[EM] Competitive Districting Rule

[James Gilmour]

Jan Kok > Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 7:43 AM
> On 7/14/06, James Gilmour <jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk> wrote:
> > Juho Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 10:22 PM
> > > The Scottish situation sounds to me like a multi-party system (that 
> > > has emerged under different rules) has gotten trapped in a two-party 
> > > EM, and this kind of mixture is not a pretty match (looks actually 
> > > quite terrible).
> >
> > No, not at all.  For UK (Westminster) parliament elections the whole 
> > of the UK has used only FPTP (simple plurality) in single-member 
> > districts for many decades, in most case for more than 100 years.  We 
> > all also used the same voting system for local government elections 
> > (the only other public elections we had until comparatively recently).  
> > In the elections after the 1939-45 war, the two main parties 
> > (Conservative and Labour) got around 90% of the total vote (96.8% in 
> > 1951). The third party was the Liberals (now Liberal Democrats) who, 
> > in elections after 1945, got around 9% of the vote, but only 1% of the 
> > seats.  Despite Duverger's "law", support for the Liberal Democrats 
> > has grown and in 2005 they had 25% of the vote and 9.6% of the seats.  
> > Eight smaller parties also have seats in the UK Parliament.  So there 
> > has been a three-party system across the whole of the UK for some 
> > time.
> >
> > In Scotland the SNP (Scottish National Party - campaigning for 
> > independence) became a significant force in 1970, gaining 11% of the 
> > vote, again despite Duverger's "law".  In the October 1974 election 
> > the SNP peaked at 30.5% of the vote, and they now get around 20% of 
> > the vote (but far fewer seats).  So In Scotland we have had a 
> > four-party system for the past 30 years, all based on single-member 
> > districts and the simple plurality (FPTP) voting system.

> This is quite surprising to me. American third parties would 
> kill to get a few percent of the votes and a couple seats in 
> Congress. Why have third parties been so much more successful 
> in the UK?

Jan, what a huge question!   And I don't think I am well-placed to answer it, because I have not done the "comparative analysis" of
the UK and USA that I suspect is necessary to begin to see what has been going on.  I suspect it is the result of a complex
interaction in the mixture of the respective political histories, political cultures and voting systems.  Some of the following MAY
be relevant.

In the UK at the end of the 1800s we had two main political parties, Liberals and Tories.  In the early 1900s the Trade Union
movement brought the Labour Party into being.  The Liberals collapsed early in the 1900s.  By 1945 Labour had replaced the Liberals
as one of the front-two parties.  But never forget that during the 20th Century the Conservatives were in government for nearly 70
of those 100 years!

UK politics from 1945 were strongly polarised, with large and very clear differences between the policies of the Conservative Party
and those of the Labour Party.  This was all overlaid by the British class system, in its various manifestations.  There were
dramatic changes of economic policy, educational policy, social policy, etc, with each change of government from Conservative to
Labour to Conservative to Labour as voters swung between the two parties in the decades after 1945.  The revival of the Liberal
Party was enhanced when a group of social democrats broke away from the Labour Party.  Independence movements provided the focus for
the rise of the nationalist parties in Scotland and in Wales.

As to the contribution of the respective voting systems, I suspect the absence of primaries here in the UK may have played a part.
Or to put it the other way, the use of primaries in the USA may have helped to dampen down any tendency to support third parties.  I
suggest this MAY have been a factor because of the surprise I got when I did an "unrepresented voters" analysis of the results of
the last House of Representatives election.  (We do these analyses because they usually provide very powerful evidence to support
reform of the voting system!)

Here in the UK (and in many other parts of the world where FPTP is used), we expect to find that around 50% of those who actually
voted in any FPTP election will not be represented by a candidate of their choice in the elected body, eg House of Commons of the UK
Parliament, city council, county council.  Sometimes it is more a little than 50%, sometimes a little less than 50%, but always
around 50%.  And large numbers of MPs and councillors are elected by minority vote.  But for the US HoR 2004 election, taking the
415 contested districts, only 34% of the voters were "unrepresented".  And there were only ten districts where the successful
candidate was elected by a minority vote.  These are staggering differences compared to the UK.

When I commented on this on another elections' website, a US member explained that the holding of primaries, which showed very
clearly who would win the public election, discouraged many supporters of minority parties from voting at all in the public
election.  This skews the voting patterns seen in the public elections.  Because of its obvious and dramatic effect on voting
support for second parties, I think the use of primaries could also have the effect of discouraging support for third parties.  All
this needs lots more analysis  -  maybe some US academics have already done it.

James