By working together, we can be the Conservative party
Seems that the lib-dems sold everything they cared about for a chance at a referendum on AV -- a system that's shite, but shite in a way that might favour lib dem more than the current shite system does.
I voted lib dem, and then i voted AV, in the hopes that voting lib-dem next time would actually get them elected and get us a single transferable vote system; not my preference, but a functionally democratic system.
Now I -- undoubtedly like the lib-dem party -- am feeling a bit narked.
They've sold a lot, and got nothing in return.
The best way forward IMO is for the lib-dems to use the threat of re-allying with Labour to get some things -- any things -- in order to present themselves as a Relevent Party that Does Things at the next election, and hopefully win.
I'm interested in how it'll turn out for them: if it doesn't work they run the risk of appearing to be an irrelevent party that'll sell everything it believes in for a grand total of Nothing.
In other news: what happened to wikileaks? It's made another leak (the Guantanamo files) but it's not been mentioned in the news anywhere near as much as it was at it's peak...
Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts
Friday, 20 May 2011
Friday, 23 July 2010
Alternative Votes
Would you like us to ignore you like this, or like that?
The basic idea behind alternative voting is that if a party doesn't get enough votes to get elected, then their voters will be able to have their votes transfered to an 'alternative' preference; in other words, you can now try to vote lib-dem, and when that doesn't work, you can have your vote transfered to another party.
Sounds cool, no?
No.
See, the parties that drop out first are the smaller ones. So, you can vote for the green party, or the BNP, or the Monster Raving Loony party, and you can even vote "green OR IF THEY DON'T GET IN monster raving loony OR FAILING THAT I'D LIKE MY VOTE TO BE TRANSFERRED TO ukip" or whatever... but these small parties, catering, democratically enough, to what some people want, will always be 'knocked out' and silenced, and your vote will be transferred elsewhere, bouncing around from party-that-isn't-going-to-be-given-any-power to party-that-isn't-going-to-be-given-any-power.
Until it reaches one of the big three, in which case it'll 'get stuck there' as those parties -- Lib Dem, Lab, and Con -- are too big to be knocked out. If they are, it'll be right at the end so your vote will ONLY be transferred to another big party or ignored.
Rather than wasting your vote, AV steals it; unless you don't vote for one of the big 3 at all, in which case AV will waste your vote anyway.
An example:
Lets say you vote like this, with your choices ranked in order of preference:
1 green party
2 yellow party
3 red party
4 lib dem
5 monster raving loony party
6 conservative
0 BNP
0 UKIP
Now, lets say the results of the vote are like this:
26% Labour
25% Conservative
24% Lib-Dem
10% monster raving loony
5% yellow
4% UKIP
3% green <-- your vote is here
2% BNP
1% red
0% ignored
OK, what happens first is that the red party, having lost, gets knocked out and it's votes redistributed. for the sake of example, lets assume that every single red voter wanted yellow as their second choice.
26% Labour
25% Conservative
24% Lib-Dem
10% monster raving loony
6% yellow +1%
4% UKIP
3% green <-- your vote is here
2% BNP
0% red -1%
0% ignored
Now the BNP get knocked out. lets say half the BNP had UKIP as their second choice, whilst the others had conservatives down as number 2.
26% Labour
26% Conservative +1%
24% Lib-Dem
10% monster raving loony
6% yellow
5% UKIP +1%
3% green <-- your vote is here
0% BNP -2%
0% red
0% ignored
Now... aww, nuts. it's your number 1 choice, the green party that gets knocked out... not to worry, your vote is transferred, right?
Your vote is transferred to your number 2 choice, the yellow party. And, lets say for simplicity that every other green voter also wanted yellow as their second choice:
26% Labour
26% Conservative
24% Lib-Dem
10% monster raving loony
9% yellow +3% <-- your vote is here
5% UKIP
0% green -3%
0% BNP
0% red
0% ignored
Horray, my vote wasn't wasted! Now UKIP go out. lets just say that their voters didn't have a second preference, so their votes are now dropped:
26% Labour
26% Conservative
24% Lib-Dem
10% monster raving loony
9% yellow <-- your vote is here
0% UKIP -5%
0% green
0% BNP
0% red
5% ignored +5%
Aww... your second choice goes out now. Your vote now would go to your third choice, red, but they're out of the running. So, instead, it goes to your 4th choice, Lib Dem. lets say there's quite a lot of variety amongst the yellow voters as to who is next best:
28% Labour +2%
28% Conservative +2%
26% Lib-Dem +2% <-- your vote is here
12% monster raving loony +2%
0% yellow -9%
0% UKIP
0% green
0% BNP
0% red
6% ignored +1%
Hmm... that 'quite a lot of variety' has rendered down into 'four parties' 'cos the others have been knocked out; apart from 1% of the voters, who are now, therefore, not having their votes counted.
Now MRLP goes bye-byes, and also has a variety of next choices:
32% Labour +4%
32% Conservative +4%
30% Lib-Dem +4% <-- your vote is here
0% monster raving loony -12%
0% yellow
0% UKIP
0% green
0% BNP
0% red
6% ignored
Note that the big three are collecting all the votes (even tho there are a variety of next choices, they -- being big -- are the only ones left not knocked out)
Now it's lib-dem getting knocked out, and your vote being transfered again; 2/3rds of the lib-dem voters prefer conservative over labour, 1/6th prefer labour over con, and the other 1/6 don't like either and so will be ignored. Note that 'prefer conservative over labour' might mean that they have many inbetween preferences, but they're being ignored as all the other parties have been knocked out:
37% Labour +5%
52% Conservative +20% <-- your vote is here
0% Lib-Dem -30%
0% monster raving loony
0% yellow
0% UKIP
0% green
0% BNP
0% red
11% ignored +5%
And the conservatives win!
