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Should we drop Proportional Representation

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    #182
    PommieBast
    Registered Users Posts: 2,592 ✭✭✭PommieBast


    View wrote: »
    The ballots once removed from the urns could be stamped with a unique ID and then scanned by OCRs at the count centre with tellers confirming (with a Yes/No) that each scan matches the ballot paper. The physical ballots could then be set aside in bundles much like now.
    Ballots already have pre-printed serial numbers. At polling stations the staff note down which ballot papers have been issued and which are unused/damaged.



    To have confidence in the system, a different teller should be able to pick up a random ballot and cross-check it with a copy of the database. The raw data is only going to be about 10-20MB for a typical Irish constituency so it could be burned to CDs and party representatives can run it through their own laptops to check calculations.


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    #183
    maestroamado
    Registered Users Posts: 4,426 ✭✭✭maestroamado


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    There are two forms of eVoting.

    Type A , voter can't verify vote. Only the software knows what's really going on.

    Type B , voter can verify vote and so could sell it.


    Pencil and paper and 18 candidates and those hole punch things means ballot stuffing is physically difficult. Tallymen and officials would likely spot similar handwriting if it was too common.

    X's make it much easier to stuff ballots. It's another reason to avioid FPTP.


    I thought with FPTP we just select our candidate with X or whatever...


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    #184
    murphaph
    Registered Users Posts: 19,018 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    The fact the count is manual builds tension. It provides a level of drama that would be absent if a computer did the whole thing in a split second.

    You can make a solid argument that this drama draws people in to politics in a way that would not happen otherwise.

    Of course you can make a counter argument that the smartphone generation would be more engaged by an app so they could vote from anywhere, anytime.

    I think we should stick with what we have though.


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    #185
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,410 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    murphaph wrote: »
    The fact the count is manual builds tension. It provides a level of drama that would be absent if a computer did the whole thing in a split second.

    You can make a solid argument that this drama draws people in to politics in a way that would not happen otherwise.

    Of course you can make a counter argument that the smartphone generation would be more engaged by an app so they could vote from anywhere, anytime.

    I think we should stick with what we have though.

    It is when the drama gets as exciting as paint drying that there needs to be a change. The Euro elections have too many candidates and too many votes to count.

    The drama can be preserved by announcing the count as each stage, or count, progresses.

    However, we should stick as we are.


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    #186
    VinLieger
    Registered Users Posts: 17,730 ✭✭✭✭VinLieger


    murphaph wrote: »
    Of course you can make a counter argument that the smartphone generation would be more engaged by an app so they could vote from anywhere, anytime.

    Ignoring the security concerns i dont believe this would actually add engagement, making voting easier might be a positive however it doesnt mean people will engage fully in the election. The likelihood is many would vote and then not pay any more attention or also a minority would simple tick boxes in such an app without really caring who they were voting for.

    Paper ballots and polling stations do add an increased effort to voting especially for younger generations who prefer everything available at their fingertips, but the added bonus may be that only those who actually care are active in the process. This argument does of course cut both ways as makes it also more difficult to draw people who dont care into the process so it is a double edged sword.


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    #187
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,410 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    VinLieger wrote: »
    Ignoring the security concerns i dont believe this would actually add engagement, making voting easier might be a positive however it doesnt mean people will engage fully in the election. The likelihood is many would vote and then not pay any more attention or also a minority would simple tick boxes in such an app without really caring who they were voting for.

    Remember the on-line poll that gave the name 'Boaty McBoatface' to a serious attempt to name an environmental explorer ship?


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    #188
    View
    Registered Users Posts: 3,872 ✭✭✭View


    Sam Russell wrote: »
    It is when the drama gets as exciting as paint drying that there needs to be a change. The Euro elections have too many candidates and too many votes to count.

    The drama can be preserved by announcing the count as each stage, or count, progresses.

    However, we should stick as we are.

    There is absolutely no (legal or political) reason why we can’t hold the European elections here using an alternative form of PR.

    Given that the European Parliament largely operates on a party political/ideological bloc basis, it would make far more sense for voters here to cast their votes on a party list basis (so that the EU level political affiliation of each party was transparent), and that this was done on a nationwide single constituency basis.

    The system chosen could be either a closed (pre-determined by the party) or open (one where voters can order (or re-order) the candidates of the party, that they have chosen to vote for, as they see fit) party list basis.

