The Politics Thread

[vimhawk]

Romney's so ****ed off

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38037591

Love the quotes in which Trump describes Romney as a choke artist and his presidential bid as the worst ever ... and then proceeded to get less votes than Romney did.

And I continue to be mystified that very few seem to worry that the US electoral system managed to get Trump elected rather than the number of votes. You can absolutely guarantee that if Clinton had "won" the electoral college but lost the "popular vote" (the popular vote shouldn't even be a separate thing!) that Trump would still be raging about the "rigged" election and there would be significantly more protest on the streets.

 

[RobSpur]

Love the quotes in which Trump describes Romney as a choke artist and his presidential bid as the worst ever ... and then proceeded to get less votes than Romney did.

And I continue to be mystified that very few seem to worry that the US electoral system managed to get Trump elected rather than the number of votes. You can absolutely guarantee that if Clinton had "won" the electoral college but lost the "popular vote" (the popular vote shouldn't even be a separate thing!) that Trump would still be raging about the "rigged" election and there would be significantly more protest on the streets.

Still hurting a bit Vim ?

 

[vimhawk]

Still hurting a bit Vim ?

I believe in democracy. I don't happen to think that most countries that claim to be democracies really are, and that most people are not served by the Establishment. Don't you care then?

 

[deedub93]

I believe in democracy. I don't happen to think that most countries that claim to be democracies really are, and that most people are not served by the Establishment. Don't you care then?

Democracy is only supported with an electoral college or constituency system. Without such a system, there will always be more people living in the cities so people who live in the countryside would never be represented.

 

[vimhawk]

Democracy is only supported with an electoral college or constituency system. Without such a system, there will always be more people living in the cities so people who live in the countryside would never be represented.

Sorry I can't agree with that, particularly in a two horse race. There should be no excuse whereby the winner by vote doesn't actually win. The overriding principle should surely be one man one vote. Implicit in that is that each vote counts for the same. In order to represent the countryside, the countryside vote gets more weighting and I cannot accept that any vote should be worth more than any other. Which of course it does in our system too, based on irregularly populated constituencies.

Plus the country / town argument is only one way that we are divided. The government spent a lot of time in recent years in dividing the working from the unemployed, the middle class from the "chavs", the public sector from the private sector, the [whatever group is taking industrial action] from those that are working, the workers from the retired etc etc. Basically everything to divide and rule, and make us forget that the real problem is the 99% against the Establishment. But we are too busy arguing against each other to spot the real villains. But if we try to enforce a strict one man one vote then perhaps we can have more of a say.

Incidentally I'm not arguing that Clinton wasn't part of the Establishment, she was, but that was a special case in order to stop a potential raving loon becoming President.

 

[Spurf]

Sorry I can't agree with that, particularly in a two horse race. There should be no excuse whereby the winner by vote doesn't actually win. The overriding principle should surely be one man one vote. Implicit in that is that each vote counts for the same. In order to represent the countryside, the countryside vote gets more weighting and I cannot accept that any vote should be worth more than any other. Which of course it does in our system too, based on irregularly populated constituencies.

Plus the country / town argument is only one way that we are divided. The government spent a lot of time in recent years in dividing the working from the unemployed, the middle class from the "chavs", the public sector from the private sector, the [whatever group is taking industrial action] from those that are working, the workers from the retired etc etc. Basically everything to divide and rule, and make us forget that the real problem is the 99% against the Establishment. But we are too busy arguing against each other to spot the real villains. But if we try to enforce a strict one man one vote then perhaps we can have more of a say.

Incidentally I'm not arguing that Clinton wasn't part of the Establishment, she was, but that was a special case in order to stop a potential raving loon becoming President.

Both arguments have merit and both have deficiencies. The country votes would be submerged but at the same time the argument that all votes should be equal is valid too. The only solution, it appears to me, is more local democracy and more power to those local authorities. National governments should be responsible for foreign policy and defence and major infrastructure like roads and rail. The rest should be local. To be fair the USA has a system which recognises that, with the power the States have and the UK is begrudingly beginning the proces with devolved parliaments but both need to go much further. Small is beautiful.

 

[NSIS]

It seems to me that in a straight, two horse, winner takes all race, that one person one vote would be the fairest way to go.

