty much all Australian elections since the early 1900s. What I was saying was that in practice most seats are still won by the candidate that gets the most votes. From what I can tell in all but one seat at the last Federal Election in Australia the two candidates who were left at the end of the count where the two candidates who had the highest primary vote. It's possible for someone who finished 3rd to win the seat it's just unlikely. Purely because of the maths of it.

 

Take my electorate for example. The guy who ended up winning the seat got 45% of the vote, with a primary vote that high he only needed a small amount of people to preference him to get over 50%. The candidate who finished second got 32% so he would have needed quite a bit more. The third candidate only got 8% of the vote which meant he was far enough back that even getting to 2nd was too much. In the end the conservative candidate won with 55% of voters preferring him over the other candidate left.

 

I'm not saying that the result is always the same as FPTP. I'm just saying that there's not a lot to fear about it given that most of the time it is the same result. It doesn't even have more proportional result so it doesn't fix that problem either. It's really just for the fact that it eliminates the strategic vote that it's a good thing. And because of that people are far more likely to vote for the party they like rather than the party they think will win. And when almost 30% of people are voting for someone other than the major parties? Clearly there are a lot of people who effectively wasted their vote with the election that you just had. That's not a good thing.

[dalekphalm]

Well no, because what I'm talking about is precisely the same thing. It has been the system for voting in pretty much all Australian elections since the early 1900s. What I was saying was that in practice most seats are still won by the candidate that gets the most votes. From what I can tell in all but one seat at the last Federal Election in Australia the two candidates who were left at the end of the count where the two candidates who had the highest primary vote. It's possible for someone who finished 3rd to win the seat it's just unlikely. Purely because of the maths of it.

 

Take my electorate for example. The guy who ended up winning the seat got 45% of the vote, with a primary vote that high he only needed a small amount of people to preference him to get over 50%. The candidate who finished second got 32% so he would have needed quite a bit more. The third candidate only got 8% of the vote which meant he was far enough back that even getting to 2nd was too much. In the end the conservative candidate won with 55% of voters preferring him over the other candidate left.

 

I'm not saying that the result is always the same as FPTP. I'm just saying that there's not a lot to fear about it given that most of the time it is the same result. It doesn't even have more proportional result so it doesn't fix that problem either. It's really just for the fact that it eliminates the strategic vote that it's a good thing. And because of that people are far more likely to vote for the party they like rather than the party they think will win. And when almost 30% of people are voting for someone other than the major parties? Clearly there are a lot of people who effectively wasted their vote with the election that you just had. That's not a good thing.

Thank you for clarifying your post, there was some ambiguity.

 

In Canada, because we have a strong split on the left-side of the political spectrum (Liberal and NDP) vs one single party for the Right-Side (Conservatives), I can certainly foresee many instances where a Conservative Candidate won a riding via FPTP, but would lose via Instant-Run-Off.

 

For example, in the city that my girlfriend lives, the Conservative Candidate won the riding, but only with about 43.5% of the votes. The Liberals came in second place with 39.8% of the votes, and NDP trailing with 10.6% of the votes (With independents taking the remaining).

 

So if those who had voted NDP, had put Liberal as their second choice, via Instant-Run-Off, then the Liberals would have won with a total of 50.4% of the votes.

 

But a third place winning? You are correct, quite unlikely - more likely, the third place candidate may help the second place win, if they are ideologically similar.

[skywake]

There's a quick post about Canadian result by Australia's resident election expert. His conclusion was that about 1 in 10 seats would have had a different result if Canada had preferential voting. It wouldn't have changed the result that much but it would have given people more confidence in the system. You can read it here: http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2015/10/canada-2015-would-preferential-voting-have-made-a-difference.html

 

And you're probably right, because the split in Canada is stronger on the left? You'd assume that the Left would probably benefit the most from it. Which is probably why they're pushing it. The problem with that theory though is that you don't know how people will change their vote if strategic voting disappears. Or who else will emerge. For example in the next Australian election a moderate party named the "Nick Xenophon Team" who have quite a lot of public support. In the last election they ran in the senate in South Australia and the Labor/Liberal/Xen/Green split was 23/27/25/8. You can imagine the chaos if they decided who won the seats for that based on FPTP.

[Deletive]

I like the system you mentioned but I honestly wouldn't bother with a federal election,because we'd get such a messy finish, with high school/university Students hand counting getting payed by the hour, would not get much done by how big out country is and the differences of timezones.

[skywake]

I like the system you mentioned but I honestly wouldn't bother with a federal election,because we'd get such a messy finish, with high school/university Students hand counting getting payed by the hour, would not get much done by how big out country is and the differences of timezones.

Again, speaking about it as an Australian who has followed quite a few elections with preferential voting.

 

1. If anything the result is less messy with preferential voting. Elections are far easier to predict because polling companies only need to ask which of the two major parties you prefer. With FPTP the result can be heavily influenced by how much support minor parties can drag away from the majors. It is a more complicated way to count the votes but it's also closer to what the voters want and easier to predict.

 

2. Your elections are really not that much bigger than ours. The Australian population is a fair bit smaller but we also have compulsory voting. Looking at Wiki your 2011 election had 14.7mill voters, our 2013 election had 12.9mill voters. We have less timezones for sure but I think it's a stretch to say that your elections are that much bigger.

 

3. Yes there is more data entry with preferential voting. However because of the way the system works the vast majority of seats are called pretty early on in the night. It's not like there aren't trends with how people allocate their preferences. For example Greens voters, who are probably the most influential minor party voters, consistently give around 85% of their preferences the Labor party. The seats that aren't declared on the night are usually just because there isn't much between the two majors. Something which also happens with FPTP.

 

.... that said, every now and then it does get "messy". Denison in 2010 for example, when it's a four-party race things get very interesting. Sometimes the third placed candidate can win. But even in cases like that the end result is something more voters can agree on. Which in the end is the entire point of elections. You want representatives that represent the views of the electorate. And in the Denison example, in the next election that independent got 38% of the primary vote, would have won FPTP and got 65% TPP.