Serious question about the STV process - if party A has 12,000 votes against a quota of 10,000 votes - leaving 2,000 votes to be redistributed - which 2,000 are selected? Is it proportionate to the 12,000 or is it an arbitrary 2,000 ??
All of them, divide by 6 in this case I think. So the the all 12000 votes are reallocated, multiplied by the 2000 that are excess, divided by the 12000 original 1st choices.
So if the second choices are 3000 for the Silly Party and 9000 for the Sensible Party, you end up with 500 transfers to Silly and 1500 to Sensible = 2000 transfers
This is only true in some systems, usually with electronic voting and/or small constituencies like student union elections, because although very fair, it becomes quite impractical to multiply a single vote by many fractional coefficients, by hand, in an election with 10,000+ ballot papers.
In paper elections, most jurisdictions count out the second preferences and take a pro-rata share of the papers that total up to the excess over quota. Some jurisdictions will _also_ try to randomise the papers that get transferred so they don't disproportionately come from certain ballot boxes (which would perhaps skew later transfers, e.g. geographically).
Final thing to mention: if this candidate was elected later on, by transfers and not just first preferences, typically systems will say that only the last bundle of transfers get sent onward, and not the votes the successful candidate won earlier in the process. So you will sometimes see what looks like weird behaviour, that is really arising because e.g. the Tory party "surplus" is actually coming from a Plaid Cymru transfer.
sorry but this is where logic and going to the nth degree to achieve "fairness" (literally) can can detached from reality - when 90% plus of voters are no clue on how the votes are cast and it is too complicated for human counters then it is a ridiculous system
What do you mean? Of course 90%+ of UK voters are not clear because they have never used this system. In jurisdictions where the system is used regularly, it works fine.
You are saying that if you asked the average NI voter they could explain the detail of how the votes are counted ? I doubt it very much - counting needs to be transparent - there are systems that can achieve fairness but still be understood by the average voter
Why do you think they wouldn't understand. I have never met anyone who has used stv who hasn't understood it.
i dont mean most voters cannot understand HOW to vote in terms of numbers ( although it does preclude and spoil some votes the more complicated a system which is not a good thing ) but most voters could then not explain how the votes are COUNTED - that is not transparent and not a good system therefore
Serious question about the STV process - if party A has 12,000 votes against a quota of 10,000 votes - leaving 2,000 votes to be redistributed - which 2,000 are selected? Is it proportionate to the 12,000 or is it an arbitrary 2,000 ??
All of them, divide by 6 in this case I think. So the the all 12000 votes are reallocated, multiplied by the 2000 that are excess, divided by the 12000 original 1st choices.
So if the second choices are 3000 for the Silly Party and 9000 for the Sensible Party, you end up with 500 transfers to Silly and 1500 to Sensible = 2000 transfers
This is only true in some systems, usually with electronic voting and/or small constituencies like student union elections, because although very fair, it becomes quite impractical to multiply a single vote by many fractional coefficients, by hand, in an election with 10,000+ ballot papers.
In paper elections, most jurisdictions count out the second preferences and take a pro-rata share of the papers that total up to the excess over quota. Some jurisdictions will _also_ try to randomise the papers that get transferred so they don't disproportionately come from certain ballot boxes (which would perhaps skew later transfers, e.g. geographically).
Final thing to mention: if this candidate was elected later on, by transfers and not just first preferences, typically systems will say that only the last bundle of transfers get sent onward, and not the votes the successful candidate won earlier in the process. So you will sometimes see what looks like weird behaviour, that is really arising because e.g. the Tory party "surplus" is actually coming from a Plaid Cymru transfer.
sorry but this is where logic and going to the nth degree (literally) to achieve "fairness" can get detached from reality - when 90% plus of voters have no clue on how the votes are cast and it is too complicated for human counters then it is a ridiculous system
Public understanding is important. I do not think that means you need FPTP, people can understand other systems, but it need not be so protracted and complicated either.
It is not complicated. The rules are specific, and all transfers are calculated on the basis of all votes. If necessary encode the papers like in Scotland and it takes a matter of hours.
After Count 9, there's no chance of the SDLP retaining their seat in North Belfast, which will be another Alliance gain.
