Is Britain about to leave the EU?

[Manfred Belheim]

Compared to FPTP? Speaking from experience it's a massive improvement.

Well I disagree and the majority voted against it. The point is moot anyway because the fact that we even had a referendum on it at all was the example of democracy being given to the people, not the outcome of it.

 

[AdrienIer]

We call it preferential voting and use it for our lower house (the Senate is a form of proportional called Single Transferrable Vote, also used in Ireland). Americans call it Instant Runoff.

Basically you number/rank the candidates and if nobody gets a majority of '1' votes, preferences are distributed by eliminating the least popular candidate and distributing by '2' and subsequent preferences, repeatedly until someone has a majority.

Within the bounds of single-member electorates it is strictly superior. Its huge advantage is that it eliminates the need for tactical voting and eliminates the issues with vote-splitting, so everyone just has to vote their honest order of preference, instead of guessing which "lesser evil" they think has the best chance of beating the "greater evil". It also ensures the candidate that wins is the most-preferred by 50%+1 in the electorate and would win any given two-way contest, hence why Americans call it Instant Runoff.

The one flaw of that system is that you can't really verify the vote. In simple paper voting you just count the number of papers saying candidate A, B and C and you can check who got how many votes. In a ranking vote you pretty much have to do it via electronic voting and have no way of checking that no one messed with the vote.
It's not only a question of actually cheating. It's also a problem because our elections are only worth doing when people accept the results without a doubt. If you look at the situation in Austria where the latest presidential election was very close, it's remarkably calm there. That's because everyone believes in the result. The same results in a system with less transparency would end in chaos.

 

[Old Hippy]

I disagree because, when you say "the leave side", you're talking about 17 million unaffiliated people who are only united by the fact they voted the same way in a referendum. There's no accountability amongst this group for any actions performed by some other members of the group, because they're just a bunch of individuals.

I 'm not saying your accountable I'm saying, that a small subset of leave voters were influenced by farages line of endless immigrants and refugees used to make a point in the leave campaign. and you are saying 17 million people have no responsibility for racist incidents that have increased during and since the campaign.
I guess it' s just not important to you as you seem to be saying immigration had no bearing in the vote or attitudes

that's 17 million people that should have spoken up during the campaign, but did not

 

[Arwon]

The one flaw of that system is that you can't really verify the vote. In simple paper voting you just count the number of papers saying candidate A, B and C and you can check who got how many votes. In a ranking vote you pretty much have to do it via electronic voting and have no way of checking that no one messed with the vote.
It's not only a question of actually cheating. It's also a problem because our elections are only worth doing when people accept the results without a doubt. If you look at the situation in Austria where the latest presidential election was very close, it's remarkably calm there. That's because everyone believes in the result. The same results in a system with less transparency would end in chaos.

That's a total non-issue.

There's no electronics in Australian lower house vote counting. Counters just sort the ballots into piles according to which of the two highest-polling candidates is ranked higher. Scrutineers for parties watch every stage of the count. It's pretty easy.

 

[AdrienIer]

That's a total non-issue.

There's no electronics in Australian lower house vote counting. Counters just sort the ballots into piles according to which of the two highest-polling candidates is ranked higher. Scrutineers for parties watch every stage of the count. It's pretty easy.

So you have to wait until the national vote is official, then take the pile belonging to the one with the least national vote and distribute it between the rest of the candidate, and do that all over again until someone has more than 50% of the votes nationally ? That would take forever !

 

[really]

The one flaw of that system is that you can't really verify the vote. In simple paper voting you just count the number of papers saying candidate A, B and C and you can check who got how many votes. In a ranking vote you pretty much have to do it via electronic voting and have no way of checking that no one messed with the vote.
It's not only a question of actually cheating. It's also a problem because our elections are only worth doing when people accept the results without a doubt. If you look at the situation in Austria where the latest presidential election was very close, it's remarkably calm there. That's because everyone believes in the result. The same results in a system with less transparency would end in chaos.

It can all be done on paper with rounds of counting - sort by first preference first - eliminate someone and reallocate their votes - they can be kept in a separate pot if necessary.
All papers are available for scrutiny.

 

[Arwon]

So you have to wait until the national vote is official, then take the pile belonging to the one with the least national vote and distribute it between the rest of the candidate, and do that all over again until someone has more than 50% of the votes nationally ? That would take forever !

No. There's no nationwide office in Westminster constitutional monarchies. The prime minister and government is determined by parliamentary majority.

So that means counts are done for each electorate individually and this is done at each polling place individually. In practice that means nobody is counting more than about 4000 votes.