But... wait... your vote ended up at your last choice. In fact, conservative could easily be most voters last choice. And if you didn't like either Lab or Con, your vote would have been ignored!
What's happening is that, by knocking out the smaller parties first, you almost guarantee that everyones' vote will end up with labour, conservative, lib-dem, or ignored.
This is another way of forcing us to 'choose' one of the big parties,
The only good things about it? There's a fractional chance that one of the non-big-three will actually win (fat chance, but slightly better than under FPTP); and Lib-Dem might actually win and therefore give us the Single Transferable Vote system (much better)
Tho why we can't just say that, in the above example, labour get 26% of the vote, cons get 25, etc. etc. and your party (green) get 3% of the vote -- i.e., why can't we have a directly proportional system -- is beyond me.
As an example of how it can go completely wrong, imagine everyone had put the red party as it's second choice: they'd be clearly the best choice to be in charge, but -- having so few 1st preferences -- they'd have been knocked out in the first round and end up with 0% of the votes.
Also imagine if most people would like any party other than the big three, but can't agree which one. That's right: rather than the AV system determining which one gets power, it will instead steal any votes that it can and transfer them to Lab, Con, or Lib-Dem, or if the voter refuses to co-operate and doesn't rank Lab, Lib-Dem or Con, it'll ignore their vote.
Electoral-reform.org.uk
Beeb
The basic idea behind alternative voting is that if a party doesn't get enough votes to get elected, then their voters will be able to have their votes transfered to an 'alternative' preference; in other words, you can now try to vote lib-dem, and when that doesn't work, you can have your vote transfered to another party.
Sounds cool, no?
No.
See, the parties that drop out first are the smaller ones. So, you can vote for the green party, or the BNP, or the Monster Raving Loony party, and you can even vote "green OR IF THEY DON'T GET IN monster raving loony OR FAILING THAT I'D LIKE MY VOTE TO BE TRANSFERRED TO ukip" or whatever... but these small parties, catering, democratically enough, to what some people want, will always be 'knocked out' and silenced, and your vote will be transferred elsewhere, bouncing around from party-that-isn't-going-to-be-given-any-power to party-that-isn't-going-to-be-given-any-power.
Until it reaches one of the big three, in which case it'll 'get stuck there' as those parties -- Lib Dem, Lab, and Con -- are too big to be knocked out. If they are, it'll be right at the end so your vote will ONLY be transferred to another big party or ignored.
Rather than wasting your vote, AV steals it; unless you don't vote for one of the big 3 at all, in which case AV will waste your vote anyway.
An example:
Lets say you vote like this, with your choices ranked in order of preference:
1 green party
2 yellow party
3 red party
4 lib dem
5 monster raving loony party
6 conservative
0 BNP
0 UKIP
Now, lets say the results of the vote are like this:
26% Labour
25% Conservative
24% Lib-Dem
10% monster raving loony
5% yellow
4% UKIP
3% green <-- your vote is here
2% BNP
1% red
0% ignored
OK, what happens first is that the red party, having lost, gets knocked out and it's votes redistributed. for the sake of example, lets assume that every single red voter wanted yellow as their second choice.
26% Labour
25% Conservative
24% Lib-Dem
10% monster raving loony
6% yellow +1%
4% UKIP
3% green <-- your vote is here
2% BNP
0% red -1%
0% ignored
Now the BNP get knocked out. lets say half the BNP had UKIP as their second choice, whilst the others had conservatives down as number 2.
26% Labour
26% Conservative +1%
24% Lib-Dem
10% monster raving loony
6% yellow
5% UKIP +1%
3% green <-- your vote is here
0% BNP -2%
0% red
0% ignored
Now... aww, nuts. it's your number 1 choice, the green party that gets knocked out... not to worry, your vote is transferred, right?
Your vote is transferred to your number 2 choice, the yellow party. And, lets say for simplicity that every other green voter also wanted yellow as their second choice:
26% Labour
26% Conservative
24% Lib-Dem
10% monster raving loony
9% yellow +3% <-- your vote is here
5% UKIP
0% green -3%
0% BNP
0% red
0% ignored
Horray, my vote wasn't wasted! Now UKIP go out. lets just say that their voters didn't have a second preference, so their votes are now dropped:
26% Labour
26% Conservative
24% Lib-Dem
10% monster raving loony
9% yellow <-- your vote is here
0% UKIP -5%
0% green
0% BNP
0% red
5% ignored +5%
Aww... your second choice goes out now. Your vote now would go to your third choice, red, but they're out of the running. So, instead, it goes to your 4th choice, Lib Dem. lets say there's quite a lot of variety amongst the yellow voters as to who is next best:
28% Labour +2%
28% Conservative +2%
26% Lib-Dem +2% <-- your vote is here
12% monster raving loony +2%
0% yellow -9%
0% UKIP
0% green
0% BNP
0% red
6% ignored +1%
Hmm... that 'quite a lot of variety' has rendered down into 'four parties' 'cos the others have been knocked out; apart from 1% of the voters, who are now, therefore, not having their votes counted.