Any system that requires 9 counts is ridiculous
That maybe your opinion but it isn't mine. Any system that only requires the mark of an illiterate, "X", is sadly lacking and produces appallingly undemocratic results, with many wasted votes. In one constituency in NI 97% of the vote went to the 5 winners and the last runner up. Now that's democratic!
You can have PR systems that dont require 9 or more counts - The EU use a reasonable one for their elections. If 90% of the electorate cannot explain how the votes are counted it is not transparent imo
The EU elections were terrible - you would vote only for a party, and the party would decide the order in which their candidates were elected.
I was always sceptical that system was introduced to discredit PR. I agree it is rubbish.
I see PB favourite Paul Joseph Watson has been caught airing some views that were all the rage in early 1940s Germany.
What has he said? I used to follow him, but don't now. He is always good for a laugh provided you are not easily converted by cults (I did spell that correctly). I got introduced to him by Plato.
He was caught saying he'd like to wipe Jews off the planet.
His outlook is similar to that of his near namesake, Paul Joseph Goebbels.
Ah the horse shoe of politics, where the far left and far right are much closer to each other, than to more mainstream and centrist viewpoints.
Some people react against that theory, but it seems pretty solidly proven to me. Objections generally seem focused on the purported motivations or ideologies of the sides, rather than looking at their actions and behaviour. So I dont really buy Farooqs take that it doesn't stand up. The details are different but the broad thrusts align a lot.
Yes, the communists and fascists will say they are very different - but in practice they are both violent authoritarians who cannot accept dissent, and hate Jews.
SF 18 nc DUP 17 -1 All 11 +4 UUP 5 -1 SDLP 3 -1 oth 2 nc
So Unionist parties 23 seats (including DUP and UUP and 1 for TUV) and Nationalist parties 21 seats combining SF and SDLP.
Almost neck and neck after transfers for largest party now too between SF and DUP
I think the DUP will lose three in the end, one to Alliance, and two to indpendent Unionists, and the UUP will lose one. But, it's just possible they could lose a seat to Alliance in North Antrim.
Sinn Fein may gain from SDLP in Upper Bann and Fermanagh South Tyrone.
The general trend then is almost no change between the Unionist and Nationalist seat totals.
The main shift is DUP to TUV and DUP and UUP to Alliance and SDLP to SF and Alliance
Alliance have just squeezed home in North Antrim, so I guess the Unionists and Nationalists will each be down 3 seats.
Problematic from standpoint of Unilateralist Unionist Redoubt of North Antrim?
A not inconsiderable number of UUP voters transferred to Alliance in preference to DUP. There were four Unionist quotas in first preference votes.
At the moment the combined Unionist parties (DUP, UUP and TUV) are on 26 seats to 25 for the combined Nationalist parties (SF and SDLP).
In 2017 the combined Unionist and Nationalist parties were each on 39 seats. So if anything there has been a tiny swing from Nationalists to Unionists at present
The main story seems to be Alliance damaging the Greens (who are getting wiped out) and the SDLP plus the UUP getting squeezed.
Sinn Fein has done really well but is only up 1.1%.
TUV has done taken a load of DUP votes but are stuck with just Jim Allister.
Also a strong vote for ex DUP independent Alex Easton in North Down.
I think Sinn Fein's only chance of a gain is in Fermanagh/South Tyrone, where they may gain the third nationalist seat from SDLP.
Sadly, this election has been a nightmare for SDLP, who will lose between 4 and 6 seats.
TUV have polled well, but not well enough to gain any seats, so their voters transfer back to the DUP.
Yes, I was surprised the SDLP got so strongly squeezed as I thought Colum Eastwood had good debates. I didn't necessarily expect the SDLP to lose more than two seats and to lose North Belfast in particular.
After Count 9, there's no chance of the SDLP retaining their seat in North Belfast, which will be another Alliance gain.
Any system that requires 9 counts is ridiculous
That maybe your opinion but it isn't mine. Any system that only requires the mark of an illiterate, "X", is sadly lacking and produces appallingly undemocratic results, with many wasted votes. In one constituency in NI 97% of the vote went to the 5 winners and the last runner up. Now that's democratic!
My favourite voting system is NP-Complete.
Every head to head matchup has to be given a vote.
So 2 candidates needs 1 vote, 3 candidates 3 votes, 4 candidates 6 votes etc.
