Strange Bedfellows At The Westminster Motel

The strange bedfellows stemming from Britain's nascent Coalition government continue to develop. This week, it's a pairing of Labour's shadow cabinet with 50 backbencher Tories determined to quash the proposed May 2011 referendum on the alternative vote system. Their reasons, largely based on political dogma, are naturally divergent.

The ballot measure, which will go before voters across the UK on 5 May upon passage of the enabling legislation, will eliminate the first-past-the-post system in favour of ranking candidates in order of preference. The system is already in place for electing the mayor of greater London and in local elections across Wales and Scotland, the latter of which will occur simultaneously.

The 50 Tory backbenchers – principally Eurosceptics and right-wing politicians that could pull off a mass defection to UKIP if they really wanted to – oppose this system, believing that first-past-the-post has been a tried-and-true institution that can keep fringe candidates out of Parliament. But instead of going along with their party's coalition agreement, to let the people decide on what system they want, these stuck-in-the-mud traditionalists have every intention of maintaining the status quo.

It must be noted that Cameron, in spite of his willingness to allow the vote, will campaign against it. However, as part of the Coalition agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative plurality agreed to let there be a vote on electoral reform (as championed by the Liberal Democrats) in exchange for the Tories' desire to reduce the number of seats in the House of Commons and ensure an equal number of residents in each constituency.

As a result, Labour's leadership, which championed the Alternative Vote (and even passed the original proposal just six months ago) indicate that they may sign onto a motion to oppose the bill alongside the rebel Tory MPs. They fear that the Lib-Con coalition may gerrymander the new constituencies to divide Labour strongholds and render improbable any chance of a Labour or even LibDem government from forming in the near future. Naturally, it's fodder for generating sound-byte rebuttals, as Cameron was quick to call Labour "backtrackers" and "opportunistic".

With Labour's prospective U-Turn on the proposal, should it pass through Parliament only the Liberal Democrats (among the Westminster Three) will be on board with the Alternative Vote, even as they indicated preference to dumping single-seat constituencies in favour of the Single Transferable Vote system, as used to elect legislators in Northern Ireland.

How would this Web site gauge our Congressional Districts?

A third resource worth perusing during this month of campaigning is a Web site pointing out flaws in the first-past-the-post system that the UK has used to elect members to Parliament for years (and what several other nations have been using as well). Vote Power has calculated how much weight one person's vote has by constituency.

The more volatile a seat is (how often the seat changes hands, margin of victory, population of the district, etc.), the more weight a vote has. On the extremes, Vote Power has determined that the reformed constituency of Arfon in North West Wales has the most sway on the overall vote result, with just over the equivalent of 1.3 times a single vote. The worst constituency is also a new district, Merseyside's Knowsley, where it would take 50,000 voters to make up the moving power of one voter. That's because according to the figures Vote Power has shown, about 70 percent of residents in are believed to have voted for the Labour candidates in 2005.

In terms of constituencies that existed in 2005, the western Wales county constituency of Ceredigion has the most might with 1.220 (4.83 times the national average of 0.253), while Easington in County Durham ranks the lowest, also at 0.002.

While marginal seats are noted for having the most powerful votes in determining the election (it's suggested that despite the anger at Parliament, at least 60 percent of seats will return candidates from the same party), they also wind up having the most "wasted votes". That is, votes not counting toward the winning candidate. In the Labour-strongholds of Easington and Knowsley, only 29 percent of votes are expected to be cast for someone other than Labour's candidates, while in Ceredigion and Arfon, as many as two out of three votes will be cast for someone other than the winning candidate.

This is quite the presentation into the ills of first-past-the-post, both for stable and bellwether seats. A similar presentation could be (and perhaps should be) made later this fall with regards to control of Congress and the Electoral College. It would be interesting to know whether someone moving to Jackson County should settle in Lee's Summit (covered by the reliably Democratic 5th District), shuffle east to Blue Springs (which is the tailbone of an increasingly reliable Republican 6th District), or make the commute from Odessa in neighbouring Lafayette County (where, despite the long tenure of Ike Skelton, the 4th District just might swing to the GOP this fall.)

One, two, three, four: rank them on the ballot so

The British House of Commons today passed a measure that would ask British voters whether they wish to switch voting systems for future Parliamentary elections.

Currently elections to the House of Commons, as well as most county and town councils, use "first past the post", where the candidate with the most votes wins, regardless of what percentage he or she received. This referendum measure would ask voters if they, starting with the election after next, wish to implement the alternate or "instant runoff" voting, where voters would rank candidates by preference rather than just vote for one. In that system, a candidate must have 50 percent of the vote to be named the winner. In the event no one has 50 percent, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated, and next preference votes on the affected ballots are counted. This continues until a candidate has a majority of combined votes. This system is already in place notably in the election for mayor of greater London as well as several nations' presidential elections.

However, with elections to occur in the next four months, this measure must clear all remaining hurdles before the current Parliament is dissolved. With fierce opposition expected in the House of Lords, namely from entrenched traditionalists convinced that first past the post keeps extremist candidates out of office, it is very unlikely that this bill will make it to Her Majesty's desk for her Royal Assent before the next election. And should the Tories, the vast majority of whom voted against this measure today, claim the majority in the next poll, it is very likely that they will scrap the vote.

The Liberal Democrats failed in an effort to amend the proposal altogether, wanting an earlier referendum on their preferred system, the Single Transferable Vote. In this system, constituencies would need redone altogether to establish multi-seat (likely by county or unitary authority) constituencies. STV is currently in use across Northern Ireland and in Scotland's local elections.