Date: January 14th, 2002 09:39 am (UTC)From:(Anonymous)
Here's my half-baked opinion.
The House of Commons makes legislation, so should be an 'average' of the opinions of voters. Thus a party-list voting system (more or less pure proportional) with a 5% cut-off (parties with less than 5% of the vote get no seats). MPs no longer have consituencies; since no-one cares which constitency people like Blair come from anyway, presumably no-one will miss this.
The House of Lords is for raising objections to bills from particular social groups or areas. It follows that the being associated with constituencies makes more sense for the Lords than for the Commons. So we vote in our local MHL, but using Approval Vote rather than First Past the Post. Approval Vote is when you tick all the people who you think would be acceptable (you can leave none, some, or all candidates ticked). The candidate with the most ticks wins. Someone might be elected with, say, 60% of the vote, with his rivals having 55% and 40% approval. The results are approximately like STV, but it is easier to explain and easier to implement. The constitency Lords work alongside Law Lords and Bishops and suchlike.
Would this make people want to vote more? It depends on whether voters' cycnicism is because they see their votes wasted ("there's no point voting Tory here, it's a labour stronghold"), or because they think that all politicians are equally bad and so choosing between them is a waste of time.
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chiming
Re: How to vote better
Date: January 14th, 2002 09:39 am (UTC)From: (Anonymous)The House of Commons makes legislation, so should be an 'average' of the opinions of voters. Thus a party-list voting system
(more or less pure proportional) with a 5% cut-off (parties with
less than 5% of the vote get no seats). MPs no longer have consituencies; since no-one cares which constitency people like Blair come from anyway, presumably no-one will miss this.
The House of Lords is for raising objections to bills from particular social groups or areas. It follows that the being associated with constituencies makes more sense for the Lords than for the Commons. So we vote in our local MHL,
but using Approval Vote rather than First Past the Post. Approval Vote is when you tick all the people who you think would be acceptable (you can leave none, some, or all candidates ticked). The candidate with the most ticks wins. Someone might be elected with, say, 60% of the vote, with his rivals having 55% and 40% approval. The results are approximately like STV, but it is easier to explain and easier to implement.
The constitency Lords work alongside Law Lords and Bishops and suchlike.
Would this make people want to vote more?
It depends on whether voters' cycnicism is because they see
their votes wasted ("there's no point voting Tory here,
it's a labour stronghold"), or because they think that all
politicians are equally bad and so choosing between them
is a waste of time.