Every match up must be filled in or your entire vote slip is voided.
I don't think any of these policies are very practical.
I'm not really trying to argue that they're necessarily practical or even a good idea. I'm just trying to argue that if your underlying goal is "improve the lot of the working class" this doesn't have to inherently collapse into "improve the lot of the poor" before you can start thinking about policies.
After Count 9, there's no chance of the SDLP retaining their seat in North Belfast, which will be another Alliance gain.
Any system that requires 9 counts is ridiculous
That maybe your opinion but it isn't mine. Any system that only requires the mark of an illiterate, "X", is sadly lacking and produces appallingly undemocratic results, with many wasted votes. In one constituency in NI 97% of the vote went to the 5 winners and the last runner up. Now that's democratic!
You can have PR systems that dont require 9 or more counts - The EU use a reasonable one for their elections. If 90% of the electorate cannot explain how the votes are counted it is not transparent imo
The EU elections were terrible - you would vote only for a party, and the party would decide the order in which their candidates were elected.
I know, that’s almost as bad as the British system where small unaccountable party cliques pick the MPs for most seats behind closed doors.
Durham announces 50% of their intake will be working class. This defined as applicants whose parents are financially stressed (as per our definition). Now, agree or not with this policy (which is by the by) the point is it's meaningful and practical. This isn't the case otherwise. The various other wider definitions aren't workable in this sense. They can't be used for policy. Mine can. It's only mine that can.
But why should Durham announce a "50% working class" policy when they could more straightforwardly announce a "50% financially stressed families" policy that's clearer about what it means and doesn't get them into a pointless "class war" narrative in the tabloids?
I would argue that the wider definition *could* be used for policy purposes, if you want to try to tackle some of the systemic reasons that class and wealth and education are correlated. To continue our university example, you might have a policy that allots places to students who don't have parents who had a university education. And maybe you have policies in other areas that try to increase social mobility by other means, using other not-necessarily-wealth-based criteria (eg "let council housing tenants buy their houses at a discount"). Sometimes "help the working class" might bottom out to "do something that's linked to income", sometimes to "based on wealth", sometimes to something not specifically monetary. If you equate "working class" with "poor" by fiat you're either restricting your field of options, or else you really meant "poor" in your political philosophy all along, and you'd be better off just saying so.
That's fine - badge such measures without the dreaded 'class' word. I agree it stirs up the horses and why do that. And, ok, maybe there are some instances of non-monetary based societal disadvantage you can tailor policy to address but this is pretty marginal imo c.f. the importance of money. Or to put it another way, if we target policy to help people who are working class on my narrow quantitative metric we will be covering the majority of those who are working class on your wider qualitative one. And it has the (often underrated) benefit of simplicity and transparency.
Folks, we played this game with the post-Crimea sanctions, the post-MH17 sanctions, the post-Skripal sanctions: they were imposed for specific reasons, about which pundits and others quickly forgot, and then started measuring effectiveness by totally different yardsticks...
Now, I'm not here to say that sanctions are always or even often effective. They most often aren't, even if there isn't often a better alternative -- and doing nothing is usually worse. I'm just here to call for honest analysis and a bit or memory (or at least Googling)
After Count 9, there's no chance of the SDLP retaining their seat in North Belfast, which will be another Alliance gain.
Any system that requires 9 counts is ridiculous
That maybe your opinion but it isn't mine. Any system that only requires the mark of an illiterate, "X", is sadly lacking and produces appallingly undemocratic results, with many wasted votes. In one constituency in NI 97% of the vote went to the 5 winners and the last runner up. Now that's democratic!
You can have PR systems that dont require 9 or more counts - The EU use a reasonable one for their elections. If 90% of the electorate cannot explain how the votes are counted it is not transparent imo
The EU elections were terrible - you would vote only for a party, and the party would decide the order in which their candidates were elected.
I know, that’s almost as bad as the British system where small unaccountable party cliques pick the MPs for most seats behind closed doors.
Amazing that after the last 10 years, people still think safe seats are a thing.
After Count 9, there's no chance of the SDLP retaining their seat in North Belfast, which will be another Alliance gain.
