Voting For Parliament

[iamjoy]

Could some one please explain how this works - in comparison to our Congressional and Presidential elections? How is Prime Minister elected? I've heard something about you can vote for a minority party candidate & not be "throwing your vote away" because the parties get proportional representation in parliament?

For example in the U.S. (in summary)-

CONGRESS: We are broken down into districts. Some states only have one district, our largest - California - has 53. Each district has one representative. The parties can put up candidates in a "primary" election, but no more than one candidate repreenting each party can appear on the ballot in the general election for that district. Whoever gets the most votes, wins.
SENATE: Each state has 2 senators. Everyone in the state votes for the same Senate race. Otherwise, voting process is same as Congress.
PRESIDENT: People vote for the candidate they want to be President. Each state tallies its votes and determines who won that state.
Whoever wins that state is assigned all of the state's electors (a few states don't have the "winner take all" system). The number of electors for a state is equal to its Congressional districts(varies from 1 to 53) plus the number of senators (always 2). The electors are obligated to vote for the candidate that won their state.

BUT HOW DOES U.K.'S SYSTEM WORK?

[AllegroRondo]

1. Except for Louisiana, which has a run-off system

for congress and senate.

each party may run as many candidates as they like in the election. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the top 2 vote recipients go to a run-off election.

[iamjoy]

2. Thanks For Heads Up On Louisiana

any idea how they do it in England, or even Canada?

[LSparkle]

3. Does the majority party select its Prime Minister

or do members of other parties also get to weigh in?

[iamjoy]

4. That's What I Want To Know

'cos I thought, if the Majority Party selects, you could have an extremist as prime minister because he/she only had to appeal in a small district. But even if other parties weigh in, one would still be out numbered

[LSparkle]

5. I think that may be how it works because

Poodle Blair was supposedly in danger some time ago of losing his post because of objections from within Labour -- if the entire assembly were to vote, wouldn't he have enough support from the Torys to keep it?

[Esra Star]

22. Technically, the Prime Minister is the person.......

who could survive a vote of "no confidence" on the floor
of the house of commons.
Essentially this means that he is elected by his party.
I am sure this is not satisfying to you, but that's the Westminster system.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Since I'm the only British insomniac here

I'll try to answer.

Each party selects its own leader, by its own rules. These give the vote basically to their subscribing members (I don't know how much a subscription is for the main parties - maybe of the order of £50 a year? Some DUers are members, so they can confirm for their parties), plus union members who pay a voluntary political levy in the case of Labour, and MPs (or Scottish/Welsh/European Parliament equivalent) get a greater say in some parties. They are allowed to change leader whenever their own party rules say, without having to hold a new general election, so in theory they could run in the general election with a moderate leader, and then kick him out later and replace him with an extremist, but this would lose all credibility with the electorate in the future. You'd also rely on the House of Lords (appointed for life, plus a few hereditary fossils left over, so not controlled by a party, even if they have an affiliation), and even the Queen, to not cooperate if the whole direction of the government was subverted.

For the UK Parliament: very much like your House of Representatives. The country has 659 constituencies (a few less in the next election due to population changes) of approximately equal population. Anyone can stand for election in one of these; the big 3 nationwide parties normally put up a candidate in every Scottish, English and Welsh constituency, and the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties in their own nations (Northern Ireland has completely separate parties). Each candidate must put up a deposit (£500, off the top of my head) which they get back if they get over 5% of the vote. This means smaller parties, which are unlikely to get it back, have to think hard before putting up candidates where there's no enthusiasm at all. Some individuals stand, just for the hell of it (if you stand in a constituency with a well known politician, you might get on TV!)

The candidate with the most votes gets that constituency ('first past the post' system). It's the candidate who has won; so they are at liberty to change parties, and still remain the MP until the next election (typically one or two do in each term of a government).

The leader who gets to be PM is the one with the 'confidence' of the majority of the MPs. You assume that this means all his party, at the start of the parliament anyway; and if no party has an absolute majority in MPs, then they have to start doing deals with other parties, formally or informally. The PM then appoints his cabinet and junior government ministers from the MPs in his party (maybe including coalition parties), and a few of the Lords.

The system means that a party can get over half of the MPs with well under half of the vote; it's quite possible that Labour could get 35% of the vote in the next election, but over 50% of the MPs. Minority parties do badly out of it.

