Among yesterday’s front pages was a data visualisation which, at first glance, was one of the most effective I’ve ever seen: the Independent had made an infographic showing yesterday’s £6bn budget cuts in context - as a fraction of a debt mountain.
Then I looked closer - and something’s very, very wrong.
Can you tell what it […]
The UK’s not considering introducing a “pure” proportional representation system – where number of votes translates entirely into number of seats – but comparing the status quo with what a ‘fair’ electoral system yileds interesting results.
It’s visualised below.
Highlights include:
Let me know what you think. The systems being mooted in the UK would result in something between this visualisation and the status quo - a pure list system isn’t under consideration, so consider this as for illustrative purposes only.
Tags: #ge2010, election, featured, politics, proportional representation, UK
May 11th, 2010 at 7:37 am
Yikes, the BNP/UKIP bit is very scary.
Doesn’t help much with the big three, though, does it!
May 11th, 2010 at 10:14 am
NOBODY is suggesting a “pure” PR system, so this graphic is completely misleading.
The Tories may allow AV or AV+ which at best will give the Lib Dems an extra 20 seats but will almost certainly not give the BNP any seats.
The Lib Dems are suggesting STV, and with sensible quotas and regional constituencies is VERY unlikely to give the BNP or UKIP any seats either. No more than FPTP anyway (ref Greens getting a seat with less % vote than BNP through a very locally concentrated campaign).
And if anybody was to go with PR or AMS then you’d be absolutely mad not to have an election threshold. We’d probably want to take the lead from Germany who have a 5% threshold and are obviously pretty keen on not electing any extremists…
I urge you to read up on the different systems at http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=5, and there’s also a guide to the many voting systems we already use in the UK at http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/downloads/Voting%20in%20the%20UK%20for%20web.pdf
May 11th, 2010 at 10:40 am
(To be fair, you do point out nobody’s touting pure PR - but to say “The systems being mooted in the UK would result in something between this visualisation and the status quo” is still misleading I think - under AV, AV+ or STV the results would be incomparable.)
May 11th, 2010 at 10:41 am
Hi Paul,
Just to reassure you, I’m aware the pure PR system isn’t under consideration – and have said that right there in the article.
The many different systems will result in outcomes somewhere between ‘pure’ PR and first-past-the-post, but depending where borders etc are set for top-up votes, the outcomes could vary wildly.
Not to mention that inventing STV results for previous elections is pretty dubious.
This illustrates the outcome under one extreme, first-past-the-post, and the other – nothing more.
I am – alas – every bit the electoral-systems dork.