We get primary votes (1s) counted on the night. In most cases we also get the correct two-party preferred on the night as well, since it's already usually known which two candidates to count. If the Electoral Commission picks the wrong two candidates to count for, then it takes a couple of days to reset... but election watchers can make some strong inferences on primary votes alone.

The result in all but a handful of the closest seats is known by no later than 9pm (within 3 hours of the polls closing), and as such we usually know who won the election by then too unless the parliament is hung.

In principle a nationwide presidential ballot would work the same and be almost as quick.

 

[really]

So you have to wait until the national vote is official, then take the pile belonging to the one with the least national vote and distribute it between the rest of the candidate, and do that all over again until someone has more than 50% of the votes nationally ? That would take forever !

If the single member constituencies are used it could all be done in one go.

It would take longer if multi seat constituencies or national lists were used. Irish counts take days.

 

[Arwon]

If the single member constituencies are used it could all be done in one go.

It would take longer if multi seat constituencies or national lists were used. Irish counts take days.

Yeah our Senate takes like 2 weeks to finalise as well on a nearly identical system. Usually it is 6 senators elected each election for each state, but due to boring constitutional stuff it's all 12 this time with the 1/13 quota working out to around 7%. Gonna be chaos.

 

[bathsheba666]

Well, it is widely accepted that 'the people appear to trust Boris', and Leave was not thought viable until he joined. The wisdom of the people's trust can be judged from the actions and verdict of his close ally Gove today.

 

[Arakhor]

The proposed AV system was stupid ... However, giving us the CHOICE to vote for it did, in and of itself, bring democracy to the people. Albeit on a very small and insignificant issue.

I don't agree that it was stupid, but you did at least engage my comment.

Being rude about the electorate!

Given the results of the May 2015 election and much of the reaction to Brexit, that so-called rudeness is hardly misplaced.

Well, it is widely accepted that 'the people appear to trust Boris', and Leave was not thought viable until he joined. The wisdom of the people's trust can be judged from the actions and verdict of his close ally Gove today.

Maybe he thinks that standing out is actually better for his career than facing the music over his Brexit lies and potentially being the Prime Minister who presides over the destruction of the Union.

 

[Arwon]

Wait so two posh private school pillocks having a fight over the leadership just casually torched the UK economy, set off a torrent of racism, probably broke the union and may well have wrecked the peace treaty in Ulster and now they're both going to just walk away?

 

[Arakhor]

All's fair in the name of "sovereignty", right?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I 'm not saying your accountable I'm saying, that a small subset of leave voters were influenced by farages line of endless immigrants and refugees used to make a point in the leave campaign. and you are saying 17 million people have no responsibility for racist incidents that have increased during and since the campaign.
I guess it' s just not important to you as you seem to be saying immigration had no bearing in the vote or attitudes

that's 17 million people that should have spoken up during the campaign, but did not

I'm sorry but I'm not understanding what you're saying isn't important to me, or what you think the 17 million people should have spoken up about during the campaign.

I can only really speak for myself but I was barely even aware of anything that was said in either campaign as the nonsense that the likes of Cameron or Farage come out with is of very little interest to me.

 

[AdrienIer]

Wait so two posh private school pillocks having a fight over the leadership just casually torched the UK economy, set off a torrent of racism, probably broke the union and may well have wrecked the peace treaty in Ulster and now they're both going to just walk away?

Great summary of the last few months

 

[Arakhor]

I can only really speak for myself but I was barely even aware of anything that was said in either campaign as the nonsense that the likes of Cameron or Farage come out with is of very little interest to me.

Unfortunately, a good chunk of the electorate were not so blessed.

 

[Old Hippy]

I can only really speak for myself but I was barely even aware of anything that was said in either campaign as the nonsense that the likes of Cameron or Farage come out with is of very little interest to me.

why am I not suprised

 

[Kyriakos]

Link to video.

When is the (imo very ignoble) triggered Labour leadership debate-vote going to take place?

I think Corbyn at least is honest. Not sure if he expresses the majority of Labour voters (i don't particularly care about Labour former cabinet members tbh), but he doesn't come across at all like another crook.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I don't agree that it was stupid, but you did at least engage my comment.

I know you don't, but I was reluctant to get into that for fear of derailing the thread. Which unfortunately seems to have happened anyway.

 

[metalhead]

I can only really speak for myself but I was barely even aware of anything that was said in either campaign as the nonsense that the likes of Cameron or Farage come out with is of very little interest to me.

You purposely buried your head in the sand regarding what each side was all about in this vote? Well no wonder you don't want to own the negative consequences to society - you never bothered to figure out what they might be.