The parliament and assemblies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do have a form of proportional representation. In Scotland and Wales, they elect half as constituency members, and then the other half are apportioned by party to try to bring the end balance of members as close as possible to the share of the vote the parties got in the whole country. The Northern Ireland system is horribly complicated, and I can't remember it.

The European elections also get a rough form of proportional representation: the country is divided into regions (eg London, North West England) which elect several members, with each party putting up several. This means that in the largest ones (about 10 members), the Greens have managed to get one elected.

In summary, it is quite easy to throw your vote away on a minority party, especially for the UK parliament. You can even throw your vote away on a major party in some areas (in my constituency, Labour got less than 10% of the vote last time; they'll only make a token effort in the next election).

[Mr Creosote]

8. No you're not :-) nm

[Mr Creosote]

7. I''ll try to explain it simply

OK, it's a long while since I studied the US political system - but here's an explanation of our system couched In US terms.
Firstly, we don't have seperation of powers, so our executive is drawn from the legislature. So there is nothing in our system that compares to a Presidential election. Blair's closest equivalent in your system (in terms of how he is elected) would be the majority leader in the House. But of course in terms of the powers that he exercises Blair is in many ways more like the President.
So the Prime Minister is the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons - or rather the largest party, since there have been occasions when no one party has a majority.
Secondly, there are no primary elections in our system.
Thirdly, we don't have proportional representation - at a general election we vote for MPs exactly as you vote for congressmen.
Fourthly, minority parties are stronger here than in the US - which is why it is possible for no one party to have a majority in Parliament. The liberal democrats draw support from all over Britain, and there are also strong nationalist parties in Wales & Scotland. In Northern Ireland (gross simplification coming up) voting is along sectarian lines and the main British parties don't even bother to put up candidates.


So Blair is Prime Minister simply because he is leader of the Labour Party which has a majority in the Commons. He as an individual could lose that post if his party no longer wanted him as leader (as happened with Thatcher in 1990), or if the Labour Party lost its majority and was subsequently defeated in a major vote in the Commons (as happened with Callaghan in 1979) - in those circumstances a new General Election is held.

Dealing with the question of Blair being in danger because of anti-war sentiment in his own party - this was how it worked. We don't have a written constitution, but in my view Blair would have had to resign if he had lost the vote on the war in Iraq. But he didn't - because enough Tories voted with him on that one issue to just defeat the Labour rebels and various other parties opposed to war. Of course, as we now know, Blair had to lie to win that vote.

We don't have fixed terms between elections like you do, the Prime Minister can choose when to hold it - as long as it is no longer than 5 years after the last one. So Blair has to call an election before June 2006, in practice he will call it when he thinks he has the best chance of winning - May 2005 is the favourite.

Does that help? I'm afraid the two systems aren't very similar at all - generally I envy the US system - genuine seperation of powers and a written constitution and a Bill of Rights are things I gemuinely envy you for.

We do have one advantage though - when we vote we mark a cross, on a peice of paper and then all those votes are counted by people by hand.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. No chance of fraud in a UK election? Well, maybe not ...

Fraud fears as post replaces the ballot box

THE Government defied its own independent advisers yesterday by declaring that all-postal ballots could go ahead despite fears of widespread fraud and intimidation.

The Electoral Commission, which has recommended that all-postal ballots be abandoned, accused it of setting the wrong priorities in putting turnout above public confidence. The Conservatives said that the Government’s “reckless fiddling” was undermining the electoral system by throwing away the ballot box.

All-postal voting could begin in next May’s local elections. Officials said that the Government would consider applications by the 166 councils which hold elections next May to carry out all-postal ballots.
...
“Notwithstanding the conventional basis for the next general election, we are not persuaded by the commission’s recommendation that all-postal voting should not be pursued in future UK elections,” John Prescott’s office said.
...
In August, the Governnment accepted the Electoral Commission’s recommendation that no more all-postal ballots be held after The Times discovered widespread allegations of fraud and intimidation in the pilot schemes. Four police forces in North West England and Yorkshire and the Humber are investigating alleged electoral fraud. Two petitions have been sent for trial challenging election results in Birmingham which was not part of the pilot scheme but saw applications for postal votes treble.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1397357,00.html

What's the point of an all-postal local election at almost (or exactly?) the same time as a normal ballot box general election?