    PR-STV is particularly unsuitable for the European elections since it obscures the party/ideological position of the candidates and reduces the election to a battle of personalities - an issue that is completely pointless since the multilingual operating basis of the European Parliament largely renders an MEP’s personality moot.


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    #189
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,410 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    View wrote: »
    There is absolutely no (legal or political) reason why we can’t hold the European elections here using an alternative form of PR.

    Given that the European Parliament largely operates on a party political/ideological bloc basis, it would make far more sense for voters here to cast their votes on a party list basis (so that the EU level political affiliation of each party was transparent), and that this was done on a nationwide single constituency basis.

    The system chosen could be either a closed (pre-determined by the party) or open (one where voters can order (or re-order) the candidates of the party, that they have chosen to vote for, as they see fit) party list basis.

    PR-STV is particularly unsuitable for the European elections since it obscures the party/ideological position of the candidates and reduces the election to a battle of personalities - an issue that is completely pointless since the multilingual operating basis of the European Parliament largely renders an MEP’s personality moot.

    The Uk used a party list system for their Euro votes and look where that got them.

    The FPTP system gives power to a party as the party selects the candidates. The list system would give the party control over who sits in the European Parliament.

    I don't think so. Some countries use a combination of individual votes and party votes - but I am not sure how it works in practice.

    .


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    #190
    VinLieger
    Registered Users Posts: 17,730 ✭✭✭✭VinLieger


    maestroamado wrote: »
    I thought with FPTP we just select our candidate with X or whatever...

    Yes exactly which is another reason that its inferior and more open to ballot stuffing as was quite plainly stated.....


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    #191
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    View wrote: »
    There is absolutely no (legal or political) reason why we can’t hold the European elections here using an alternative form of PR.

    Given that the European Parliament largely operates on a party political/ideological bloc basis, it would make far more sense for voters here to cast their votes on a party list basis (so that the EU level political affiliation of each party was transparent), and that this was done on a nationwide single constituency basis.
    European party list is dead easy, just get the Irish parties to agree amongst themselves who the candidates should be.

    SF, Inds. 4 Change and Solidarity–PBP are in the European United Left–Nordic Green Left group but there's not a lot of love lost between them.
    And Ming is in the group too.

    Labour are with the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.

    The Social Democrats and Workers party don't subscribe to any group

    It's the Peoples Popular Front of Judea.


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    #192
    View
    Registered Users Posts: 3,872 ✭✭✭View


    Sam Russell wrote: »
    The Uk used a party list system for their Euro votes and look where that got them.

    Every other country in the EU also use party list PR systems in the European elections. They do so without problems, so that isn’t a good argument against party list PR.
    Sam Russell wrote: »
    The FPTP system gives power to a party as the party selects the candidates. The list system would give the party control over who sits in the European Parliament.

    Irrespective of whatever voting system is used, including under PR-STV, parties control whoever appears under their party banner on the ballot, so they control the “menu” of people who can be elected to sit in a parliament.

    Also, if you re-read my post, I mentioned BOTH closed AND open party lists. The latter, as I said before, allows voters to order (or re-order) the party’s candidate list - ie vote 1, 2, 3 etc for the candidates from the party that the voter has decided to vote for. We are perfectly free to opt for an open party list system, rather than a closed party list system.


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    #193
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,123 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    View wrote: »
    Every other country in the EU also use party list PR systems in the European elections. They do so without problems, so that isn’t a good argument against party list PR.



    Irrespective of whatever voting system is used, including under PR-STV, parties control whoever appears under their party banner on the ballot, so they control the “menu” of people who can be elected to sit in a parliament.

    Also, if you re-read my post, I mentioned BOTH closed AND open party lists. The latter, as I said before, allows voters to order (or re-order) the party’s candidate list - ie vote 1, 2, 3 etc for the candidates from the party that the voter has decided to vote for. We are perfectly free to opt for an open party list system, rather than a closed party list system.
    The difference between an open list system and PR-STV is that the open list system requires you to plump for a particular party and then allows you only to express preferences as between the candidates of that party. You couldn't,for example, decide to prefer all the candidates who share your view on a particular issue that matters to you ahead of all the candidates that don't, which is something that PR allows you to do.

    My view, basically, is that of all the electoral systems I have looked at PR-STV maximises the degree of control it gives to the voter; all the others take control away from the voter, to a greater or lesser extent, and give it to the party. FPTP is at the other end of the scale, maximising the degree of control given to parties and minimising that given to voters.

