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| [ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, [6], 7, 8, 9, 10 ] |
| Subject: Senate | |
Author: Jim (Canada) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 19:35:34 12/01/04 Wed In reply to: Ian (Australia) 's message, "The government is formed by the majority in the lower house" on 19:19:06 12/01/04 Wed Both Britain and Canada have appointed, unelected upper houses, while Australia and New Zealand have elected upper houses. Many people in both Britain and Canada would like to move to elected upper houses, so establishment of the federation parliament would present the opportunity to do just that. It would have to be the most modern and up to date parliament with an elected upper house. No should the lower house have proportional representation or first-past-the-post. Again, both Britain and Canada have first-past-the-post. I believe New Zealand has proportional representation, and I am not sure about Australia. Both the upper and lower houses will have to standardised in the most modern and workable format. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Australia has preferential voting | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 19:57:24 12/01/04 Wed If you have, say, five candidates, you mark the squares with the numbers 1 to 5 to indicate your order of preference. If a candidate gets over 50% just with the number 1 votes, fines: they are elected. If no candidate gets over 50% of number 1 votes, the candidate who got the lowest number is eliminated, and their ballots are distributed among the other candidates according to the second preferences of those voters. If this still doesn't take anyone over 50%, the next lowest candidate is eliminated and their ballots distributed. You keep on at this until one of the candidates gets over 50%. Some states (in their state elections) have optional preferential voting, in which case you don't have to number all the squares, but just 1, 2, 3, as far as you wish. I prefer preferential voting to first past the post, because the "post" is always 50%, and you don't have to worry about "splitting the vote" and "tactical voting". [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Jim and Ian's points | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 20:47:49 12/01/04 Wed The trouble with having the same electoral system for Upper and Lower Houses is, I think, quite obvious: the party system would ensure (presuming that the same party was in majority in both houses, which is pretty inevitable) that there would be no point in having two houses at all. The party whips would ensure that the party's members in the Upper House would agree to legislation proposed by the party in the lower house, and object to the policies which were objected to by the party in the lower house. The only way in which you could prevent this would be to stagger elections, so that you could have a different party controlling each house. But this in itself raises a further problem: when the two are in conflict over a policy, which takes precedence? Obviously, the House whose elections were most recent, since they would be a more accurate expression of the will of the electorate. So there'd be no point in having two houses, once again. Now, you could remedy that by having different electoral procedures for each house, such as first past the post for the Lower House and proportional representation for the Upper House. But then there is no way to resolve which takes precedence when there is disagreement. Personally, I think that bicameral legislature is a joke if both houses are elected, for these and other reasons. A case in point is Blair's attempt to make the Lords more 'accountable'. What has been the result? The rise of the Commons to the point where we have unicameral legislature in practice if not in theory. On a related point, I and millions of other Englishman are allergic to proportional representation. Even though PR would practically institutionalise Tory government, I would still rather have the occasional socialist administration than the ghastly perpetuation of coalition government which PR entails. I think that it is important to remember that the only party to win an election outright under a PR system (i.e., get 51% for one party) was the National Socialist German Workers' Party in 1933. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |