UK voting system

[talldave]

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No, the majority of the UK opulation is (albeit reluctantly) following the advice/recommendations/rules laid out by the government the aparrently a majority voted for.

I think you'll find that our voting system always gives a government for whom the majority didn't vote.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think you'll find that our voting system always gives a government for whom the majority didn't vote.

A simple majority of the share of the vote did vote Conservative in the last GE, i.e. it had the largest vote share:

United Kingdom general elections overview - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[talldave]

A simple majority of the share of the vote did vote Conservative in the last GE, i.e. it had the largest vote share:

United Kingdom general elections overview - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

More people didn't vote for them than voted for them.

 

[Bletchleyite]

More people didn't vote for them than voted for them.

That's not how it works and will be the same in any multi-party system. What they do get is more seats than the share of the vote, which is the actual issue.

 

[takno]

A simple majority of the share of the vote did vote Conservative in the last GE, i.e. it had the largest vote share:

United Kingdom general elections overview - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That link clearly says that the Conservatives got 43% of the vote at the last election, which is simply not a majority. It is the largest vote share, primarily because the opposing votes were split across 4 parties of varying sizes, but having the largest vote share with less than 50% of the votes isn't a majority, simple or otherwise

 

[Bletchleyite]

That link clearly says that the Conservatives got 43% of the vote at the last election, which is simply not a majority. It is the largest vote share, primarily because the opposing votes were split across 4 parties of varying sizes, but having the largest vote share with less than 50% of the votes isn't a majority, simple or otherwise

It is a simple majority.

simple majority - Google Search

www.google.com

noun
noun: simple majority; plural noun: simple majorities

1. a majority in which the highest number of votes cast for any one candidate, issue, or item exceeds the second-highest number, while not constituting an absolute majority.

 

[talldave]

That's not how it works and will be the same in any multi-party system. What they do get is more seats than the share of the vote, which is the actual issue.

I don't care how it works. I was correcting a statement that a majority of people voted for the government, which the figures you've referenced clearly show as untrue.

 

[takno]

It is a simple majority.

simple majority - Google Search

www.google.com

Interesting. That definition is completely contrary to all the references that follow it in the search, which use simple to differentiate from absolute, which is more than half of all voters whether they voted or not. Looking through the actual dictionary definitions, they seem to split 50/50 on whether they define it as the option receiving the highest votes, or an option receiving more than 50% of votes cast.

If the question at hand though is "did you vote Conservative", then by any definition the simple majority of voters did not

 

[najaB]

It is a simple majority.

I'm not sure that definition is correct. As I understand it what you've described - receiving the largest share of the votes - is a plurality . A simple majority means more than half of the votes cast, and an absolute majority is receiving more than half of the eligible vote.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm not sure that definition is correct.

Well, it appears to be from the Oxford English Dictionary, so take that up with them!

 

[JamesT]

In the US they seem to use the term a 'plurality' to describe where a candidate has the most votes for them but doesn't reach 50%

The last time a government won an absolute majority of the votes in a general election was the Conservatives in 1931, so this isn't a new issue. Boris's 43.6% is the largest share since Thatcher's 1979 win.

 

[najaB]

Well, it appears to be from the Oxford English Dictionary, so take that up with them!

Other dictionaries define it differently (e.g. Collins):

NOUN
more than half of the total number of votes cast

The Oxford definition would be correct if there are only two choices, and none of the examples they use explicitly refer to more than two choices: https://www.lexico.com/definition/simple_majority

And in common usage, if I cut a cake into ten slices and one was slightly larger than the others, nobody would say that the person who got the biggest slice had the majority of the cake.

 

[AM9]

Only in a social media group on somewhere like RUK would there be several members dancing on the heads of pins about whether the current government was voted into power by a majority. OK, as the poster of the original comment I'll change my words to help those members that are having problems with it:

"No, the majority of the UK population is (albeit reluctantly) following the advice/recommendations/rules laid out by the government that it voted into power in the December 2019 General Election with a significant overall majority."

 

[takno]

Only in a social media group on somewhere like RUK would there be several members dancing on the heads of pins about whether the current government was voted into power by a majority. OK, as the poster of the original comment I'll change my words to help those members that are having problems with it:

"No, the majority of the UK population is (albeit reluctantly) following the advice/recommendations/rules laid out by the government that it voted into power in the December 2019 General Election with a significant overall majority."

I used to run a news prediction website. You wouldn't believe the number of incredibly commonly-used words that people turn out not agree on the exact meaning of. Nobody's being difficult - there just isn't a lot precision about the language, and different dictionaries disagree about the most basic things. Use of the word "by" in questions about dates was always my favourite.

 

[Senex]

The OED reference puzzled me too. On further examination, it looks to be an extension to the existing definition added in the New Words list for October 2019, so that the entry now reads:

simple majority n. (a) (originally) a majority comprising more than half of all votes cast; an absolute majority; (b) (in later use also) a majority in which the highest number of votes cast for any one candidate, issue, etc., exceeds the second-highest number, while not comprising more than half of all votes cast; a plurality.

One lives and learns!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Fair enough!

 

[xotGD]

I'll stick with plurality and majority. No ambiguity.