Any system that requires 9 counts is ridiculous
That maybe your opinion but it isn't mine. Any system that only requires the mark of an illiterate, "X", is sadly lacking and produces appallingly undemocratic results, with many wasted votes. In one constituency in NI 97% of the vote went to the 5 winners and the last runner up. Now that's democratic!
You can have PR systems that dont require 9 or more counts - The EU use a reasonable one for their elections. If 90% of the electorate cannot explain how the votes are counted it is not transparent imo
The EU elections were terrible - you would vote only for a party, and the party would decide the order in which their candidates were elected.
I know, that’s almost as bad as the British system where small unaccountable party cliques pick the MPs for most seats behind closed doors.
I don't think that is a credible criticism of the voting system. The party are not picking the MPs behind closed doors, the public can still select the specific individual they want (rather than hoping the candidate they like is higher up on the party list) - the problem with the system is the devolving into so many safe seats, but the actual choice is still with the voters, who can react against an individual if they want. They just don't want to enough for my tastes, and I'd prefer a more proportional system.
After Count 9, there's no chance of the SDLP retaining their seat in North Belfast, which will be another Alliance gain.
Any system that requires 9 counts is ridiculous
That maybe your opinion but it isn't mine. Any system that only requires the mark of an illiterate, "X", is sadly lacking and produces appallingly undemocratic results, with many wasted votes. In one constituency in NI 97% of the vote went to the 5 winners and the last runner up. Now that's democratic!
You can have PR systems that dont require 9 or more counts - The EU use a reasonable one for their elections. If 90% of the electorate cannot explain how the votes are counted it is not transparent imo
The EU elections were terrible - you would vote only for a party, and the party would decide the order in which their candidates were elected.
I know, that’s almost as bad as the British system where small unaccountable party cliques pick the MPs for most seats behind closed doors.
Amazing that after the last 10 years, people still think safe seats are a thing.
They absolutely are still a thing. Yes, there's no such thing as a guaranteed seat (unless you live in East Ham), but even with the gradual shift in the Red Wall which tipped over the line in 2019, and even with the SNP revolution, most seats that were safe before for each party are still safe now.
Malmesbury said: "The housing shortage isn’t down to problems with actually building houses. It is about a shortage of sites where you can build houses."
That's true in many parts of the United States, too, including where I live, a suburb of Seattle. It is quite common here for older modest homes suitable for young families to be torn down and replaced by houses that are often inappropriately large for their lots.
In the short run, the Boxabl people hope to get around the site shortage by selling what they are calling "Accessory Dwelling Units", which can be added to an existing lot. And in some places, regulations have been changed to allow them, even in places as reactionary as the San Francisco Bay area.
Think of them as homes for a nanny, a grandparent, or even a young couple, being subsidized by parents.
Those laws and regulation have meant enormous profits for many, including our junior senator, Maria Cantwell, who helped write the law, back when she was in the state legislature.
Serious question about the STV process - if party A has 12,000 votes against a quota of 10,000 votes - leaving 2,000 votes to be redistributed - which 2,000 are selected? Is it proportionate to the 12,000 or is it an arbitrary 2,000 ??
All of them, divide by 6 in this case I think. So the the all 12000 votes are reallocated, multiplied by the 2000 that are excess, divided by the 12000 original 1st choices.
So if the second choices are 3000 for the Silly Party and 9000 for the Sensible Party, you end up with 500 transfers to Silly and 1500 to Sensible = 2000 transfers
This is only true in some systems, usually with electronic voting and/or small constituencies like student union elections, because although very fair, it becomes quite impractical to multiply a single vote by many fractional coefficients, by hand, in an election with 10,000+ ballot papers.
In paper elections, most jurisdictions count out the second preferences and take a pro-rata share of the papers that total up to the excess over quota. Some jurisdictions will _also_ try to randomise the papers that get transferred so they don't disproportionately come from certain ballot boxes (which would perhaps skew later transfers, e.g. geographically).
Final thing to mention: if this candidate was elected later on, by transfers and not just first preferences, typically systems will say that only the last bundle of transfers get sent onward, and not the votes the successful candidate won earlier in the process. So you will sometimes see what looks like weird behaviour, that is really arising because e.g. the Tory party "surplus" is actually coming from a Plaid Cymru transfer.
sorry but this is where logic and going to the nth degree to achieve "fairness" (literally) can can detached from reality - when 90% plus of voters are no clue on how the votes are cast and it is too complicated for human counters then it is a ridiculous system
What do you mean? Of course 90%+ of UK voters are not clear because they have never used this system. In jurisdictions where the system is used regularly, it works fine.