[Mr Creosote]

10. You're absolutely right of course

postal voting is wide open to fraud, and therefore very attractive to Blair. But, of course, our ordinary elections are also, in theory, subject to fraud. Ballot box stuffing by election officials is easy if they are so inclined.
What signs would there be? Well, "turnout" would be high. All the opinion polls, and especially the exit polls would be wrong, (unlike the recent US election when I think most of the polls carried out prior to election day had the Tin Soldier slightly ahead).
I've always wondered about the result when Major won in 1992.

[tjwmason]

15. Regarding the '92 election

I've been thinking about this a few times recently, and discussed it with a Tory friend. Had Major lost in '92, Labour's majority would have been small and the party far more fractious that it became under Blair; also the Tory Party would have had chance to re-group in opposition without the massive hit which they took in '97.

It is perfectly possible that a Labour win in '92 could have heralded a strong Tory victory in '97, with a greatly renewed sense of purpose for them; whilst the Labour Party descended into civil war.

Ironic that what has been regarded as the greatest victory for the Tory's election winning machine, caused some of the terribly troubles they are having now.

[iamjoy]

11. So How Do You Avoid Extremists?

I guess comparing it to U.S. Congressional elections, a narrow corner of a state thinks a candidate is the cat's meow, so they vote for him. But this person's views don't reflect the majority of the nation's. Still, because this person's party also wins, this person gets to be "Prime Minister"

But, if the majority party also has to vote their leader, maybe some of the moderates would be wary of voting for an extremists because they know they would lose in their district next election if they did.

I guess...

Separation of powers is a marvelous thing...hope we get to keep it.

[Mr Creosote]

12. We don't

ever heard of Margaret Thatcher? :-)

[iamjoy]

13. But Not Like Here...

well, I guess we don't either.
I was going to say how do you avoid getting some one in your highest elected office who say, believe evolution is a theory (no more valid than creation, excuse me, intelligent design)? Oh, yeah.

I guess it just seems like the parliamentary method is more likely to produce extremists in high places, but somehow it seems we have more here.

strange.

[fedsron2us]

14. Britain is often described as a Parliamentary dictatorship

because the party with the absolute majority in Parliament can force through policies even when the majority of the population oppose them. This raises the real risk of authoritarian government by an executive controlled by idealogues such as Maragaret Thatcher. One real limitation on the power of the UK state is a fear of widespread active civil disobediance from the populace. Because Britain is a small island with a large population it is very difficult for politicians to completely insulate themselves from the electorate. Street protests such violent anti-poll tax demonstrations of the early 1990's or the fuel blockades under the current Blair administration definitely did rattle the government and effected the course of its policies. Of course, the authorities have a large number of powers and techniques for suppressing discontent. Nonetheless they know that if the civil disorder reaches a certain critical mass then the limited manpower they have for containing the populace would simply be overwhelmed. This makes the wise politician proceed with a degree of caution.

[sweetheart]

16. The house of lords offers some temperance

Just as today's decision to reverse the government's illegal
imprisonment in belmarsh of detainees without courts... the HoL,
seems to me, a constant checkpoint on blair's supermajority, so
indeed there IS a checkpoint against the populism that plato
complained was the weak achillies heel of democracy.

THe US system has no such thing, as the 3 branches are all political
and can, as we see today, be a worse dictatorship, as not a single
branch is empowered to check the wanton executive.

[non sociopath skin]

17. Sorry, Sweetheart, I find it unacceptable that the "temperance" ...

... is unelected and now, as ever, represents the primarily right-wing establishment. In that respect it's even more "political" than the US Supreme Court. At least it the states, the electors are elected by the electorate.

Temperance? I'd rather be drunk on democracy!

The Skin

[sweetheart]

18. rule of the demos or the demos

If the people's best interests are achieved, is it not demos?

Or, as in the USA, you can vote your little heart out, and have no
representation, for an entire lifetime. Never, in my life, can i
honestly say the government has ever represented my views, but hey!
voting was fun... like a ride at the fair.

There comes a point, where there can be too much democracy, where
the voting is so much, that demos is weakened to plato's confusion
of the ship captain. Yet the test, IMO, is whether the demos's
political best interests are achieved in the end... (end results
test). A voteocracy, is nothing more than a dictatorship where
everyone has a voting video game (and they can be drunk!).

I hope you spend more time stateside, as i think the future of
western democracy resides somewhere in the midatlantic.