    Democratic principles suggest, therefore, that we should default to PR-STV, unless a compelling case is made for reducing the degree of control allowed to voters in some particular respect.


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    #194
    YellowBucket
    Closed Accounts Posts: 491 ✭✭YellowBucket


    There’s really no argument in favour of getting rid of PR STV from what I can see.

    You’re unlikely to see it adopted by countries that have established FPTP or PR-List systems because parties are very unlikely to want to cede that level of control to the electorate.

    If you think of where Irish PR STV originated, it was basically chosen to avoid majoritarian monopoly on power due to the ethnic and political divide between green and orange before the state ever formed & it was envisaged to have been used in non partitioned Ireland.

    FPTP could have caused serious issues.

    It also is established for over a century at this stage. It’s more bedded in than most.

    The issues that need to be addressed here are more about the functioning of the Dail and I would reiterate that the issue is we’ve a very good, proportional representation system bolted to a parliament that was designed for FPTP as it’s basically the Westminster model, with relatively few modifications.


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    #195
    maestroamado
    Registered Users Posts: 4,426 ✭✭✭maestroamado


    VinLieger wrote: »
    Yes exactly which is another reason that its inferior and more open to ballot stuffing as was quite plainly stated.....




    What's ballot stuffing?
    I assume you mean stuffing paper into boxes, i do not see the difference in which system as each person has one ballot paper.
    Maybe its something else...


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    #196
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,850 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    Fraud. Extra votes being inserted before or after voting happens.

    The serial numbers, stamps, records of papers provided etc make it basically impossible here.


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    #197
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,410 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    maestroamado wrote: »
    What's ballot stuffing?
    I assume you mean stuffing paper into boxes, i do not see the difference in which system as each person has one ballot paper.
    Maybe its something else...

    In some countries, like despotic African ones, the ballot box arrives stuffed with ballots already in them. This is countered by using transparent boxes. The stuffing then happens later. It is to make a fraudulent ballot look legitimate but fools no-one.

    Another trick (used in the USA presidential elections) is to pre punch the ballot with one candidate. If the voter votes for that candidate, then no harm. However, if the voter goes the other way, an invalid code is generated and the vote is invalid. Now that would only work for a small number of votes other wise it is obvious, but that might be all it takes.

    Voting fraud goes on everywhere. Was not Charlie Haughey's election agent convicted of personation*.


    *Vote early, vote often.


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    #198
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,123 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Sam Russell wrote: »
    . . . Voting fraud goes on everywhere. Was not Charlie Haughey's election agent convicted of personation*.

    *Vote early, vote often.
    He was acquitted, and left the court without a stain on his character.


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    #199
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,410 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    He was acquitted, and left the court without a stain on his character.

    That may have been true of his agent but not many would say that about CJH.


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    #200
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,123 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Not many would have said it about the agent either, if we're honest. He was ever afterwards known to one and all as Pat Pat O'Connor O'Connor, and as far as I can recall no FF candidate ever has the brass neck to nominate O'Connor O'Connor as an election agent again.


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    #201
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,410 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    A judge sitting in a Kerry court said to the accused after he was acquitted by a local Kerry jury, 'You leave this court with no stain on your character other than having been acquitted by a Kerry jury'.


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    #202
    Hotblack Desiato
    Registered Users Posts: 34,080 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    View wrote: »
    Given that the European Parliament largely operates on a party political/ideological bloc basis

    And FF are in the Liberal group, which is a joke really, but FG had already bagged the EPP...

    Fingal County Council are certainly not competent to be making decisions about the most important piece of infrastructure on the island. They need to stick to badly designed cycle lanes and deciding on whether Mrs Murphy can have her kitchen extension.



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    #203
    PommieBast
    Registered Users Posts: 2,592 ✭✭✭PommieBast


    YellowBucket wrote: »
    There’s really no argument in favour of getting rid of PR STV from what I can see.
    Any system has to be a balance between accurate representing the population as a whole and delivering the arithmetic that can lead to a functional government. The gripe against STV is that it has delivered a block of 20 independents (more if single-TD parties are included) and while they are there government instability is inevitable.


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    #204
    YellowBucket
    Closed Accounts Posts: 491 ✭✭YellowBucket


    What evidence is there that we've had government any history of instability?

    Ireland's been ranking amongst the most politically stable group of countries, way ahead of France, UK, the USA and even ahead of Canada and Australia, Denmark, Austria and Sweden.