Well, there still is - do you mean a majority of those who voted or those eligible to vote?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'll stick with plurality and majority. No ambiguity.

Well, there still is - do you mean a majority of those who voted or those eligible to vote?

Only the former needs to be considered, as if you don't vote you are expressing an abstention and therefore no preference of the options offered. It cannot be taken to mean anything else.

You can consider why people chose not to vote and indeed should, but in my view under no circumstances should it be considered of relevance to the result.

 

[mikeg]

Plurality is the term used in political science. Also, we refer to our electoral system as single member district plurality, as the correct term.. A lot more correct than first past the post as there's no fixed post to pass!

 

[JamesT]

Only the former needs to be considered, as if you don't vote you are expressing an abstention and therefore no preference of the options offered. It cannot be taken to mean anything else.

You can consider why people chose not to vote and indeed should, but in my view under no circumstances should it be considered of relevance to the result.

You'd think that, but I recall after the referendum seeing lots of charts like the one in https://www.indy100.com/article/bre...ter-turnout-electoral-register-charts-7399226 being used to claim that 'only' a third or a quarter (depending whether you counted the electorate or the whole population) voted for Leave and therefore it didn't count.

 

[najaB]

You'd think that, but I recall after the referendum seeing lots of charts like the one in https://www.indy100.com/article/bre...ter-turnout-electoral-register-charts-7399226 being used to claim that 'only' a third or a quarter (depending whether you counted the electorate or the whole population) voted for Leave and therefore it didn't count.

I don't think many claimed that the referendum result "didn't count". The point being made was that the result of what was, after all an advisory referendum, wasn't a "clear expression of the will of the electorate" as some pro-Brexit commentators like to say but rather represented mild support at best.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

And of course in 1974 the party with the most votes didn’t even form the government.

 

[scotrail158713]

This all ultimately proves the problems with first past the post. It says a lot about the system that one advantage used to justify it is “it’s easy to count votes and get a winner”. We shouldn’t have an undemocratic system just to make the job of a vote counter easier. They only work once every 5 years anyway.
(That last sentence may not be entirely serious )

 

[GRALISTAIR]

How do we go about changing the system then? Do we start with a referendum asking if people want to change? Otherwise it needs the political will of both major parties.

 

[Howardh]

I like having single member/constituency, it makes election night much easire to comprehend! However, it simply isn't fit for the purpose and needs attention. We did have a vote in 2010 and rejected AV; but maybe one day there will be a system where if The Raving Railways Party gets 10% of the vote, they get 10% of the seats in Parliament. It would mean virtually every parliament is hung, but other countries manage.

 

[takno]

How do we go about changing the system then? Do we start with a referendum asking if people want to change? Otherwise it needs the political will of both major parties.

I think you could win a referendum with the support of at least one of the main political parties. The last referendum on topic was pretty much doomed to failure with only the support of the lib-dems, and with a well-run campaign encouraging even Proportional Representation fans to vote against it because Alternative Vote wasn't perfect enough. Things could be far more aligned to making it happen after the next election (if only because right now the next election looks so up in the air)

 

[AM9]

I think you could win a referendum with the support of at least one of the main political parties. The last referendum on topic was pretty much doomed to failure with only the support of the lib-dems, and with a well-run campaign encouraging even Proportional Representation fans to vote against it because Alternative Vote wasn't perfect enough. Things could be far more aligned to making it happen after the next election (if only because right now the next election looks so up in the air)

I agree with that. The Conservatives stitched-up their 'partners' in the coalition by allowing them to have the worst option for PR in the ballot, and then set out to confuse the electorate as much as possible, resulting in a rejection of that particular method, - not of PR itself. That was despit the fact that voters in some local elections have been happy with vote sharing for many years.
The result, the system remains not fit for purpose for a few years longer.

 

[Senex]

I like having single member/constituency, it makes election night much easire to comprehend! However, it simply isn't fit for the purpose and needs attention. We did have a vote in 2010 and rejected AV; but maybe one day there will be a system where if The Raving Railways Party gets 10% of the vote, they get 10% of the seats in Parliament. It would mean virtually every parliament is hung, but other countries manage.

I was one of the many people who voted in 2010 against AV because it isn't a proper proportional system, thinking that if we got a poor alternative to FPTP we'd be stuck with it for ever as the politicians who claim they'd given us what we wanted. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe the bottle one-sixteenth full would be better than the bottle empty.

 

[PhilipRhayader]

And of course in 1974 the party with the most votes didn’t even form the government.

As also happened in 1951 but to the other party.

 

[mmh]

I think you could win a referendum with the support of at least one of the main political parties. The last referendum on topic was pretty much doomed to failure with only the support of the lib-dems, and with a well-run campaign encouraging even Proportional Representation fans to vote against it because Alternative Vote wasn't perfect enough. Things could be far more aligned to making it happen after the next election (if only because right now the next election looks so up in the air)

There's something to be said for voting against constitutional reform if it isn't perfect. The Scottish and Welsh hybrid systems are a good example. The list system hasn't prevented Labour being in power for 20 years while the North and West routinely votes Tory and Plaid Cymru, but the system ensures that while the South refuses to vote anything but Labour it will only ever mean a smattering of members. Be careful what you wish for and all that.