Now MRLP goes bye-byes, and also has a variety of next choices:
32% Labour +4%
32% Conservative +4%
30% Lib-Dem +4% <-- your vote is here
0% monster raving loony -12%
0% yellow
0% UKIP
0% green
0% BNP
0% red
6% ignored
Note that the big three are collecting all the votes (even tho there are a variety of next choices, they -- being big -- are the only ones left not knocked out)
Now it's lib-dem getting knocked out, and your vote being transfered again; 2/3rds of the lib-dem voters prefer conservative over labour, 1/6th prefer labour over con, and the other 1/6 don't like either and so will be ignored. Note that 'prefer conservative over labour' might mean that they have many inbetween preferences, but they're being ignored as all the other parties have been knocked out:
37% Labour +5%
52% Conservative +20% <-- your vote is here
0% Lib-Dem -30%
0% monster raving loony
0% yellow
0% UKIP
0% green
0% BNP
0% red
11% ignored +5%
And the conservatives win!
But... wait... your vote ended up at your last choice. In fact, conservative could easily be most voters last choice. And if you didn't like either Lab or Con, your vote would have been ignored!
What's happening is that, by knocking out the smaller parties first, you almost guarantee that everyones' vote will end up with labour, conservative, lib-dem, or ignored.
Short Version
This is another way of forcing us to 'choose' one of the big parties,
The only good things about it? There's a fractional chance that one of the non-big-three will actually win (fat chance, but slightly better than under FPTP); and Lib-Dem might actually win and therefore give us the Single Transferable Vote system (much better)
Tho why we can't just say that, in the above example, labour get 26% of the vote, cons get 25, etc. etc. and your party (green) get 3% of the vote -- i.e., why can't we have a directly proportional system -- is beyond me.
Completely wrong
As an example of how it can go completely wrong, imagine everyone had put the red party as it's second choice: they'd be clearly the best choice to be in charge, but -- having so few 1st preferences -- they'd have been knocked out in the first round and end up with 0% of the votes.
Also imagine if most people would like any party other than the big three, but can't agree which one. That's right: rather than the AV system determining which one gets power, it will instead steal any votes that it can and transfer them to Lab, Con, or Lib-Dem, or if the voter refuses to co-operate and doesn't rank Lab, Lib-Dem or Con, it'll ignore their vote.
More
Electoral-reform.org.uk
Beeb
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Freedom of Choice*
(*offer is limited to one free choice per customer per election. Other terms and conditions apply)
Ok, so last time I waffled about Simpsons Paradox, and how it can result in skew-if results. However, there's another significant implication of the whole dividing-and-counting-per-constituency malarkey that we've got going on, and that's wasted votes.
The way it works is like this: basically, either Labour or Conservative are going to get elected, and that's that: the chances of a hung parliament are slim enough to more-or-less ignore.
The result? Well, lets imagine a hypothetical situation in which someone dislikes Labour, and really wants to kick them out. Their preference would be for -- I dunno -- lets say Lib-Dem for the sake of example.
The person has TWO parts to their vote:
Now, both parts would seemingly be satisfied by voting for Lib-Dem, but for the fact that Lib-Dem won't get elected, will they? So, in actual fact, because Lib-Dem have an appalling votes --> power conversion rate, and because the electoral system tends to grant a majority to either Labour or Conservatives thus rendering any power that the Lib-Dems actually get rather moot (Labour don't need to ally/co-operate with any other party, so the non-Labour MPs at the moment are collectively powerless), Lib-Dem's votes tend to be wasted and so voting for them strangely enough isn't actually a very good idea if you hold the above two objectives.
However, there is one -- and and only one -- alternative, and that is to treat a vote for the Conservative party as a vote for 'not Labour'. This is actually your only option if you hold the above objectives, as it at least accurately gets across the 'not Labour' part of your desires.
The system we have, therefore, limits our choices:
These issues all have something to do with the whole 'splitting country up into constituencies' thing: were it not for that, there'd be no wasted votes; no party would likely get a majority, forcing them to form alliances and thus making the votes/power of the parties that came in 3rd, 4th etc place still important and possibly the extra x% of the vote that an alliance need to form a majority; given this, there'd actually be the freedom to form and vote for new parties, thus allowing us a greater freedom of choice when it comes to who will represent us, and thus greater freedom to vote on a wider range of issues.
Or, in other words, there's no reason why someone couldn't start a party with Labour's environmental policies and the Conservatives' policies on crime, and then there'd be no reason not to vote for this party; if they don't 'win', that's ok, they can team up with Labour on environmental issues and the Conservatives on issues of law and order, so the fact they only got 5% of the national vote doesn't result in those votes being 'wasted'. At the moment, by making it all-or-nothing, any party that tries that will find no-one voting for them 'cos they don't want their votes to be wasted on a party that doesn't get elected (which of course will be because no-one votes for them... because they don't want their votes wasted on a party that won't get in because no-one's going to vote for them... etc.).
The disproportionality of the electoral system results in 'wasted votes', and the 'fear' of wasting your vote stops you from voting for a party that's not likely to win, amplifying the disinclination of our electoral system to elect any party other than Lab' or Con'.
This drastically limits our choice, i.e. to Labour or Conservative; and in the issues that Lab' and Con' agree on, our choice is effectively non-existent. Which is hardly democratic.
Ok, so last time I waffled about Simpsons Paradox, and how it can result in skew-if results. However, there's another significant implication of the whole dividing-and-counting-per-constituency malarkey that we've got going on, and that's wasted votes.
The way it works is like this: basically, either Labour or Conservative are going to get elected, and that's that: the chances of a hung parliament are slim enough to more-or-less ignore.
The result? Well, lets imagine a hypothetical situation in which someone dislikes Labour, and really wants to kick them out. Their preference would be for -- I dunno -- lets say Lib-Dem for the sake of example.
