Friday, June 19, 2020
I'm in the dughoose
Just a quick note to let you know that I'm the guest on the latest edition of the Wee Ginger Dugcast, hosted as always by Paul Kavanagh. Topics discussed include the recent Scot Goes Pop / Panelbase poll, the disgraceful British nationalist thuggery in Glasgow, the risks of attempting to 'game' the Holyrood voting system, the alternatives for securing an independence mandate if a Section 30 order is refused, and the cautious easing of the lockdown in Scotland. You can listen to the podcast HERE.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Well done the Unionists for preventing the Scottish Nat sis and Irish Republicans from damaging and defacing the Glasgow Cenotaph. Just more proof that the Scottish Nat sis and Sinn Feiners are fascists.
ReplyDeleteCurrent daily deaths in Scotland now make up just 2% of UK-wide deaths on 8% of the population.
ReplyDeleteDeath rate in England 4x as bad, presumably due to it ending lock down too soon.
Strong case for quarantining arrivals at Gretna certainly.
The border between NI and ROI has over 280 crossing points. Between Scotland and England there are just over 25, 4 of which are major roads - should be easily monitored. This is essential if we are to protect our population which is the first duty of any govt.
DeleteProtect from the English you mean. Does that mean food convoys going to our food stores.
DeleteI am not a Brit Nat si. I am a Brit Scot a citizen of the UK. Nationalism is for you Scottish Nat sis that want to destroy history, monuments etc. Who would have thought Nat sis would attempt to desecrate the Glasgow Cenetaph.
DeleteThere's nothing gaming the system for Independence supporters to vote SNP 1 and vote for another Indie party with their 2nd vote.
ReplyDeleteAt the 16 Holyrood election the SNP won 4 list MSPs for almost 1million 2nd votes.
In comparison the ConLab party won 45 list MSPs for almost the same amount of 2nd votes.
You say it's not gaming the system, but then say it should be done for the specific purpose of gaming the system. I'm confused.
DeleteAnyway, the point is that gaming the system is not actually viable. It's gambling voting, not tactical voting.
Your most important, 'first' vote is your PR regional list one as it's always counted, so if you support the SNP, you should use it for them. Then, you can tactically vote on the constituency first past the post vote for a another pro-indy party as you see fit.
DeleteThis is what Green voters often do; they ensure their most important 'always counted' PR list vote is used for the Greens, then they vote SNP tactically under FPTP.
It's not possible to vote tactically under PR as it's well, erm, PR, ergo tactical voting only works on the constituency.
59 MSPS would be sufficient. The workshare is split by having Mps in Westminster. We have a kind of miniature EU gravy train operating.
DeleteIn reply to Please Release Me... that is correct in 2016.
DeleteHowever you can't predict what the other parties get.
As an example, in 2021 the Tories won't be able to deploy their 'Vote for Ruth' strategy, and their current form (Holyrood/Westminster) *may* give their voters little reason to go and vote. What I'm saying is, the 2016 SNP number of votes could stay the same, but if the votes of other parties collapsed the SNP would gain more list seats than in 2016.
It's a quirky system and I think (not putting words in his mouth) that's why James offers the hypothesis that the list vote can't be "gamed" tactically.
I'm very confused, at the 16 Holyrood Election the 2nd list votes didn't help the Indie cause as much as they could have,
DeleteTory, 524,222 votes, won 24 list MSPs.
Lab, 435,919 votes, won 21 list MSPs.
Green,150,426 votes, won 6 list MSPs.
SNP, 953,587 votes, won 4 list MSPs.
although the 2nd vote share between the Indie/Unionist sides was fairly close, the MSP share was not.
What did we do wrong?
The bit you did wrong was the phrase "didn't help the Indie cause as much as it could have". That's the incorrect way of approaching the list ballot, unless of course you have psychic powers and know in precise detail how everyone else is going to vote. (I'm guessing you don't have psychic powers.)
DeleteAs Scottish Skier has pointed out, the list vote is the more important vote. It does not lend itself to tactical voting, and therefore the correct way to use it is to vote for your first choice party, regardless of which party that is.
Yes, it can be confusing at first, but it's quite simple really.
DeleteYou have not accounted for the constituency seats won by the parties concerned. These were deducted from the regional PR list allocations to ensure democratic PR. That's how the AMS method works.
So the SNP won 63 list seats, but 59 were removed from their list allocation because they'd already won them by constituency votes.
So, they won 63 (-59 constituency) = 4.
Responding to Please Release Me's second post in this thread:
DeleteAbsolutely, after the fact (in 2016), if those 953,587 SNP voters in the list had voted Green (or hypothetically RISE), then there would be a lot more indy supporting MSPs.
