🚀 go-pugleaf

Hello Jon Patrick thanks for the explanation.
> Our voting is also different. It's called compulsory preferential. You MUST
> put a number beside every candidates name. 1 for highest priority, 2 for
> second priority, etc. When the votes are counted the person with the fewest 1
> votes has his/her votes distributed to the 2 priority of the voter. After each
> allocation of these preferences the candidate with the lowest number of votes
> has ALL their votes distributed. In the end you have just two candidates of
> which one has an absolute majority, that is more than 50% of the vote. This
> system mitigates against small parties as their votes get distributed to the
> large parties.

Here in the UK there is a new proposition in order to change the electoral
system. It's been proposed by an independent comission on order by the
government. The implementation would take longer than expected and
couldn't happen before the next election. Here in Britain there is being
an institutional revolution and I think it should be paid attention.

The new system tries to combinate both system the majoritarian vote (first
passed the line gets it, as in the horse races) and the pr (proportional,
with single transferable vote). Till now the candidates would get their
seat in their constituency by winning withing that constituency most of
the votes. Minoritarian parties can only get it if they're strong at a
certain place. Parties who get more votes but more distributed cannot make
it.
The system in the republic of Ireland is the single transferable vote
where people votes putting number of priorities for their candidates (like
in Australia).
What they intend to do here is combine both system.
They want to join the constituencies by counties(Constituencies would be
like comarcas-eskualdeak and counties like a province in EH). The
constituencies are elected by the proportional vote. And the seats are
given to the candidates who win the seats. Then there will be an extra
seat and this one goes for the party who got nothing in the constituency
but still got higher votes between those who got nothing. This can give
voice to parties with still high implementation but not enough to win a
single constituency. This system also ensures the connection between the
MP and his constituency one of the main points defended by majority vote
system detractors.
Here the MPs go back to their own constituency on a weekly basis and
citizens can go and meet them in order to raise their concerns.

I think that it's time for an electoral reform in the basque country so we
can make votes count as much as possible. The idea of voting for more than
one candidate with numbers would make the vote more personalised and allow
to votes to be recovered once one candidate has been crossed off because
not getting enough votes. For example a voter of EH in an araba
constituency where EH has little to do but PNV has a part to play could
give the second preferency to PNV (if he wanted) so to ensure a
nationalist vote, and a nationalist seat from his constituency.
The only big problem is that this system delays the counting systems for a
couple of days we have to wait in order to get the results as votes have
to be counted once an over again till the last recount is made.


Bye

 --
Juan Etxenike Almeida
University of Warwick