The person has TWO parts to their vote:
- Do not want Labour
- Do want Lib-Dem
Now, both parts would seemingly be satisfied by voting for Lib-Dem, but for the fact that Lib-Dem won't get elected, will they? So, in actual fact, because Lib-Dem have an appalling votes --> power conversion rate, and because the electoral system tends to grant a majority to either Labour or Conservatives thus rendering any power that the Lib-Dems actually get rather moot (Labour don't need to ally/co-operate with any other party, so the non-Labour MPs at the moment are collectively powerless), Lib-Dem's votes tend to be wasted and so voting for them strangely enough isn't actually a very good idea if you hold the above two objectives.
However, there is one -- and and only one -- alternative, and that is to treat a vote for the Conservative party as a vote for 'not Labour'. This is actually your only option if you hold the above objectives, as it at least accurately gets across the 'not Labour' part of your desires.
The system we have, therefore, limits our choices:
- We can choose to be ruled by Labour or Conservative, but we can't choose any other party
- We can choose on the issues that Labour and Conservative disagree on (right now, for example, electoral reform) but NOT on anything they agree on (they both want tax to stay the same? Then tax stays the same, and we have no say in the matter)
- We can choose on one of the issues they disagree on: like Labour's environmental policies but the Conservatives' policy on crime? Tough, choose one and only one issue; choose Labour or Conservatives
- We can choose between city and country: do you vote in your Labour MP who you think will do good for your city, or the Conservative MP that will help the Conservatives gain control of the country?
These issues all have something to do with the whole 'splitting country up into constituencies' thing: were it not for that, there'd be no wasted votes; no party would likely get a majority, forcing them to form alliances and thus making the votes/power of the parties that came in 3rd, 4th etc place still important and possibly the extra x% of the vote that an alliance need to form a majority; given this, there'd actually be the freedom to form and vote for new parties, thus allowing us a greater freedom of choice when it comes to who will represent us, and thus greater freedom to vote on a wider range of issues.
Or, in other words, there's no reason why someone couldn't start a party with Labour's environmental policies and the Conservatives' policies on crime, and then there'd be no reason not to vote for this party; if they don't 'win', that's ok, they can team up with Labour on environmental issues and the Conservatives on issues of law and order, so the fact they only got 5% of the national vote doesn't result in those votes being 'wasted'. At the moment, by making it all-or-nothing, any party that tries that will find no-one voting for them 'cos they don't want their votes to be wasted on a party that doesn't get elected (which of course will be because no-one votes for them... because they don't want their votes wasted on a party that won't get in because no-one's going to vote for them... etc.).
tl; dr?
The disproportionality of the electoral system results in 'wasted votes', and the 'fear' of wasting your vote stops you from voting for a party that's not likely to win, amplifying the disinclination of our electoral system to elect any party other than Lab' or Con'.
This drastically limits our choice, i.e. to Labour or Conservative; and in the issues that Lab' and Con' agree on, our choice is effectively non-existent. Which is hardly democratic.
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Simpsons Paradox
Electoral Systems 102: Divide and miscount
Another problem with our electoral system is Simpsons' Paradox.
In a nutshell, Simpsons Paradox is where you can divide a set of results into chunks, assess each chunk, and then combine the results of each assessment to draw a conclusion about the whole which disagrees with a direct assessment of the whole.
Or, in less confusing terms, it is how someone can come second in each leg of the tour-de-france yet still come 1st overall: as long as no-one consistantly comes 1st in each leg, the best overall cyclist may well be the one who was always 2nd. Yet, the fact that he came 2nd in each leg makes it appear as if he'd be overall 2nd...
It can occur in more confusing ways, too.
Lets devise an experiment to figure out who is harder: Charlie Chaplin or Mike Tyson?
The experiment can be that we will pit each of them against two opponents — Bruce Lee and a 10-year-old girl — and see who wins most.
Stupid? Yes, but the results are:
vs. 10-year-old girl:
Charlie does suprisingly poorly against the 10-year-old girl, who manages to win nearly half her bouts against him; Mike, tho, predictably wins all of his bouts against the girl. The results are so obvious that not many fights are neccesary to establish that Mike Tyson is harder than a 10-year-old girl:
Charlie Chaplin: 50/90
Mike Tyson: 10/10
WINNER: Tyson, with 100% victory vs. 10-year-old girl, against Charlie's 55%
Against Bruce Lee, Tyson manages to win some, but nonetheless Bruce Lee proves the stronger; Chaplin, again, gets his ass handed to him, but at least this time it's not by a 10-year-old girl:
Charlie Chaplin: 0/10
Mike Tyson: 35/90
WINNER: Tyson, with a 38% success rate vs. Lee, against Chaplin's 0%.
OVERALL WINNER: CHAPLIN.
eh?
Well, overall they both fought 100 fights: Chaplin won 50 of these, whilst Tyson won only 45, meaning that Chaplin wins more bouts, grabs the trophy and has proven himself in trial to be harder than Tyson, until Tyson decks him, grabs the trophy, and runs off shouting 'bloody Simpsons Paradox!'
Ok, that was all daft, but that's the essence of Simpsons Paradox. In this case, breaking the data down and assessing in chunks gives the correct interpretation (Tyson does best against a girl + Tyson does best against Lee = Tyson is better fighter), whilst in other times it can be the overall view that is correct whilst breaking it into chunks gives a false view.