But going into 2016, we didn't know for certain that the SNP would gain constituency seats, nor that the collective unionist list vote would go up (Tories +10.6, Labour -7.2, LibDem 0, net +3.4%).
A rough plug into the seat calculator shows if the Unionist vote didn't go up (I applied by reducing Tory share by net percentage) gives a nominal SNP majority of 5.
The purpose of the list vote is to allocate the total number of seats for each party, proportionally to the % of votes on the list. With some "rounding" errors, the is system broadly successful in producing the correct proportion of seats for each party.
DeleteIn 2016 Holyrood Election SNP won 41.7% of the list votes yet got 48.8% of the seats. They are thus over-represented by 7.1%. Even on the constituency vote - not intended for determining the proportion of seats - the SNP got 2.3% more seats than their 46.5% of the vote.
Indy (SNP + Green) have an over-representation of 5.2% (v list) or 6.4% (v const.); the unionists (Con + Lab + LibDem) by contrast are under-represented by 0.7% (v list) or 5.9% (v const.)
The SNP have never been under-represented by seats compared to their list vote and only twice been under-represented compared to their constituency vote (1999 by 1.6% & 2003 by 2.9%). In 2011 they were over-represented by 9.5% (v list) or 8.1% (v const.) - both the largest such discrepancy between %vote and %seats to date.
The SNP get more seats than the strict proportional % of votes because they are a single party compared to the unionists who are split between three parties. Adding more "indy" parties would remove the advantage that the SNP currently gain. Rather than splitting the current Indy votes between more parties we need to increase number of people supporting indepenence.
Just to add, assuming that another referendum is prominent in the manifesto and campaign by the SNP, that another SNP majority will have much greater impact on the media and Westminster than a shared mandate between parties.
DeleteThey will just dismiss a shared mandate as 'not everyone voting for the same thing'
That's why people argue to continue for both votes SNP, as the list can work against the cause for indy (as in 2016) or for it (as in 2011), if enough people vote for it.
Thanks for pulling that together. We're a LONG way out from the election, but hopefully people are looking at some of the evidence and risks of playing tactics as opposed to GTVO like never before.
DeleteUseful contributions there, Skier and Geoff.
DeleteAlthough the list vote was designed by Labour to be the "PR icing on their constituency cake" (the olde-worlde constituency system being slavishly copied from Westminster), it is good framing to refer to it as the "first vote" for exactly the reason given, which is that the proportion of seats in Holyrood is largely determined by it alone (barring a veritable deluge to any one party in the constituencies that it can't entirely correct). So the less we call it the "2nd vote" the better because the phrase tends to mislead. (Makes some people think they have to vote for a different party, for example.)
The last comment by Geoff is very pertinent, and worth keeping in mind. As Prof Curtice himself once pointed out, it's impossible to out-game a party which commands >50% of the popular vote, whatever the voting system.
So GOTV (or GTOV) it had better be!
(So quit grumbling at the back and get back on board.)
Thanks for all your replies, it's as clear as mud to me, but what Anonymous said,
Delete"Absolutely, after the fact (in 2016), if those 953,587 SNP voters in the list had voted Green (or hypothetically RISE), then there would be a lot more indy supporting MSPs."
is the point I'm trying to make, more indie MSPs at Holyrood, surely the goal of all Indie supporters.
and I'm not psychic or grumbling and I've never left the ship, I've been onboard now for over 50 years, I canna wait much longer Capt.
grizebard "the less we call it the "2nd vote" the better"
DeleteAbsolutely agree. Perhaps we could call the list vote the party vote and the constituency vote the person vote, since what you are voting for is the party and the person respectively.
'Please Release Me' "if those 953,587 SNP voters in the list had voted Green ..."
if being the key word; they didn't and most are not likely to vote for some minor "Indy" party in 2021. Almost anything can be deduced if you make improbable assumptions. if [a number of] those 953,587 SNP voters in the list had voted Labour / Tory / Lib Dem .. we could have lost 4 SNP MSPs, probably some Greens and not had an Indy majority at all.
Deciding what you could have done differently with the benefit of hindsight is not a strategy. Cunning rearranging the votes of existing Indy voters is not helpful and may well backfire.
To get a good Indy majority in Holyrood we need to increase the number of Indy voters.
Repeat - we need to increase the number of Indy voters.
Talking about ego, isn't it about time people got together and condemned that bampot Wings over Campbells ego before the Independence movement becomes tarnished by this head case's rants
ReplyDeleteStrange comment from a fellow Nat si bampot.
DeleteI can do funny things with my teeth.
Delete