PR

[wolfiegoth]

A lot of people seem to be champing at the bit for Proportional Representation since the lib dems brought it to the publics attention during the last election

Comments

[prelati]

PR is about a government that reflects the votes cast in an election. IT can't be right that a party that gets less votes gets more seats. Obviously, there are questions of degree. A government that reflects every shade of opinion will lead to chaos, while a government that resists any such nuance is a dictatorship

[wolfiegoth]

There are no shortage of articles about the Italian situation that was just the last one that crossed by desk along with the current fun the German head of state is having with her coalition.

There are so many ways of changing the voting system. First and second choices, compulsory voting (which I am very much in favour of), equalising seat sizes and so on. But what is getting my goat at the moment is the way so many people have jumped on the PR bandwagon just because its been given a lot of press without really understand what the choices are of infact that there could be any.

I concede that yes PR "should" reflect more shade of opinion but sadly I am convinced in our corner of the world it will only lead to faff, compromise and inaction.

[chrisdarkfire]

Bottom line is that there are different forms of PR as there are different forms of voting

[xullrae]

Seems to work OK here. No one I've spoken to would ever want to go back to the first-past-the-post system. Obviously it's not perfect - the Greens and the Maori party do have more influence than they might do otherwise for example, but generally speaking it seems to lead to a more balanced government.