A really quick example: this time, it's two fighters vs. Frank Bruno:
Trial one:
A: 65/100
B: 7/10
WINNER: B (70%, vs. A's 65%)
Trial two:
A: 4/10
B: 53/100
WINNER: B(53% vs. A's 40%)
OVERALL WINNER: A (69/110 vs. B's 60/110)
Unlike the first example, here the correct interpretation is the overall view, with the breaking-into-chunks-then-combining-results giving a false view.
So our country is divided into constituencies. The votes are tallied per constituency, and then these results are combined to give the national result. This is the situation that you need for Simpsons Paradox to arise, and is how the Labour party managed to 'win' the last election with 55% of the power (i.e., majority control) with only 35% of the vote[1]; hell, on two occasions the 'winner' actually had less votes than the party that came second[2] (on one of those occasions, the winner had enough for a majority control, i.e. they were in charge), and also explains the huge disparity between how many votes Lib Dem get and how much power they end up with:
That first result is appauling: just over a quarter of the vote translating to just over a thirtieth of the power...
In fact, Gerrymandering (see previous post) is essentially an attempt to force Simpsons Paradox in order to grant yourself even more disproportionate power.
Dividing the country up into constituencies is the fundamental cause for the disproportionality of our voting system: it's what causes some parties to get more power than their vote-share indicates they deserve, whilst others get less; it's one of the main reasons why our electoral system is not fit-for-purpose.
One of the repercussions of this is that gerrymandering is possible (see last post); the other is 'wasted votes' and the repercussions of wasted votes (see next post?)
[1]
BBC News election scoreboard
356 seats for Labour = 356/646*100 = 55.1%
[2]
Wikipedia: Jan '10 election results
Wikipedia: Feb '74 election results
Another problem with our electoral system is Simpsons' Paradox.
In a nutshell, Simpsons Paradox is where you can divide a set of results into chunks, assess each chunk, and then combine the results of each assessment to draw a conclusion about the whole which disagrees with a direct assessment of the whole.
Or, in less confusing terms, it is how someone can come second in each leg of the tour-de-france yet still come 1st overall: as long as no-one consistantly comes 1st in each leg, the best overall cyclist may well be the one who was always 2nd. Yet, the fact that he came 2nd in each leg makes it appear as if he'd be overall 2nd...
It can occur in more confusing ways, too.
Lets devise an experiment to figure out who is harder: Charlie Chaplin or Mike Tyson?
The experiment can be that we will pit each of them against two opponents — Bruce Lee and a 10-year-old girl — and see who wins most.
Stupid? Yes, but the results are:
vs. 10-year-old girl:
Charlie does suprisingly poorly against the 10-year-old girl, who manages to win nearly half her bouts against him; Mike, tho, predictably wins all of his bouts against the girl. The results are so obvious that not many fights are neccesary to establish that Mike Tyson is harder than a 10-year-old girl:
Charlie Chaplin: 50/90
Mike Tyson: 10/10
WINNER: Tyson, with 100% victory vs. 10-year-old girl, against Charlie's 55%
Against Bruce Lee, Tyson manages to win some, but nonetheless Bruce Lee proves the stronger; Chaplin, again, gets his ass handed to him, but at least this time it's not by a 10-year-old girl:
Charlie Chaplin: 0/10
Mike Tyson: 35/90
WINNER: Tyson, with a 38% success rate vs. Lee, against Chaplin's 0%.
OVERALL WINNER: CHAPLIN.
eh?
Well, overall they both fought 100 fights: Chaplin won 50 of these, whilst Tyson won only 45, meaning that Chaplin wins more bouts, grabs the trophy and has proven himself in trial to be harder than Tyson, until Tyson decks him, grabs the trophy, and runs off shouting 'bloody Simpsons Paradox!'
Ok, that was all daft, but that's the essence of Simpsons Paradox. In this case, breaking the data down and assessing in chunks gives the correct interpretation (Tyson does best against a girl + Tyson does best against Lee = Tyson is better fighter), whilst in other times it can be the overall view that is correct whilst breaking it into chunks gives a false view.
A really quick example: this time, it's two fighters vs. Frank Bruno:
Trial one:
A: 65/100
B: 7/10
WINNER: B (70%, vs. A's 65%)
Trial two:
A: 4/10
B: 53/100
WINNER: B(53% vs. A's 40%)
OVERALL WINNER: A (69/110 vs. B's 60/110)
Unlike the first example, here the correct interpretation is the overall view, with the breaking-into-chunks-then-combining-results giving a false view.
So?
So our country is divided into constituencies. The votes are tallied per constituency, and then these results are combined to give the national result. This is the situation that you need for Simpsons Paradox to arise, and is how the Labour party managed to 'win' the last election with 55% of the power (i.e., majority control) with only 35% of the vote[1]; hell, on two occasions the 'winner' actually had less votes than the party that came second[2] (on one of those occasions, the winner had enough for a majority control, i.e. they were in charge), and also explains the huge disparity between how many votes Lib Dem get and how much power they end up with:
That first result is appauling: just over a quarter of the vote translating to just over a thirtieth of the power...
In fact, Gerrymandering (see previous post) is essentially an attempt to force Simpsons Paradox in order to grant yourself even more disproportionate power.
Tl; dr?
Dividing the country up into constituencies is the fundamental cause for the disproportionality of our voting system: it's what causes some parties to get more power than their vote-share indicates they deserve, whilst others get less; it's one of the main reasons why our electoral system is not fit-for-purpose.
One of the repercussions of this is that gerrymandering is possible (see last post); the other is 'wasted votes' and the repercussions of wasted votes (see next post?)
