Let’s say you have multi-member constituencies. You hold an election with an outcome that looks roughly like this:

  • Candidate #1 received 12,000 votes

  • Candidate #2 received 8,000 votes

  • Candidate #3 recieved 4,000 votes

All three get elected to the legislature, but Candidate #1’s vote on legislation is worth three times Candidate #3’s vote, and #3’s vote is worth half Candidate #2’s vote.

I know that the British Labour Party used to have bloc voting at conference, where trade union reps’ votes were counted as every member of their union voting, so, e.g., if the train drivers’ union had 100,000 members, their one rep wielded 100,000 votes. That’s not quite what I’m describing above, but it’s close.

Bonus question: what do you think would be the pros and cons of such a system?

  • BeefPiano@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    7 months ago

    It seems weird that the local district’s competitiveness would affect the national weight. The whole point of first-past-the-post voting is to pick one person for everyone. Under your proposed system, people who didn’t vote for the winner lose their influence on the national level. It would probably influence people to vote for the perceived winner instead of their choice.

    It might work better under approval voting, where you can vote for as many candidates as you want, but still would encourage people to vote for whoever they think is going to win.

    Good question, it’s an interesting idea!

    • Skua@kbin.social
      4·
      7 months ago

      I think you may have missed part of OP’s idea here. They specify multiple-member constituencies in which all candidates get elected and their power is proportional to the number of votes they get. The total power of the constituency is conserved, it’s just divided between multiple electors.

      It would probably influence people to vote for the perceived winner instead of their choice.

      This is an issue with FPTP regardless, unfortunately