EU Referendum - In or Out? Vote here

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shanksi Oct 2016 3:15pm, 28 Oct 2016 1,390 posts	0 shanksi An interesting idea, Binks, but I would think that society's most vulnerable are amongst the least likely to vote (and possibly among the most likely to vote for something that appears to be, but is not, actually in their interests) and that therefore their interests would never be acknowledged by a purely selfish voting system.
beebop Oct 2016 4:17pm, 28 Oct 2016 781 posts	0 beebop Would it work with compulsory voting? I'm not convinced because there's still the problem of everyone finding out what policies they're actually voting for, rather than what various newspaper headlines would like them to think. At least compulsory voting might make politicians think a bit harder about the effects of their policies on the whole of the population, not just their own social circle. Optimistic, perhaps.
Winded Oct 2016 5:31pm, 28 Oct 2016 4,915 posts	0 Winded PR would work well. It would change the political landscape as parties adapted to the new reality. I agree that a local community being served by local MP is a precious thing and it is slightly awkward but not impossible to combine individual selection with PR.
Surelynot Oct 2016 10:03am, 29 Oct 2016 1,252 posts	0 Surelynot The elections for the Scottish Parliament combine FPTP seats for constituency MSPs and regional lists using PR. A hybrid approach which addresses the 'individual' or local issue. It is designed to deliver minority government forcing the need for coalition.
Fellrunning Oct 2016 8:33am, 30 Oct 2016 1,767 posts	0 Fellrunning Finland uses the Local List system. To the outsider it looks exactly like one of our elections in that you have candidates and campaigning at a local level with individual candidates banging on doors like they do here. Constituencies vote in the same way as you would in a FPTP election, and a local winner is declared. However that person does not necessarily end up as the MP. The local MP who goes to sit in the parliament must be someone who was on the list that the constituency had to choose from. So there is always local representation. On occasions more than one person from the list might go forward to parliament. So taking a UK example a Lib Dem might go forward as well as a Tory as the individual parties horse trade about who they actually want in the senate. Thus in another area the Lib Dems might stand their winning candidate down and allow the Tory to go forward instead so that both parties end up with the candidates they want actually sitting. Simples eh?
Too Much Water Nov 2016 9:50am, 1 Nov 2016 5,964 posts	0 Too Much Water No wonder the Finns have such a high rate of suicide with a system like that!
DeeGee Nov 2016 12:58pm, 1 Nov 2016 17,649 posts	0 DeeGee Yes, absolutely, I'd definitely kill myself if I had a fairly elected parliament and a local representative who I could speak to. Are there any foreigners you have a nice word to say about TMW? They have the third highest suicide rate in Europe. I'm guessing that the high suicide rates in Hungary and Belgium are also due to electoral systems that require a little bit of working out as well? Apparently, the problem in the Nordic countries (contrary to the obvious "It's always dark" mantra) is that they are so well looked after, and there is comparatively lower social inequality, that if you are prone to mental health issues and you look at everyone around you being happy, you are more likely to blame yourself for your own unhappiness rather than being able to focus on external factors. euronews.com So therefore, the likes of you with your small-government and every (wo)man for himself; your distrust of anything vaguely "lefty" is actually doing us all a favour by promoting social inequality and keeping our suicide rate nice and low.
HappyG(rrr) Nov 2016 1:12pm, 1 Nov 2016 26,020 posts	0 HappyG(rrr) Had to +1 that one DeeGee. Lol! G
The Teaboy Nov 2016 1:31pm, 1 Nov 2016 14,820 posts	0 The Teaboy On the other hand, the people dying from unnecessary poverty more than makes up for it.
Duchess Nov 2016 1:51pm, 1 Nov 2016 7,215 posts	0 Duchess I think I actually prefer the Scottish Parliament version: direct vote for constituency MSP (highest number of votes sends that candidate to Holyrood) votes for regional candidates, that are weighted such that the overall parliament reflects the overall sharing of votes across the country In theory, if a party ends up with 10% of the votes in each and every constituency, they don't get any constituency MSPs but they do end up with regional MSPs to reflect that overall. DeeGee, a long time ago (pre-internet so I can't provide a link) I read the results of a survey into the incidence of violent death (murder and suicide) in various countries across the world. Although the prevalence of each type was different, the research showed that added together the totals were about the same everywhere. So for example Italy had 70 murders and 10 suicides, while Norway had 10 murders and 70 suicides. The conclusion from that was it drove from differing cultural responses to similar triggers. So in Italy if a man slept with your wife, you killed him in rage and honour, but in Norway you killed yourself because your wife betrayed you. The USA apparently had 40 murders and 40 suicides...