In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Thom Baguley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Herman Rubin wrote:
>> The UK has effective disenfrachisement of most of the
>> members of its Liberal party. Also, the US was definitely
>> set up NOT to be "democratic"; the British democracy has
>> greatly eroded the rights the people won in the Bill of
>> Rights and the Petition of Right. Democracy is two wolves
>> and a sheep deciding the dinner menu.
>It is true that minority parties such as the Liberal Democrats (typically
>15-25% in polls) are disenfranchised by the first-pass-the-post General
>election system (5-8% in terms of parliamentary seats). However, this is the
>same FPTP system in the US elections (excluding the Electoral College) which
>effectiviely disenfranchises Green, Libertarian, Reform etc voters. In my view
>both would benefit (in terms of fairness) from a more proprtional system.
There is essentially no chance of it happening in either
country. The British system does enable them to get a
modicum of seats, but not easily. There were a few places
which had proportional representation for their city
councils, but the major parties combined to get rid of it.
The US could have splitting of the Electoral College vote
in any given state, but this would reduce the importance of
winning the state.
But do not rush to a proportional system. It can have very
bad consequences, as can be seen from Israel and Italy, and
which was the case in France until de Gaulle reformed the
structure of the government.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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