References
[1]
BBC News election scoreboard
356 seats for Labour = 356/646*100 = 55.1%
[2]
Wikipedia: Jan '10 election results
Wikipedia: Feb '74 election results
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Electoral Systems 101
The illusion of control
I had a post on the proposed Alternative Voting System, but it was too gargantuan for me to bother fact-checking, so I'm breaking it up into parts.
Gerrymandering is the act of changing constituency borders in order to change the result.
Simply illustrated, take the following group of people, geographically distributed with one blob of Conservative voters up north, and a blob of Labour voters down south:
CCCCC
CCCCC
CCCCC
CCCCC
CCLCC
CLCLC
LLCCL
LLCLL
LLLLL
LLLLL
Now lets see where the constituency boundaries are:
CCCCC
CCCCC 1 Conservative MP
CCCCC
----------- constituency boundary
CCCCC
CCLCC 1 Conservative MP
CLCLC
----------- constituency boundary
LLCCL
LLCLL 1 Labour MP
LLLLL
LLLLL
1 Labour
2 Conservative
"That's no good", think Labour, who happen to be in power; "lets change the boundaries":
CCCCC
CCCCC 1 Conservative MP
CCCCC
CCCCC
CCLCC
----------- constituency boundary
CLCLC
LLCCL 1 Labour MP
LLCLL
----------- constituency boundary
LLLLL
LLLLL 1 Labour MP
2 Labour
1 Conservative
Or simply:
CCCCC
CCCCC 1 Conservative MP
CCCCC
CCCCC
CCLCC
----------- constituency boundary
CLCLC
LLCCL
LLCLL 1 Labour MP
LLLLL
LLLLL
1 Labour
1 Conservative
Note that in neither case did the actual votes change, just the boundaries (and, thus, the number of MPs elected for each party).
It was apparently used a lot Northern Ireland, in an attempt to stifle separatist parties, and in the UK we have an allegedly indipendant boundaries commission to set the boundaries, supposedly to prevent gerrymandering.
Nonetheless, if you want people to assume they've got control and live in a democracy whilst still maintaining power yourself, gerrymandering should be in your vocabulary.
I had a post on the proposed Alternative Voting System, but it was too gargantuan for me to bother fact-checking, so I'm breaking it up into parts.
Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering is the act of changing constituency borders in order to change the result.
Simply illustrated, take the following group of people, geographically distributed with one blob of Conservative voters up north, and a blob of Labour voters down south:
CCCCC
CCCCC
CCCCC
CCCCC
CCLCC
CLCLC
LLCCL
LLCLL
LLLLL
LLLLL
Now lets see where the constituency boundaries are:
CCCCC
CCCCC 1 Conservative MP
CCCCC
----------- constituency boundary
CCCCC
CCLCC 1 Conservative MP
CLCLC
----------- constituency boundary
LLCCL
LLCLL 1 Labour MP
LLLLL
LLLLL
1 Labour
2 Conservative
"That's no good", think Labour, who happen to be in power; "lets change the boundaries":
CCCCC
CCCCC 1 Conservative MP
CCCCC
CCCCC
CCLCC
----------- constituency boundary
CLCLC
LLCCL 1 Labour MP
LLCLL
----------- constituency boundary
LLLLL
LLLLL 1 Labour MP
2 Labour
1 Conservative
Or simply:
CCCCC
CCCCC 1 Conservative MP
CCCCC
CCCCC
CCLCC
----------- constituency boundary
CLCLC
LLCCL
LLCLL 1 Labour MP
LLLLL
LLLLL
1 Labour
1 Conservative
Note that in neither case did the actual votes change, just the boundaries (and, thus, the number of MPs elected for each party).
It was apparently used a lot Northern Ireland, in an attempt to stifle separatist parties, and in the UK we have an allegedly indipendant boundaries commission to set the boundaries, supposedly to prevent gerrymandering.
Nonetheless, if you want people to assume they've got control and live in a democracy whilst still maintaining power yourself, gerrymandering should be in your vocabulary.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
Free speech*
*Some terms and conditions apply.
This is weird. I don't like the BNP, racist fuckwits that they are, but I was under the impression that 'valid political parties' had gotten themselves excempt from laws such as this, on the grounds that suppressing or controlling political groups is tantamount to censorship: you can't form a group to politically discuss X.
A common argument against censorship is that what starts off to, say, prevent child-porn, will then be 'expanded' to prevent bestiality and other 'obscenities' before then being expanded further to suppress terrorism, then racism, then glorification of crime.
Sounds natural, until you realize just how much that covers: according to the people who censor the telly, glorification of crime, for example, includes
The problem there is that as 'crime' includes, say, refusal to pay tax, attempting to overthrow the gov', organized civil disobedience (smoking in pubs, maybe), and so on, then the law essentially is that you can't use the telly to suggest/co-ordinate civil resistance to the government: the government is in charge, challenging that is illegal, and thus it is illegal to publicly discuss ways to challenge it (excepting via the non-functional Electoral System). Hell, it sounds like it forbids mentioning WikiLeaks on the telly, as that explains how to break the censorship laws.
Or broadcast child porn, which is the reason touted out whenever the TV censors need justification.
Anyway, in order to safeguard at least themselves against totalitarianism, I was under the impression that political parties were excempt from certain laws, such as censorship and racism. After all, if the political parties of the 60's were subject to public decency or corruption of minors (e.g., 17-year-old's) acts, then they wouldn't have been able to discuss the decriminalization of homosexuality.
So it's odd seeing the BNP, who, for all that they're assholes, are a political party, being held to the race-relations laws, given that that would kinda destroy them.
