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January 20, 2008
PR means both Clinton and Obama are winners in Nevada
I love this. Thanks to DailyKos for the explanation. Basically, eventhough it looks like Hillary very narrowily edged the popular vote, the way convention delegates are distributed according to a fair weighting system in each county means that Barack has ended up with one more delegate (13-12). So the outcome is a much better reflection of the way votes were cast than a simple winner takes all system. And more than that, it encouraged candidates to compete for voters across all parts of the State, even those less traditionally Democrat areas which tend to be forgotten come the general election.
All this is very apt hours after having returned from the Fabian Societys Conference and done a brisk trade on the MVC stall in our 'Close Elections Globally' pamphlet. Should I be rushing copies to the US now?
Posted by malcolmclark on January 20, 2008
Comments
I clearly need to bone up on the USA electoral system!
In the meantime here is something that has nothing to do with it - an e-mail have sent to Ian Davidson MP.
Dear Mr Davidson,
"We are committed to a REFERENDUM on the voting system for the House of Commons. An independent commission on voting systems will be appointed early to recommend a proportional alternative to the first-past-the-post system."
The above quoted commitment was in the 1997 Labour manifesto but Labour tribal considerations led to its being cynically reneged on. Such a referendum would have been entirely appropriate since it would have been asking the people to decide on a vital subject that is clearly a matter for them, and NOT for those that are elected.(MP's will always tend to hang onto the system under which they personally were elected regardless of how imperfect that system is)
The electorate would have been confronted with a clear understandable choice (assuming the pre-referendum educational process recommended by Jenkins) between the present ramshackle system, which in 2005 excelled itself in giving us a government for which nearly 80% of the electorate did NOT vote, and the AV Plus sytem proposed by Jenkins (I do not favour this system myself - STV is infinitely to be preferred - but it is vastly better than first-past-the-post).
I have headed this e-mail with the title "a strange discrepancy". That discrepancy is the remarkable way that MP's are pressing the government with outraged cries about the disgraceful way they are reneging on the referendum on the EU so called "Constitution" while at the same time never uttering a squeak about the much more appropriate referendum promised in 1997. As well as being cynical this is illogical.
While it is clearly a matter for the people to decide on the way we elect our representatives it is equally clearly a matter for MP's to delve into the intricacies of the latest EU treaty and then to decide how to vote - that's one reason why we have MP's. I do not understand these intricacies and neither do 99% of the populace. They have not read the Treaty and even if they had read it they would probably not understand it.Indeed under the influence of the Murdoch press the referendum would deteriorate into a vote on the EU itself.
Perhaps you could explain this "strange discrepancy". I am writing to you because you appear (from radio interviews) to be a spokesman for the Labour minority who are joining the Tories in pressing for the EU referendum - but at the same time strictly observing the omerta that has descended on the Labour party in the matter of electoral reform and the COMMITMENT to a referendum which was the most hopeful aspect of the 1997 manifesto. (I write all this as a FORMER member of the Labour party who resigned precisely on the issue of the betrayal of our hopes of getting rid of a system which gave us Thatcherism for 18 years, ramming vicious right-wing policies down the throats of the majority, with the support of never more than 32% of the total electorate)
Best wishes
Joe Patterson
Posted by: Joe Patterson at January 21, 2008 11:54 AM
Joe, well said. Where is the Tory and right wing press outrage over this reneged PR referendum?
Posted by: Neil Harding at January 21, 2008 11:33 PM
I suppose 52% of the delegates for a candidate with 45% of the vote (and 48% for a candidate with 51%) is a "better reflection of the way votes were cast than a simple winner takes all system."
But it is not exactly "proportional"!
Folks interested in this might want to check out my tracking of the Republican and Democratic party's delegate allocation and how it tracks (or does not) the popular vote.
Since this comment window makes html mark-up pretty much impossible, I will paste the URLs here:
Posted by: Matthew Shugart at January 22, 2008 01:26 AM
We're democrats and believe in free speech, but we're also committed to civil and rational debate. We reserve the right to delete material posted to our site, but we hope and expect to exercise this right rarely if at all.
