LogFAQs > #931525713

iPhone_7 posted...

Its a bad voting system? When people talk about how the U.S. has a bad voting system they usually point to European countries like France & Britain as examples of superior voting systems.

I dunno whats what anymore.

Ita better than the US' system. The electoral college makes no sense

But it's still not great.

In the UK you vote for your local MP to run the area. Each constituency is roughly 70,000 people.

On paper that means local communities the representation they want and the government leader is just the most popular party.

In reality tho this is flawed . As another user said its still first passed the post as a system rather than a fairer representation.

For example UKIP only ever had 1 MP and that was an already popular conservative convert who took his support with him.

At the time over 10% of the population voted UKIP, yet for over a decade they had no representation

Same is true though less extreme for Liberal Democrats or Greens who get some MPs but barely any considering the millions who support them.

You also get safe zones that always vote the same way. Places like Aylesbury which have been conservative for decades, not much is going to change there.

As a result you get HUGE amounts of tactical voting. For example anyone who opposes Conservatives in aylesbury had to vote labour regardless of their beliefs because any other vote is as wasted as voting 3rd party in America.

We saw this in this very election where the Brexit party only ran in contested constituencies and left popular conservative ones alone, they never intended to win a single MP, just wanted to disrupt Labour and Lib Dem votes

On the flipside , in contested areas there can be no true majority. I think an MP in Northern Ireland won with 22% of the vote once.

Not even a quarter of the voting population supported her and shes in charge.

So in short yeah its "better" and "more representative " than the US' system but if the US gets an F then the UK gets a D+

Technically a passing grade but massive room for improvement

And this isn't even mentioning the House of Lords who the public has no control over who are a bunch of old fat men who can veto laws and legislation that the democratically elected government created just because they dont like it, the GOPs dream.

To be fair though, right now the UK is intensely split politically , I think foreigners seeing conservatives dominating the election wont realize just how divided the population is and just how much every party is viewed with disdain and scrutiny

Not violence , dont expect a revolution anytime soon, but about the only thing most of the UK can agree on is that they are all fucking sick of it

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When the going gets tough, the tough go have a little cry in the corner.
"Your mustache is crooked" ~ R.I.P Randy Savage.