After all, it's a straight either or question,

 

[The RDBD]

Both arguments have merit and both have deficiencies. The country votes would be submerged but at the same time the argument that all votes should be equal is valid too. The only solution, it appears to me, is more local democracy and more power to those local authorities. National governments should be responsible for foreign policy and defence and major infrastructure like roads and rail.

You are conflating the electoral process with the operating structure of government.
They are not the same thing.

 

[Spurf]

You are conflating the electoral process with the operating structure of government.
They are not the same thing.

No, I am talking about democracy and the electoral process has a very direct connection to how governments operate, that is surely self evident.

 

[RobSpur]

I can't understand why this empassioned debate didn't take place before the election. Complete mystery.

 

[The RDBD]

No, I am talking about democracy and the electoral process has a very direct connection to how governments operate, that is surely self evident.

Whether a govt operates centrally or distributes operational power is
orthogonal to the voting system used to elect that govt.

 

[Spurf]

Whether a govt operates centrally or distributes operational power is
orthogonal to the voting system used to elect that govt.

The way a government operates is directly connected to it's constituent parts which is directly connected to the way it is elected.
Orthogonal! for goodness sake, such an unnecessary word, you must have been watching too much Barcelona.

 

[deedub93]

Sorry I can't agree with that, particularly in a two horse race. There should be no excuse whereby the winner by vote doesn't actually win. The overriding principle should surely be one man one vote. Implicit in that is that each vote counts for the same. In order to represent the countryside, the countryside vote gets more weighting and I cannot accept that any vote should be worth more than any other. Which of course it does in our system too, based on irregularly populated constituencies.

Plus the country / town argument is only one way that we are divided. The government spent a lot of time in recent years in dividing the working from the unemployed, the middle class from the "chavs", the public sector from the private sector, the [whatever group is taking industrial action] from those that are working, the workers from the retired etc etc. Basically everything to divide and rule, and make us forget that the real problem is the 99% against the Establishment. But we are too busy arguing against each other to spot the real villains. But if we try to enforce a strict one man one vote then perhaps we can have more of a say.

Incidentally I'm not arguing that Clinton wasn't part of the Establishment, she was, but that was a special case in order to stop a potential raving loon becoming President.

We had one man one vote in the Brexit Referendum and people are saying that London, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay in and the system was flawed because the big Brexit vote in the North East swung the referendum. It would be interesting to know how the vote would have gone on a constituancy basis, a fair chance it would have been closer.

The constiuancy systems tries to ensure that each constituancy has an equal number of voters who go on to elect their member who tries to represent all of the people living there, independent of their political views. In each constituancy there is a one man one vote system in place. How can that not be fair? If we went for PR, which is the closest thing to one man one vote nationally, there would be chaos, as in Italian elections. The current system has evolved because it is most practical.

 

[vimhawk]

The constiuancy systems tries to ensure that each constituancy has an equal number of voters who go on to elect their member who tries to represent all of the people living there, independent of their political views. In each constituancy there is a one man one vote system in place. How can that not be fair? If we went for PR, which is the closest thing to one man one vote nationally, there would be chaos, as in Italian elections. The current system has evolved because it is most practical.

If you believe in democracy then you have to accept everything that goes with it. It's not an option for me to accept unfair election results simply because something is practical or will give you a strong government. The constituency system is deeply flawed because most people don't get the MP they voted for. Of course the MP is responsible to all the electorate regardless of how they vote, but it's not the same thing. Many people, including myself, after goodness knows how many votes, have never got the MP they voted for!

The constituency system simply throws up too many anomalies - so much so that you can't really call them anomalies any more! Here's just a few:

> 63.19% of voters did not vote for the current Government, in other words one third of the voters (and a smaller percentage of the electorate) get to impose their policies on the rest of us.
> The Green Party and UKIP polled 5,038,729 votes between them and got 2 MPs. Proportionally, the Conservatives got 147 MPs with that many votes.
> The SNP polled 1,454,436 votes and got 56 MPs (4.74% of the voters). In the previous election the Lib Dems also got 56 MPs but it took them 23.03% of the voters to do it. The SNP got half the votes in Scotland but all but three of the Scottish MPs.
> Labour increased it's vote by nearly 1.5% over the previous election, and lost 26 MPs.
> Conservatives increased their vote by 0.74% but gained 24 MPs.
> The average number of electors per constituency is 71,314. However there are 108,804 electors in the Isle of Wight and 15,938 in the Western Isles. So the Isle of Wight is under represented and the Western Isles is hugely over represented.
> In Brentford the losing Conservative candidate got 24,631 votes, which would have been enough to win in half the constituencies.
> In Knowsley the winning majority was 34,665, so the votes of 34,664 people made no difference.
> In East Ham 40,563 people voted for the winner, in the Western Isles 8,662 people voted for the winner. Both got one MP of course.
> Only a tiny fraction of votes cast actually achieve anything.
.... once the government wins over half the seats then all the votes that were cast in every other constituency don't achieve anything
.... you only need one more vote than the party that comes second in order to win, so that even in the constituencies they did win, every vote over what the second place candidate got (except the one that gives the majority) isn't needed either
... the number of votes that actually elected the current government is 4,082,407 (13.3% of votes cast, 8.8% of the electorate).

 

[The RDBD]

The way a government operates is directly connected to it's constituent parts which is directly connected to the way it is elected.

The "constituent" parts of govt are the "state departments" (treasury, health, defence etc) .
The existence of which are not "connected" to me as a elector of govt
(I do not vote for a treasury dept etc at the ballot box, do you ?? ) .


"Orthogonal! for goodness sake, such an unnecessary word, you must have been watching too much Barcelona."

1. If you prefer "independent" , use that.
2. Is Barcelona some hot-bed of mathematics (from where I know/use the term "orthogonal" ) ??

 

[The RDBD]

We had one man one vote in the Brexit Referendum and people are saying that London, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay in and the system was flawed because the big Brexit vote in the North East swung the referendum. It would be interesting to know how the vote would have gone on a constituancy basis, a fair chance it would have been closer.

The constiuancy systems tries to ensure that each constituancy has an equal number of voters who go on to elect their member who tries to represent all of the people living there, independent of their political views. In each constituancy there is a one man one vote system in place. How can that not be fair?

It is both fair, and honest, when 100% of the electorate vote.
The electoral distribution as you said, is intended to ensure all constituencies have
equal effect.

That nowhere near to 100% of the UK electorate vote, is disgusting to me in a world where
reams have / are / will be persecuted / killed for desiring the opportunity to have that vote.

Voting should be mandatory, and there should be a "none of the above" on the ballot.
Everyone votes for somebody, or nobody. But either way you will get off your arse to
go to the polling booth and officially make your views known.

 

[BobbyD]

It is both fair, and honest, when 100% of the electorate vote.
The electoral distribution as you said, is intended to ensure all constituencies have
equal effect.

That nowhere near to 100% of the UK electorate vote, is disgusting to me in a world where
reams have / are / will be persecuted / killed for desiring the opportunity to have that vote.

Voting should be mandatory, and there should be a "none of the above" on the ballot.
Everyone votes for somebody, or nobody. But either way you will get off your arse to
go to the polling booth and officially make your views known.

Would help if they gave us a day off to do this .

 

[deedub93]

It is both fair, and honest, when 100% of the electorate vote.
The electoral distribution as you said, is intended to ensure all constituencies have
equal effect.

That nowhere near to 100% of the UK electorate vote, is disgusting to me in a world where
reams have / are / will be persecuted / killed for desiring the opportunity to have that vote.

Voting should be mandatory, and there should be a "none of the above" on the ballot.
Everyone votes for somebody, or nobody. But either way you will get off your arse to
go to the polling booth and officially make your views known.

Normally I would be against mandatory voting due to freedom of choice, however, providing 'none of the above' was on the voting form why not? btw, I think 'None of the above' would win every time.

 

[deedub93]

Would help if they gave us a day off to do this .

I have always manage to vote and I am generally in another part of the world. Normally I vote via postal vote but once I had to register at the British Embassy in Eritrea. Following that I got invited to every bloody party/celebration at the Embassy and felt obliged to go. Nice smoked salmon, stilton and champers though on the Queens birthday.

Why do you need a day off? How long does it take you to write a cross?

 

[SpursDisciple]

Should be voting on a Sunday, never understood why it should be on a weekday. I know lots work on a Sunday, but nothing like on a Thursday.