Vote Rigging - My Arse

Discipline, if it ever existed at all, is breaking down within and around the Tory party and its hangers-on. Thus we have the unedifying sight of Government ministers and senior MPs attending and speaking today at an event staged by a foreign wacko far right lobby group: here, other speakers happily deploy Nazi-era anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like “Cultural Marxism”.

The event, the National Conservatism conference, features those talking about indoctrination, heritage, culture, and of course Western Civilisation. Meanwhile, the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press, having seen the Tories unsuccessfully try and rig the local election voting by imposing compulsory ID, is accusing Labour of trying to, er, rig elections.

This, not for the first time, is a flat-out pack of lies - hence the Mail has put this particular R-Word in quote marks - but is also total crap. Labour, along with all other opposition parties, is not in power, and so is not about to “rig” anything. Also, with support for EU membership at around 60%, there would be no need to “rig” any future poll, which is the claim being made today.

But what the right-wing press is afraid to tell us is that there is one way in which elections across the UK have been effectively rigged for decades, and that is the First Past The Post system, which allows a party to win a majority of over 60 with just 35.2% of the vote (Labour in 2005). Perversely, the same party scored 40% of the popular vote in 2017, but 93 fewer seats.

FPTP, though, has one thing in its favour: the press, and any lobbyist worth buying, will back it to the hilt. Also, it favours parties like the Tories, and equally disfavours all smaller parties, especially the Greens. The press will harp on about the member-constituency link, which they claim with a straight face is sacrosanct. Sadly, most voters can’t name their MP.

Which shows that press claim was just more bad faith yellow journalism, another cheap distraction tactic. Like the claim that proportional voting systems are unnecessarily complex and difficult to understand, which is also total crap. Consider the d’Hondt system, used in several European countries, which, with multi-member constituencies, gives smaller parties a chance.

Voting takes place. In a multi-member area, the party with the largest vote share gets the first candidate on its list elected. Its Quotient is then increased by one - which means its percentage vote share for the next round is divided not by one, but two. The party that now has the highest percentage vote share gets someone from its list elected. Their Quotient goes up by one.

And so on, and so forth: those wanting to indulge in a little nerdery might usefully check out last year’s elections to Portugal’s National Assembly, the equivalent of our House of Commons. In areas returning very few Deputados (equivalent to MPs), d’Hondt does not work so well: hence the centre-left PS managed to (just) take both seats in mainly rural Portalegre.

It works much better in the big cities: the smaller parties are well represented in Lisbon and Porto, and areas such as Setúbal, which is basically the port city plus “across the river from Lisbon”. Sadly, this proportional system also allows parties like Chega, headed by Farage-lite loudmouth André Ventura, to gain seats: he and his pals are effectively the local chapter of The Fash.

A Parliament, or Assembly, representing a wide range of parties and therefore views cannot be other than A Good Thing, especially in a country where that Assembly is what is called Unicameral (Portugal has no “upper house”; the check on power comes from the elected President, who has the power to dissolve the Assembly and call fresh elections).

Ah, though, say our free and fearless press, what about speed of counting? Isn’t it all slow and bureaucratic? Er, no: once the votes are in and counted, the process of Increasing Quotients and dividing up seats is mainly automated. And it, along with the system in use, cuts out the tedious spectacle of political operatives demanding recounts.

Spain, which retains its constitutional monarchy, also uses the d’Hondt system to elect its Congress of Deputies. Those opposed to electoral reform will carp that both countries were rather late to this democracy thingy, but the question has to be put: do we want large parts of the electorate to be disenfranchised just so the establishment can “rig” the polls?

Once again, the press lets slip the name of the game. No-one is surprised.

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