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Hiya! Itsa me, Mario 2 quid is good (Gasp! She typed it out fully). So this has been niggling around in my head for a while, and seeing as Barry hasn't made it yet I thought I would. (Don't ask me, he's a mindreader or something) So without. Further. Ado DADADADADADADADA --> ELECTORAL REFORM This is a buzzword that loads of media people and lizard persons politicians use. But what does it mean? Well the official definition is: So if you're a little cynical, you could consider this gerrymandering by the party of the day to increase their vote share. Or, if you're a glass half full kinda guy, you could consider this a wonderful opportunity to make the whole system fairer. Opinions, eh? For arguments sake, lets go with the second one for the purposes of this post. Now, before this election, I had a vague idea of how the American political system worked, but now I feel I know enough to at least talk about it in this context. We all know that Trump won, happy face, sad face, delete as appropriate. That's not what we're here to discuss. Of course the full results still haven't come in yet, but the loser of this election had more votes than the winner. So what's that all about? Surely that can't be right? THIS DOES NOT COMPUTE! Well actually, it computes very well, because the US has this thing called the electoral college. TL;DR Each state has a number of electoral college votes, and the person who wins the state gets them all. They need 270 to win. Trump got the magic number, even though he had a lower vote share, ergo, he won. From an outsiders perspective, the US is so huge and populous, that I don't think they need to bother with electoral college votes. This is because, unlike in other countries, Americans first directly vote who they want as their presidential candidate, and then directly vote for their president. Why was a middleman thrust in? It seems to me a relic of bygone times when the establishment were free to gerrymander to their hearts content. In the UK, we vote in a constituency MP, known as a seat in parliament. Right now there are 650 seats, but the Conservative party wishes to decrease that number to 600, which will disproportionately affect Labour seats, and also, doesn't make sense because the population of the UK is at an all time high. Of course they claim that there is no gerrymandering but the facts speak for themselves. So what are we gonna do about it? Well nothing, really, we're just gonna discuss and debate. I've tried to outline as many different electoral systems as possible, and I'd like it if we could all discuss how to better all of our electoral systems. NUMBER ONE - FIRST PAST THE POST (FPTP) Used in: UK, many former UK colonies (ok there were wayyy too many for this one and loads of the countries were former colonies so, like, don't get offended please?) and US (this surprised me) You're running a race, you can see the finish line and then BAM! The person behind you streaks ahead! They take ALL the medals. That's FPTP in a nutshell. Benefits: Simple to undestand, generally provides majority governments therefore more stable Drawbacks: Where do we start! 1) Gerrymandering the results is extremely easy to do. Take for example the new boundary changes I mentioned. If this gets through Parliament, the UK could end up with the Conservative party in charge literally forever! *shudders* 2) There are a lot of wasted votes. A prime example is the US election, another one, however, is the 1951 UK General Election. Labour won the most votes they've ever won, and held the record for most votes ever cast for any party until 1992. But they did not get the seats therefore they lost. 3) Tactical Voting. My constituency, Surrey Heath is the safest conservative seat in the UK. No matter how terrible the MP is, Surrey Heath will vote for them. Proof: Michael Gove Therefore, if you don't want the Tories to win, you would have to vote Liberal Democrats, as that's the only way the constituency would swing. (Un)fortunately, its never happened. 4) Smaller Parties. In the 2015 General Election, a party known as UKIP (aka Acceptable Racism) won around 4 million votes, which only translated to 1 seat in Parliament. On the flip side, the SNP (Scottish Nationalist) won over 1 million votes but won 54 seats. Why? FPTP, that's why. Scotland has a much smaller population, but more seats for represenatation purposes. Also, UKIP were a lot of second place parties, and only won in one place. However small parties also have another effect, they drain away votes from parties that could actually win the election. In many places, this overlaps with Tactical voting - People don't vote for the party thwy want, they vote to keep the Tories out. I would use another party, but there has never been a case of keeping out a party other than the Conservatives. Except for South Thanet in 2015. Ok, so that's that done, NUMBER 2 SINGLE-TRANSFERABLE VOTE (STV) Used in: Republic of Ireland, Scotland, UK local elections, Malta, Australian local elections, India, Pakistan So what you basically do, is rank the candidates. You don't have to rank them all. And its counted in rounds. After every round, the person wo got the least votes is eliminated, and their votes go to whoever was ranked 2nd. This keeps on going until you have a winner. Benefits: Reduces the need for tactical voting, Less wasted votes, more representation Drawbacks: I'll be honest, not a whole lot. It's not completely fair. But it's better. 1) It is rather complex. I tried to give a summary, but it's very difficult to undestand the counting process. The voting bit is fine though. 2) There is no set way to count. You can choose the quotas for the candidates, but in the final round, someone who was everybody's 2nd choice could end up being the winner. You can have some strange results. But this also decreases any gerrymandering. NUMBER 3 ALTERNATIVE VOTE (AV) Used in: Australia, Canada, Papua New Guinea A mixture of FPTP and STV. In the first round of voting, if there is a clear majority, that candidate wins. However, if there isn't, the votes keep on being transeferred until a winner is found,whereas STV keeps going on to find a winner. There is a difference. Benefits: Slightly better than FPTP, as there is slightly more representation. Slightly less tactical voting. Drawbacks: It's not too different to FPTP 1) Winner-take-all. If there is a clear majority, then it has no effect. This means safe seats will stay just that. Safe. 2) Not that proportional. Well, yeah. NUMBER 4 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION (PR) Used in: Germany, New Zealand, Scotland, Wales, Bolivia, Lesotho, Hungary Don't be fooled by the name in he picture, this system is known by many different names. Basically, if you win 30% of the votes you get 30% of seats. Simples Benefits: Completely fair, you literally could not complain about the result. Basically no need for tactical voting. No wasted votes, practically. Drawbacks: How could there be possibly be any drawbacks!, I hear you cry. Well read on. 1) Coalitions. You would very rarely have majority governments. The UK is very averse to this. Germnay on the other hand isn't. 2) Confusion. Apparently, having two votes confuses people 3) It's how Hitler got into power And on that note: NUMBER 5 DICTATORSHIP lol disregard that These are just the main ones. Feel free to add any more.