You are saying that if you asked the average NI voter they could explain the detail of how the votes are counted ? I doubt it very much - counting needs to be transparent - there are systems that can achieve fairness but still be understood by the average voter
Why do you think they wouldn't understand. I have never met anyone who has used stv who hasn't understood it.
If people are interested, they’ll understand it. People who are perfectly capable of understanding online poker or how complicated horse race bets or Eurovision voting work or their how their pay packet or bonus is worked out are perfectly capable of understanding STV.
In a five member seat, you need more than a sixth of the vote to get elected. Those candidates that come lowest are eliminated and their votes transferred to the next choices. When a candidate gets more votes than they need to be elected, then the surplus votes (being in practice the required fraction of all of their votes) is transferred to the next choices. At the end you get the five people elected that best represent the mix of choices the voters have made.
After Count 9, there's no chance of the SDLP retaining their seat in North Belfast, which will be another Alliance gain.
Any system that requires 9 counts is ridiculous
That maybe your opinion but it isn't mine. Any system that only requires the mark of an illiterate, "X", is sadly lacking and produces appallingly undemocratic results, with many wasted votes. In one constituency in NI 97% of the vote went to the 5 winners and the last runner up. Now that's democratic!
You can have PR systems that dont require 9 or more counts - The EU use a reasonable one for their elections. If 90% of the electorate cannot explain how the votes are counted it is not transparent imo
The EU elections were terrible - you would vote only for a party, and the party would decide the order in which their candidates were elected.
I know, that’s almost as bad as the British system where small unaccountable party cliques pick the MPs for most seats behind closed doors.
Amazing that after the last 10 years, people still think safe seats are a thing.
They are, and, generalising but not unfairly, those MPs are the most useless and least diligent.
I don't think any of these policies are very practical.
I'm not really trying to argue that they're necessarily practical or even a good idea. I'm just trying to argue that if your underlying goal is "improve the lot of the working class" this doesn't have to inherently collapse into "improve the lot of the poor" before you can start thinking about policies.
University admissions are a good example because they are often the engine of social mobility.
But, it is very much harder to devise a system that doesn't end up being gamed.
For example, Roman Abramovich's daughter Sofia is resident in the UK. Her parents did not benefit from a University education.
It is true that Sofia's lavish lifestyle means that she is perhaps unlikely to want to undertake a thoughtful course in Social Anthropology at Durham.
But, she would nonetheless be a beneficiary of a policy that gives an advantage to those whose parents had not been to University.
My advice for the Conservatives (other than ditching Boris. I don't share loathing that some here have for the man, but he is plainly corrupt) is:-
1. Encourage lots of house-building. My own view is that owner occupation is absolutely key to future Conservative voting. If that pisses off the NIMBY's, tough.
2. Rebalance tax away from income towards capital. I'm arguing against my own interests, here, as I'll likely inherit a lot of money in the next decade, but my need is less than the needs of my own step-children, and my nephews and nieces. Work has to pay, and it doesn't when people are facing high marginal rates of income tax.
3. Put a few hundred million pounds into fixing the criminal justice system. That does not mean more police. It means providing sufficient resources to enable justice to be delivered swiftly, which is fair to both victims and defendants. This is an area that has been shamefully neglected since 2010.
None of these things guarantee victory, but they are worth doing in themselves, and 1 and 2 will yield dividends for the Conservatives in the future.
The Tory core vote of pensioners is still voting Tory because greenbelt land is not over developed and their capital is not too heavily taxed, see how badly the dementia tax went down.
Start building on greenbelt land as well as brown belt and taxing wealth and inheritance and property more and they will go LD, Independent or RefUK or even Labour and assuming the young still vote Labour and they cannot win back the middle aged they have lost since 2019 the Tories would be left with nobody and facing 1997 style wipeout.
I agree with you on 3 though
The Conservatives won't have a future if they base their electoral strategy on appealing to current pensioners. From the 1920's to the 1980's, the Conservatives understood very well that if they wished to grow their vote, housebuilding was key.