    We rode through an economic collapse, without even a whimper of political instability. The electorate punished FF, quite severely by any international comparisons, the Dail didn't go into chaos and we ended up with FF slowly reemerging but with nothing like the levels of power they've had before.

    The current government took a while to form, but that was also complicated by a backdrop of a global pandemic and it's still massively more stable than say Belgium, which uses PR-List systems and can barely manage to even form a government at all.

    I'm seeing a lot of chasing around for solutions to a problem we don't have.

    If you want to preempt problems with stability, the work needs to be done in the Dail to built systems that are more even more about consensus building and encouraging cross-spectrum, deliberative processes.


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    #205
    PommieBast
    Registered Users Posts: 2,592 ✭✭✭PommieBast


    YellowBucket wrote: »
    What evidence is there that we've had government any history of instability?
    Not much. I was explaining the argument rather than agreeing with it. A lot of people only ever look back 1 or 2 elections and equate anything other than majority government with instability.


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    #206
    YellowBucket
    Closed Accounts Posts: 491 ✭✭YellowBucket


    PommieBast wrote: »
    Not much. I was explaining the argument rather than agreeing with it. A lot of people only ever look back 1 or 2 elections and equate anything other than majority government with instability.

    At that rate they’d be looking at writing off most of the most stable parts of the world, almost all of which run multiparty PR democracies that regularly produce complex coalitions.

    The key factor in stability is the politics itself. Ireland has had a fairly remarkable ability to find the centre and common ground positions. There’s a fairly strong history of it.


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    #207
    Deise Vu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,939 ✭✭✭Deise Vu


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    He was acquitted, and left the court without a stain on his character.

    I'll refrain from comment on that in case my sarcasm detector has failed. Pat O'Connor was acquitted of voter fraud despite being seen going into two different polling stations, applying for a vote and disappearing into a booth because, due to the secrecy of the ballot, nobody could prove he actually voted twice.

    The offence now is in just applying for a second vote rather than voting twice.


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    #208
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,123 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Deise Vu wrote: »
    I'll refrain from comment on that in case my sarcasm detector has failed . . .
    It has. :)


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    #209
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    YellowBucket wrote: »
    What evidence is there that we've had government any history of instability?

    Here's how unstable we are

    https://i.imgur.com/KHK5AUl.gif

    Political Position of Governing Parties of Europe 1946-2017


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    #210
    Sean.3516
    Registered Users Posts: 862 ✭✭✭Sean.3516


    Yeah, get rid of PR. It allows the vote to be split too many ways and we just end up with these weak coalition governments that are incapable of affecting a coherent platform. I've heard it said that "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."

    Another thing I'd suggest in order to counter the potential dangers of unbridled democracy would be the to empower the Seanad a lot more. Make them capable of vetoing laws passed by the Dail.

    I would also make senators appointed by County Councils with each county having exactly two senators with the Councils having the power to recall senators that displease them. Since local politics usually has a lot more continuity than national politics, a senate appointed by local authorities would be more "conservative" and inclined to rein in the Dail if it lost the run of itself.

    This is all if I was asked to re-write the Constitution. I don't expect any of this would ever be implemented.


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    #211
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,410 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Sean.3516 wrote: »
    Yeah, get rid of PR. It allows the vote to be split too many ways and we just end up with these weak coalition governments that are incapable of affecting a coherent platform. I've heard it said that "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."

    Another thing I'd suggest in order to counter the potential dangers of unbridled democracy would be the to empower the Seanad a lot more. Make them capable of vetoing laws passed by the Dail.

    I would also make senators appointed by County Councils with each county having exactly two senators with the Councils having the power to recall senators that displease them. Since local politics usually has a lot more continuity than national politics, a senate appointed by local authorities would be more "conservative" and inclined to rein in the Dail if it lost the run of itself.

    This is all if I was asked to re-write the Constitution. I don't expect any of this would ever be implemented.

    It would be better to start with strengthening local government. The control of some services should be entirely controlled locally and not centrally. The number of Councils should be reduced also - to about twelve.

    The Seanad should be elected by the same electorate as the Dail on the same day. Currently there is a bias towards rural councils because the councillors all get the same vote for the Seanad irrespective of the no of first pref votes they got. This means currently a Dublin councillor is representing a high multiple of voters than some rural councillors voters.


    Having the vote on the same day as the Dail would remove the wannabe TD and the failed TD from standing. The Senate has too many failed TDs in its ranks.


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