[non sociopath skin]

19. Perhaps you could clarify for me the difference ...

... between a "voteocracy" and a "democracy". I suspect, reading your posts, that the Founding Fathers' elitist view that a little bit of delegated democracy might be a good thing but that we shouldn't put anything too delicate in the hands of the plebs, just in case they break it, is still alive and well.

I remain with Churchill on democracy being the worst form of government except for the others ... and let us not forget that some of the others are very bad indeed.

The Skin

[sweetheart]

20. Honestly, count every vote

Is my primary maxim, which we've departed from rather broadly on the
western side of the atlantic. Until we're counting every vote,
there's little point in calling it anything but a republic.

I'm a salmon upstream. I've seen the california uber-democracy that
is almost paralyzied there is so much choice. I've gone to the
voting booth and ended up voting on the nicest sounding names there
are sooooooooooooooo many choices... that what happens is that
the concept of demos is destroyed, as demos is uninformed, or
misinformed by media, which, in US terms are plutos. Even with
the ever-so-handy california voting guide, plutos rules, and the
name with the most recognition wins, hence schwarznegger.

The town i grew up in, malibu, was once a magnificent natural
coastline, but greedy corprorate and private interests turned it in
to a suburban sprawl, muliplying its population by 6 times what it
was in my childhood. The prices of my home town are soooo expensive
i can't afford to live there anymore... thanks to economics... so
i learned that economics is a root issue in american politics,
something that noboby gets to vote on, but that subverts all the
serious choices in life.

I moved to downtown manhattan, and similarly, economics pumped the
place until it became a yuppee magnet, once again driving prices up
through the roof to again price me out of a place i had chosen as
a home... so this repeated trend of economics, subverting basic
living. And then when the corporate (government regulated) media
attacked my buddhist meditation group, and made it such that i could
only work abroad, by circulating black lists around the american
industries... made me wonder what great utopia this democracy had
become... one that i had to leave in order to make a basic living.

One vote, one dollar, which is the american way, is not a democracy,
and should not be worshipped. So, now, years later, after a much
healthier life in a social democracy (UK), i'm wary of the US form
of one vote, one dollar.... disguised as one vote one person...
all because the latter is, as you say, never an objective of the
framers.

So, between an effective plutocracy in the US, and a representative
democracy in the UK, one with flavours of timocracy... i find the
latter to be a gazillion times more healthy, and most financial
markets and social indicators show similarly... why is this.?

An uninformed democracy is a trash state, and america has become
exactly that.... a massive refuse dump, where the lowest common
denominator rules... and indeed, i've journeyed far from my birth
place to be part of something less of a dump. I can't say exactly
what is better in the UK, but i suspect the HoL is a large part of
what has preserved the decency in this society, that which is lost
in america, for which people leave the country to discover.

I wish i could say i was a believer in democracy, and in pure marxist
terms, i am... just when you discover that perfect marxist utopia
that accepts americans... let me know. ;-)

[T_i_B]

21. UK General Election Kick

:kick:

[LeftishBrit]

23. As regards extremists...

For a while, I believe there was a tendency for both main parties to choose relatively moderate individuals as their leaders. Thus, the Tories chose people like Macmillan and Heath who were on the left wing of the Conservative party; Labour chose people like Wilson and Callaghan, who were on the centre-right of the Labour party.

This was probably done as an electoral strategy, but helped to reduce the danger of very extreme people getting elected.

However, Thatcher changed all that. She led a rebellion against party leader Heath (who was weak as a result of his electoral defeat by Labour); got the leadership of the Tory party, and then won the next general election. She then proceeded to spend the next 11 years pushing both the country and the party to the right. And yes, she was an extreme ideologue (though it didn't include religious extremism, as with the current Republicans). Her policies were labelled by a dissident member of her own party as 'sado-monetarism' and I think that just about describes them!

In the end, her own party toppled her. She was replaced by Major, who was probably more moderate as an individual, but carried along by his Thatcherized party's right-wing tides. Meanwhile, very unfortunately, the Labour party leader John Smith died suddenly and was replaced by Blair, who initially appeared to be a typical centre-right-of-the-party Labour leader, but turned out to be something much worse, especially as he became drunk with power. He was elected in 1997, mainly because the country had turned against the Tories, but ended up as just another right-wing authoritarian Tory in most respects.

So I suppose that the system is as good as the parties, and if the parties choose extremists, we risk getting extremists!