Indeed. The Tories of the past knew that the way votes shifted towards them as people aged from youth to becoming older wasn’t a law of nature, but required nurture. It’s well known that the cohorts that were anti-Tory in their youth in the Seventies became gradually more and more Tory as they aged and became more affluent. But that required awareness of how to lay the road for this to happen, to monitor it, and to maintain that road. Otherwise it could cut off.
And right now, the traffic on that road is getting patchier and patchier on the earlier miles. It’s still very busy in its latter stretches, but you frequently have to look further down that road than in previous times.
HYUFD seems to be aiming to ringfence those in the latter miles and assume the earlier miles will just refresh without assistance as if it were an automatic rule.
After 10 years in power the odds are the Tories will lose the next general election.
However if they ignore the pensioner vote as you want they won't just narrowly lose it they will lose it by 1997 style annihilation. Just as they did when Blair won the pensioner vote then as well as every other age group.
Most over 39s are already owning a property anyway at least with a mortgage, hence the Tories won over 39s and the last general election
This thread by Nathan Ruser on twitter show how much land the Ukrainians have taken from Russia to the - North and North East of Kharkiv, threatening to bring the main lines of resupply from Russia into within artillery range; and - to the West of Iziyum. NASA heat maps show Ukrainian artillery hits within 600m of the town.
I had thought that the Ukrainian advances in the north around Kharkiv where mostly an indication that the Russians did not prioritise this area and therefore where the only area where the Ukrainians could advance.
But. perhaps it is part of a bigger and clever strategy? that sead there must be roads in to Russian held territory from Russia that are further south and out of range?
I think a lot of light mobile units went over the protopopivka bridge. Not heavy stuff to occupy territory, but enough to cause mayhem.
Comments
https://twitter.com/samagreene/status/1522751751681904640?cxt=HHwWgMDUgc-p86EqAAAA
Folks, we played this game with the post-Crimea sanctions, the post-MH17 sanctions, the post-Skripal sanctions: they were imposed for specific reasons, about which pundits and others quickly forgot, and then started measuring effectiveness by totally different yardsticks...
Now, I'm not here to say that sanctions are always or even often effective. They most often aren't, even if there isn't often a better alternative -- and doing nothing is usually worse. I'm just here to call for honest analysis and a bit or memory (or at least Googling)
This thread has just been eliminated from the STV count!
That's true in many parts of the United States, too, including where I live, a suburb of Seattle. It is quite common here for older modest homes suitable for young families to be torn down and replaced by houses that are often inappropriately large for their lots.
In the short run, the Boxabl people hope to get around the site shortage by selling what they are calling "Accessory Dwelling Units", which can be added to an existing lot. And in some places, regulations have been changed to allow them, even in places as reactionary as the San Francisco Bay area.
Think of them as homes for a nanny, a grandparent, or even a young couple, being subsidized by parents.
Eventually, we will have to solve the site shortage by repealing many restrictive laws and regulations. (In this area, the main culprit is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_State_Growth_Management_Act )
Those laws and regulation have meant enormous profits for many, including our junior senator, Maria Cantwell, who helped write the law, back when she was in the state legislature.
In a five member seat, you need more than a sixth of the vote to get elected. Those candidates that come lowest are eliminated and their votes transferred to the next choices. When a candidate gets more votes than they need to be elected, then the surplus votes (being in practice the required fraction of all of their votes) is transferred to the next choices. At the end you get the five people elected that best represent the mix of choices the voters have made.
But, it is very much harder to devise a system that doesn't end up being gamed.
For example, Roman Abramovich's daughter Sofia is resident in the UK. Her parents did not benefit from a University education.
It is true that Sofia's lavish lifestyle means that she is perhaps unlikely to want to undertake a thoughtful course in Social Anthropology at Durham.
But, she would nonetheless be a beneficiary of a policy that gives an advantage to those whose parents had not been to University.
However if they ignore the pensioner vote as you want they won't just narrowly lose it they will lose it by 1997 style annihilation. Just as they did when Blair won the pensioner vote then as well as every other age group.
Most over 39s are already owning a property anyway at least with a mortgage, hence the Tories won over 39s and the last general election
https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/1521803274449747968?t=QhqPF3h0j6Frqyb6S_qM-w&s=19
I think the Ukranians are busy re-running Operation Mars.