You may form a political party for the decriminalization of gays, but, by jove, you can't do so in such a way that condones homosexuality for that is illegal.
You may form a racist political party, but, by jove, you may not do so in a racist way.
Hmm... I wonder if you could get "you may form a political party to actually give power to the people, but, if our broken electoral system doesn't work, you may not suggest that people take power, for that is illegal. By jove."?
(Oh look, apparently you can: for all their genuine political complaints, and for all the political cheating by the UK government, for a while some separatist Irish political parties were censored within the UK.)
On the other hand, given that their proposed change is to omit the whites-only requirement but have a requirement that every member "bona fide supports and agrees with each of the Principles of the Party", I'm not sure how that'll work:
This is weird. I don't like the BNP, racist fuckwits that they are, but I was under the impression that 'valid political parties' had gotten themselves excempt from laws such as this, on the grounds that suppressing or controlling political groups is tantamount to censorship: you can't form a group to politically discuss X.
A common argument against censorship is that what starts off to, say, prevent child-porn, will then be 'expanded' to prevent bestiality and other 'obscenities' before then being expanded further to suppress terrorism, then racism, then glorification of crime.
Sounds natural, until you realize just how much that covers: according to the people who censor the telly, glorification of crime, for example, includes
anything that condones or glamorises violent, dangerous, seriously antisocial behaviour, or crime; anything explaining how to commit a crime[1].
The problem there is that as 'crime' includes, say, refusal to pay tax, attempting to overthrow the gov', organized civil disobedience (smoking in pubs, maybe), and so on, then the law essentially is that you can't use the telly to suggest/co-ordinate civil resistance to the government: the government is in charge, challenging that is illegal, and thus it is illegal to publicly discuss ways to challenge it (excepting via the non-functional Electoral System). Hell, it sounds like it forbids mentioning WikiLeaks on the telly, as that explains how to break the censorship laws.
Or broadcast child porn, which is the reason touted out whenever the TV censors need justification.
Anyway, in order to safeguard at least themselves against totalitarianism, I was under the impression that political parties were excempt from certain laws, such as censorship and racism. After all, if the political parties of the 60's were subject to public decency or corruption of minors (e.g., 17-year-old's) acts, then they wouldn't have been able to discuss the decriminalization of homosexuality.
So it's odd seeing the BNP, who, for all that they're assholes, are a political party, being held to the race-relations laws, given that that would kinda destroy them.
You may form a political party for the decriminalization of gays, but, by jove, you can't do so in such a way that condones homosexuality for that is illegal.
You may form a racist political party, but, by jove, you may not do so in a racist way.
Hmm... I wonder if you could get "you may form a political party to actually give power to the people, but, if our broken electoral system doesn't work, you may not suggest that people take power, for that is illegal. By jove."?
(Oh look, apparently you can: for all their genuine political complaints, and for all the political cheating by the UK government, for a while some separatist Irish political parties were censored within the UK.)
On the other hand, given that their proposed change is to omit the whites-only requirement but have a requirement that every member "bona fide supports and agrees with each of the Principles of the Party", I'm not sure how that'll work:
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Democracy in action
From the Beeb:
From here:
Well, I guess that's Democracy In Action: we want something so they have to give it to us in order to get elected :-)
From the Beeb again:
Our 'choice', then, is between:
In his conference speech, Mr Brown said Labour would hold a referendum "early" in the next Parliament on proposals for an alternative vote system.Nice to know they admit there's a problem. But, why would they offer to fix the system that grants them total control half the time, and denies all but one other party the chance of ever winning?
From here:
The [parliamentary prospective candidates] argued that holding a vote on reform would see hundreds of Liberal Democrat voters switch to Labour, more stay-at-home Labour supporters coming out to vote, and every Tory opponent trying to explain why David Cameron would not give the electorate a say.So, to win the election basically.
Well, I guess that's Democracy In Action: we want something so they have to give it to us in order to get elected :-)
From the Beeb again:
They have also queried the timing of a referendum, pointing out that Labour never followed through on a commitment to a referendum on electoral reform in its 1997 manifesto.Oh, that's right, there's absolutely nothing to force them to actually do what they promise to do :-(
Our 'choice', then, is between:
- Labour — a party that probably won't actually change the electoral system
- Conservatives — a party that doesn't want to change the electoral system
- Lib Dem — a party that wants to change the electoral system, but, because of the electoral system, wont win
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Our democratically elected representatives
In the last UK general election (2005):
16% of the population of the UK voted for Labour, whereas 15% voted Conservative[1], meaning that, even combined, they don't have the support of the majority of the population (only 31%).
What's going on here then? Surely a democratically elected government requires the support (i.e., the vote) of the majority of the population?
Well, lets not forget that not everyone is allowed to vote.
And lets ignore that allowing prisoners to vote would put a natural cap on how many people could be jailed (i.e., a natural cap on the extremes of authoritarianism); that it's inconsistent that several 16- and 17-year-olds pay taxes and can be tried as an adult should they commit a crime, but aren't allowed to vote ; and the unfairness of forcing younger teenagers, by law, to attend school (elsewize their parents are punished) without a say in the matter.
Lets assume, instead, that everyone who is disenfranchised is done so for a just reason, so it's fair to ignore them.
Labour got the support of 22% of those who are allowed to vote[2]; Conservative got 20%[3].
Umm... that's still only 42% of the vote: still not a majority.
The final piece of the puzzle — which gives our rulers the support of 'the majority' that they need in order to claim that they're a democracy — is the fact that not everyone who can vote does vote.
