User:RodCrosby/QPR2: Difference between revisions
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The novel part of the process really begins here. At the national count centre, the ordinary party vote percentages in each constituency for the ''first'' and ''second'' ranked parties are then normalised relative to the Droop quota, disregarding any integer part.
For example, if Party A obtained 45% and Party B obtained 25%, these would translate to approximately 0.35 and 0.75 "remainder" quotas respectively, with Party A of course already having won one seat. Normalised remainder quotas, instead of raw remainder votes, are employed to control for constituency electorate size and/or turnout effects.
The national count centre and TV networks would rank these remainders separately for each party from highest to lowest, including the constituency name, as results become available. As election night develops, these rankings become indicative of those parties which will win their available second seats, and where they will likely win them. As fresh results arrive, they will be "slotted" into the correct order, so the table rankings will continuously change, attracting interest from viewers and commentators.
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While not absolutely essential, they would have utility as follows:
* in a
* the ranked ballots could be subsequently recounted to compute a nationwide two-party preferred vote, as occurs in Australia. In a UK context that may be of value in the event of a hung parliament.
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===Overall majority possible===
Under the system, simulations of the elections of 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2001 and 2019 would have still produced overall majorities,
===No practical possibility of "wrong-winner" election===
No other constituency-based system offers this, including FPTP. Under simulations, PR squared gets the very close election of February 1974 "right", whereas under FPTP, the national vote plurality winners (the Conservatives) were reduced to second place in seats. Similar FPTP "inversions" occurred in 1951 and 1929.
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According to simulations (see below) the elections of October 1974, 2005 and 2015 would have produced hung parliaments, in contrast to overall majorities under FPTP. Given the closeness of votes in those three elections, these outcomes do not seem unreasonable.
Of the thirteen elections since February 1974, FPTP produced 10 overall majorities and 3 hung parliaments. Simulations indicate that the outcomes under PR squared would have been 7 and 6 respectively. It's worth noting that, due to long-term changes in the operation of FPTP in the UK, since 2010 the ratio of majority to hung parliaments has been even, and the current (as of 2023) opposition Labour party faces an unprecedented challenge to secure a majority at the next UK election. It seem the UK is having more hung parliaments anyway.
===Not PR===
PR-Squared does not explicitly seek close proportionality, although simulations indicate that it goes a lot further towards that outcome than FPTP.
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If Party D is the smallest national party awarded seats, and the partywise smallest first allocation is adopted, and Party A's 0.65 remainder quota is also somewhere amongst ''its'' best remainders entitled to seats, then Party D will be awarded the seat despite having a slightly ''smaller'' remainder quota than Party A in Newtown East. The next best result of Party A's list of remainders would move up that list, replacing the position of the unsuccessful candidate in Newtown East.
Simulations indicate that whatever method is employed, including Buhagiar's preferred Priority Queue, such anomalies cannot be avoided entirely, and are just subjectively more or less "unfair" to the particular candidates affected. Simulations also suggest that only a handful of allocations would meet such conflicts (usually fewer than 20 in a house of 650, or about 3% of the seats). Of these 3%, many, if not most, of the largest remainders would belong to the smaller parties in any case. The number of actual remainder quota "inversions" might be counted on the fingers of one hand.
An alternative resolution of these approximately 20 seat conflicts would be to follow that method recommended for the Dual Member Proportional System. In this case, simply award the seat to the party with the largest remainder quota, and the party denied the seat would utilise its next best reminder quota for its next viable allocation
Whichever method is adopted, simulations show that around 97% of the declarations will be straightforward, employing either FPTP or full quota, or best remainder quotas.
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The case of the Speaker presents a possible difficulty. Representing a two-member seat, if the Speaker, under his former party colours, was one of a pair from the same party, that party could hardly stand down in his favour (as happens under FPTP), losing both an MP and crucial national votes, although standing would risk the Speaker's defeat. A similar self-interested view would undoubtedly be taken by the other parties. Under single-member FPTP in the UK, Opposition parties frequently stand against the Speaker, invariably to no effect. There are several possible solutions.
* adopt the Irish solution, where the ''Ceann Comhairle'' is automatically deemed re-elected as a member of the House, reducing the number of electorally-contested seats in his/her multi-member constituency by one. Under PR squared, this would result in a single-member contest between the parties in the Speaker's former constituency.
* simply deem the Speaker an ''ex officio'' or co-opted Member of the House, without any need to continue to represent a constituency, thereby restoring the former constituency to normal electoral competition. The current Westminster convention seems a bit farcical, considering the last Speaker to be defeated in his constituency was Richard Onslow in 1710, and it's difficult to see how a Speaker can vigorously pursue or defend the interests of their constituents while remaining, as s/he must, completely neutral towards the government of the day.
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