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How much does your vote count?
- Thread starter Prolescum
- Start date
australopithecus
Active Member
Well fuck a duck, you'll struggle to come up with less voter power than I
Barnsley Central
In Barnsley Central, one person does not really have one vote, they have the equivalent of 0.017 votes.
The average UK voter has 14.29x more voting power than voters in Barnsley Central.
Barnsley Central
In Barnsley Central, one person does not really have one vote, they have the equivalent of 0.017 votes.
The average UK voter has 14.29x more voting power than voters in Barnsley Central.
australopithecus
Active Member
MRaverz said:
This.
I accidentally got 2 voting cards in the post, one at my old address and one where I live now, and even if I had been a twat and used both votes I'd still have only had less that half a vote. How have we lasted this long?
The only reason I actually bother voting is in the hope of showing that proportional representation makes sense. They could put a bloody monkey in a clown costume as the labour candidate here and it would get in, but at least if a few of us vote lib dem the lib dems can point to the large number of votes they totaled countrywide and maybe influence the system.
And of course, miracles happen. Praise Jebus.
And of course, miracles happen. Praise Jebus.
As someone who votes in a proportional system I can tell you it's not perfect. The party with the most votes often doesn't have enough seats to get anything done. I hear that in this election the UK, unusually, might have a hung parliament, we end up with a hung parliament every single time.
Well not everyone's vote counts but a lot more count than in a FPP system. I'm just pointing out that you give up a strong unified government for a lot of party politics and bickering. I suppose if you don't agree with the two main parties, then giving that up is no big deal.MRaverz said:
Most of the country didn't vote for our leading party either, but it is true with proportionality voting they had to build a coalition to include 50% of the vote. It becomes problematic when the small parties with 4-5% of the vote are needed by big parties with 45% of the vote, suddenly those small parties get a lot of say on future policy yet they represent a very small minority of the population. Of course there is a bigger problem with plurality voting and that is sometimes parties with fewer votes than others can end up with the majority of seats, similar to what happened to Al Gore. I don't think this has happened in the UK, but it is a possibility.MRaverz said:
It's really the power of a single vote that changes when you change systems. At the moment a vote for a small party is powerless, but if you change to a proportionality system suddenly a vote for a small party will be over-valued. There's no completely fair way to distribute votes and the more fair you make it, the less power the ruling party will have. It's a trade-off.MRaverz said:
australopithecus
Active Member
We should ask the people turned away in Sheffield because the polls closed how much their vote is worth. It's a joke.
Alright, I'll play devil's advocate on this one.
Surely though, the group best able to make their opinion heard and who have more invested in getting it passed will be successful more often and that the ambivalent masses aren't willing to invest their own financial capital in getting their opinions elected then why should the political system reward them when they don't actually invest in the outcome?
Surely though, the group best able to make their opinion heard and who have more invested in getting it passed will be successful more often and that the ambivalent masses aren't willing to invest their own financial capital in getting their opinions elected then why should the political system reward them when they don't actually invest in the outcome?