h a l f b a k e r y"It would work, if you can find alternatives to each of the steps involved in this process."
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(I'll use Canada as an example here...)
Keep the current first-past-the post electoral system. Nothing has to be changed on that front. However, keep track of which percentage of the population voted for each party. Then, in the House of Commons, when MPs vote on issue, multiply the votes per party,
to make the result proportional.
For example, say that a government was elected with 50% convervative and 50% liberal MPs. However, 75% of the population voted liberal. (Yes, with first-past-the-post voting, things like that can happen).
When a house vote is held, the votes are counted, and the conservative count is multiplied by 0.5, and the liberal count is multiplied by 1.5. This forces the vote to align with the proportions of the population as a whole.
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What happens if the government is voted with 50% conservative MPs and 50% liberal MPs, on a vote of 33% conservative, 33% liberal and 34% radical-3rd-way? (Yes, with first-past-the-post voting, things like that can happen). |
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Unfortunately, the radical party would need at least one seat in the house for pseudo-proportional voting to work. Otherwise in your example, the radical party would have no effect on the result. |
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What happens after a by-election? |
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People generally go down the pub. |
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After a by-election, the proportions can be recalculated by changing the numbers for the constituency. |
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Representative democracy [-] |
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Why elect representatives at all ? It was necessary centuries ago - but
not now. |
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In the UK, governments are not elected. MP's are elected & then, in theory, they agree among themselves who is going to be in the government. Then their man (& it's nearly always a man) nips up to Buck House to get the nod from Liz and they push on from there. Obviously, in practice, the parties have it mostly worked out beforehand, but that's the principle.
Also, in theory, the MPs represent their whole constituency, not just the ones that voted for them. In theory. Bring back the block vote, I say! |
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//Why elect representatives at all ? It was necessary centuries ago - but not now.// |
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A quick hit of the most popular searches trending in Google (aka Miley Cyrus etc) would indicate to me that the best system might be an autocratic application of Siri. |
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Just drop FPP entirely. Anyone who gets over a thousand
votes gets a seat, and their vote is weighted to exactly the
number of votes they received. |
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//Just drop FPP entirely. Anyone who gets over a thousand votes gets a seat, and their vote is weighted to exactly the number of votes they received. |
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Good idea. And drop riding/districts, too. That way people with a thin base of support across a large part of the country can get also elected. |
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//Just drop FPP entirely. Anyone who gets over a thousand votes gets a seat, and their vote is weighted to exactly the number of votes they received.// |
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I like the concept, but I question the threshold. The upper limit would be a government of 64100 MPs.
Suppose we had a cutoff of 100,000 votes. The most MPs then would be 641, which is slightly fewer than current.
Probably there'd be significantly fewer in practice.
We could have a run-off system where those who'd received more than x votes (say 100,000/2 = 50,000 votes) went through to a further round where the candidates with fewer than x but more than y (say 100,000/10 = 10,000 votes) passed on their mandate (they could pass it on to anyone above the threshold). This is reminiscant of jutta's forest voting idea. |
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I suspect that this system would in practice lead to a very few individuals holding most of the votes. Perhaps then it would be safest to have a cap on the multiplier anyone could have. I suggest 200,000 votes as a safe starting value. |
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