Comments on: Supplementary vote is neither proportional nor radical http://mytaleofme.chrisjenkinson.org/2008/03/24/supplementary-vote-is-neither-proportional-nor-radical/ I’m Chris Jenkinson, the Academic Affairs Officer at the University of Manchester Students’ Union. Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:02:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Anonymous http://mytaleofme.chrisjenkinson.org/2008/03/24/supplementary-vote-is-neither-proportional-nor-radical/#comment-73 Anonymous Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:09:00 +0000 http://mytaleofme.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/supplementary-vote-is-neither-proportional-nor-radical/#comment-73 Having lived in Australia for 12 years, where every state and the national government uses the 50%+1 system, I feel it's even worse than FPTP. Australia has an entrenched 2 party system, with both parties fighting for a position to the right of the centre. Minor parties do not get seats. At the last election the Greens averaged 13% of the vote and won zero seats. Australia shows that often the government that is elected wins a large majority of seats, yet only gets 35-40% of the first choice. Under 50%+1 most voters end up voting to keep a party out of government, rather than voting for policies/positions that actually want.<br/><br/>I now live in Scotland where we have real PR for both Holyrood and the councils. If the point of an election is to determine what the people want, the commons needs to be elected using PR.<br/><br/>Robert Having lived in Australia for 12 years, where every state and the national government uses the 50%+1 system, I feel it’s even worse than FPTP. Australia has an entrenched 2 party system, with both parties fighting for a position to the right of the centre. Minor parties do not get seats. At the last election the Greens averaged 13% of the vote and won zero seats. Australia shows that often the government that is elected wins a large majority of seats, yet only gets 35-40% of the first choice. Under 50%+1 most voters end up voting to keep a party out of government, rather than voting for policies/positions that actually want.

I now live in Scotland where we have real PR for both Holyrood and the councils. If the point of an election is to determine what the people want, the commons needs to be elected using PR.

Robert

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