So: lets ignore those who don't vote because they feel that the system is corrupt, and who's 'no vote' is intended as a 'vote of no confidence', and assume that everyone who chooses not to vote either doesn't care, or is just too lazy to take part — either way, lets assume that it's perfectly OK and fair to ignore them.
Well, Labour and Conservative combined have the support of 67% of those who are allowed, and who choose, to vote[4].
Horay! A majority! Proving that, with some assumptions, our country is, in fact, democratic!
But wait: the Labour and the Conservative parties may have a majority between them, but they don't run the country between them: see, the Conservative's 32% of the votes[4] was enough to get them 31% of the power[5], whereas Labour's 35% of the votes[4] was enough to get them 55% of the power[5] — which is a majority, and thus enough for the Labour party to rule the country on their own.
And, because a majority (even only a slight one) is enough to essentially do whatever they want, the Labour party are in charge of the country with a minority of the vote, no matter how you look at it.
There's a lot more to this subject than the above — how these results come about (gerrymandering, peculiar counting methods, etc), the effect that things like 'wasted votes' have on constituencies, the exclusion of third parties by The System, and the fact that 'the Labour party' is held pretty effectively under the control of the Prime Minister (so, actually, it's one non-democratically-elected person who's effectively in charge of the country) and so on and so forth; but that's enough typing for one day.
Our 'democratic system' is not democratic. I wonder why they go to these lengths to create the impression that it is, rather than just outright admit that it isn't?
====================================
[1] 60.2 million in 2005 (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/populationestimates/flash_pyramid/UK-pyramid/pyramid6_30.html)
9,566,618 voted Labour[4]
that's 9.6/60.2*100 = 16.0%
8,785,941 voted Conservative[4]
8.8/60.2*100 = 14.6%
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/constituencies/default.stm
[3] Labour votes = 9.6 million; conservative 8.8 million[4]; 8.8/9.6*100 = Conservatives got 91.6% of the vote that Labour did.
Labour won with 22% of the people who are allowed to vote[2], meaning that Conservative got 91.6% of this = 20.2%
[4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/html/scoreboard.stm
[5] 198 seats for Conservative out of 646 total seats[4] = 198/646*100 = 30.7%
356 seats for Labour[4] = 356/646*100 = 55.1%
16% of the population of the UK voted for Labour, whereas 15% voted Conservative[1], meaning that, even combined, they don't have the support of the majority of the population (only 31%).
What's going on here then? Surely a democratically elected government requires the support (i.e., the vote) of the majority of the population?
Well, lets not forget that not everyone is allowed to vote.
And lets ignore that allowing prisoners to vote would put a natural cap on how many people could be jailed (i.e., a natural cap on the extremes of authoritarianism); that it's inconsistent that several 16- and 17-year-olds pay taxes and can be tried as an adult should they commit a crime, but aren't allowed to vote ; and the unfairness of forcing younger teenagers, by law, to attend school (elsewize their parents are punished) without a say in the matter.
Lets assume, instead, that everyone who is disenfranchised is done so for a just reason, so it's fair to ignore them.
Labour got the support of 22% of those who are allowed to vote[2]; Conservative got 20%[3].
Umm... that's still only 42% of the vote: still not a majority.
The final piece of the puzzle — which gives our rulers the support of 'the majority' that they need in order to claim that they're a democracy — is the fact that not everyone who can vote does vote.
So: lets ignore those who don't vote because they feel that the system is corrupt, and who's 'no vote' is intended as a 'vote of no confidence', and assume that everyone who chooses not to vote either doesn't care, or is just too lazy to take part — either way, lets assume that it's perfectly OK and fair to ignore them.
Well, Labour and Conservative combined have the support of 67% of those who are allowed, and who choose, to vote[4].
Horay! A majority! Proving that, with some assumptions, our country is, in fact, democratic!
But wait: the Labour and the Conservative parties may have a majority between them, but they don't run the country between them: see, the Conservative's 32% of the votes[4] was enough to get them 31% of the power[5], whereas Labour's 35% of the votes[4] was enough to get them 55% of the power[5] — which is a majority, and thus enough for the Labour party to rule the country on their own.
And, because a majority (even only a slight one) is enough to essentially do whatever they want, the Labour party are in charge of the country with a minority of the vote, no matter how you look at it.
There's a lot more to this subject than the above — how these results come about (gerrymandering, peculiar counting methods, etc), the effect that things like 'wasted votes' have on constituencies, the exclusion of third parties by The System, and the fact that 'the Labour party' is held pretty effectively under the control of the Prime Minister (so, actually, it's one non-democratically-elected person who's effectively in charge of the country) and so on and so forth; but that's enough typing for one day.
Our 'democratic system' is not democratic. I wonder why they go to these lengths to create the impression that it is, rather than just outright admit that it isn't?
====================================
[1] 60.2 million in 2005 (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/populationestimates/flash_pyramid/UK-pyramid/pyramid6_30.html)
9,566,618 voted Labour[4]
that's 9.6/60.2*100 = 16.0%
8,785,941 voted Conservative[4]
8.8/60.2*100 = 14.6%
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/constituencies/default.stm
[3] Labour votes = 9.6 million; conservative 8.8 million[4]; 8.8/9.6*100 = Conservatives got 91.6% of the vote that Labour did.
Labour won with 22% of the people who are allowed to vote[2], meaning that Conservative got 91.6% of this = 20.2%
[4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/html/scoreboard.stm
[5] 198 seats for Conservative out of 646 total seats[4] = 198/646*100 = 30.7%
356 seats for Labour[4] = 356/646*100 = 55.1%
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