I don’t know about you, but I find the outcome of the AV referendum less interesting than the fact that we’re being asked about voting systems at all. Like everyone else, I’ve got my own prejudices here – I particularly dislike the fact that it’s a question that is subject to a referendum in the [...]
Posts under ‘Voting systems’
Why referendums should be banned
Apologies again for the light posting. I’ve written an extensive round-up of the main arguments (that I can think of) against referendums. The full post is over on Slugger O’Toole and a slightly edited (shorter) version is on Liberal Conspiracy. Both were published yesterday.
Electronic Voting
Apologies for the light posting here lately – I’ve been busy with the Political Innovation project. There’s a series of posts I’ve added there on ‘What Politicians need to know about social public information.’ I’ll be reviving this blog shortly. In the meantime, here’s something on electronic voting that I found via O’Conall Street.
Proportionality and voting reform
“Well isn’t this an exciting moment?” I got ‘the fisheye’ when I said this earlier today to a bleary-eyed crowd of people who had been canvassing for different parties in Northern Ireland. Some of them were into their thirtieth hour without sleep. There’s a time and a place for train-spottery musings about constitutional permutations. Electoral [...]
Celeb visualisations: Calling @stephenfry to explain voting systems
The US-based Fair Vote site makes the very valid point that some attempt at civic education needs to be done in advance of any proposals for electoral reform. It particularly concerns the actor Richard Dreyfuss who makes one or two pithy points on the subject: “Don’t call it ‘civics’ because ‘civics’ is easily the most [...]
Voting systems compared
If the rumours are correct, Gordon Brown is about to announce his intention to promote a new voting system for Parliamentary elections in the UK. His choice is said to be the Alternative Vote (AV) system. It looks like the Vote For A Change campaign will get their way and there will be a referendum [...]
A few signposts off
We can learn things from the way they elect Popes – and the way they used to. Chris Dillow reprises his ‘extremist not a fanatic’ theme – that it is rational not to care too much about politics – and that politics benefits from our indifference. And finally ‘Reboot Britain’ will be worth keeping an [...]
Empower failure
According to the Municipal Journal, the UK Government has abandoned plans to introduce a Community Empowerment Bill, which would have implemented some parts of the Communities in Control White Paper. According to the Commons authorities, the Bill would have enabled remote voting in Council meetings, reduced the barriers to introducing an elected mayor, change the [...]
Benchmarking and 'empowerment' are two different things
Wonk-blogger Will Davies has an excellent post up here. Quoting the Communities in Control White Paper as follows… We believe that the causes of political disengagement, while complex, can be distilled to a dominant factor: a sense of powerlessness on the part of most citizens that their voices are not being heard, their views not listened [...]
Two party systems
There’s a very good article over at Westminster Wisdom about the longevity of the US two-party system – a dominance of only two largely unchanged political parties since 1860 – “a record unmatched by any other Democracy.” A comparison with the UK, in which the period from 1945 until the late 1960s marked a fairly [...]
