What is the best electoral system?

Before I should start, I should say that my inspiration for this blog post comes from Stephen Bush's old post regarding the best and worst electoral systems. I have long been using his analogy of the Additional Member System as being 'the Thierry Henry of electoral systems', even if I think that he is, actually, wrong. You can read the original here.

Bad electoral systems

Supplementary Vote

Less simple than First Past the Post, and less fair than Alternative Vote, with full rankings of candidates. The principle is the same as AV, but on this you just get to rank your number one and two candidates. So you don't really get a lot. The chances of the leader changing with this system are pretty slim. But it did nearly happen in 2012, with Boris Johnson vs Ken Livingstone in London. But, like, what's the point?

The American Electoral College system

Is it sort of fun? Yes. Is it unique? Yes. Is it so awful no-one has wanted to do anything remotely like it for 240 years? Also yes.

Every state has a number of votes based on their number of Representatives + Senators. Winner takes all in each state. It's fun and nuts in all kinds of ways. But also rubbish and should change.

First Past the Post

Yes. It is bad. I can hypothetically see that if we all lived in a cave this might be the system we'd come up with, but I would also like to think that given the massively disproportional effects of it, and the negative impact on minority parties and political culture in general, we could see how this needs to change. Delivers big majorities, except for when it doesn't (2010, 2017).

Simple but effective, or simple and rubbish depending on your views. The Harry Maguire of electoral systems.

 

OK electoral systems

Alternative Vote

 I sort of wanted to put this in with the bad - I'll get on to that - but I suppose the idea is good. Keep a majoritarian system, but use ranked choice voting to reallocate wasted votes. An example: in my constituency, the High Peak, the Conservatives received 24,800 votes, Labour 24,200, the Lib Dems, 2,700, and the Brexit Party 1,100. As no-one received over 50% of the vote, the bottom canidate is knocked out, and their votes reallocated to their second preferences, and so on, until a candidate gets over 50%.

It was criticised in the AV campaign as letting the loser win, and I suppose that is possible, but the objective is to create a system that most of the constituency are happier with.  You could argue this makes you freer to use your first vote more wisely, but evidence from elsewhere seems to indicate that this makes voting even more tactical. It can actually hurt minority parties (as this LSE blog shows).

French two-round system

Sorry Jeremy Thorn, but I think this system is poor, at best. So you have two rounds, meaning a chance to change your mind after the first election. However, because the first round of the election is such a free-for-all, it can mean the chances of an extremist candidate getting through to the final two is relatively high, as has happened with Jean-Marie Le Pen and Marine Le Pen, former and current leader of the French far right party the National Front/National Rally.

Proportional Representation  - list form

It's fine, but SO impersonal. Parties are able to centrally control who is on their list, and they are allocated a number of seats depending on how they've done. We had list PR in the UK through European elections, which did prove some of the good and the bad things about it. New parties like the Brexit Party, or smaller parties like the Greens or Lib Dems were able to succeed in EU elections, but so were extremists like the BNP (and arguably UKIP, depending on your perspective). It will lead to permanent coalitions, yes, but also could lead to the possibility of Party for the Animals or DENK being part of one of those coalitions in the Netherlands, so fingers crossed.

I like how Israel has it for the whole country though, with all of Israel being one giant constituency. Free-for-all madness fun.

Good electoral systems

Mr Thorn benevolent dictatorship

Churchill famously said that 'it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time', but then also said that the best argument against it was a 5 minute conversation with the average voter. Well, in the tradition of 18th century liberal thinkers who didn't really like the idea of ordinary folk being in charge, I'm here to sort it all out.

The number of seconds between the establishment of a Mr Thorn dictatorship and a truth a reconciliation commission being formed to investigate the injustices Arsenal have suffered over the years is something like zero. But also, I would like to offer my regular History teacher reminder that dictatorships only tend to survive when they deliver for their key support groups (and it is unlikely that Arsenal fans constitute such an influential demographic).

Additional Member System

Right - it's the previous gold standard. Some/half/most MPs are elected through FPTP and then a number of MPs are elected through PR. What this means is that you end up with a local representative AND a system that is broadly proportional. Right?

Well, the thing I can't get past is the question around what the 'top-up' MPs actually do. If you look at Scottish elections, where the SNP tend to win almost all of the FPTP seats, there is certainly an element of 'well, you couldn't win properly could you?'

Single Transferable Vote

The Dennis Bergkamp of electoral systems; technically excellent, accurate, and does the little things well. The excellent Politics in the Animal Kingdom video by CGP Grey is here. STV combines several seats into larger districts (a little like PR). But unlike PR, individual candidates can still be selected by those communities. Unlike PR, minorities are catered for, making it perfect for an area such as Northern Ireland, where who represents you makes a huge difference. Unlike FPTP, there are no wasted votes, as additional votes for a winning candidate or votes for a losing candidate can be reallocated. It's great, I love it, and... we'll never have it, because Nick Clegg wanted it.

Age and Educational Attainment in Voting Behaviour

 I saw an interesting piece of polling the other day, posted by Mike Smithson of politicalbetting.com (Mr Thorn does not endorse gambling). In this he posted the stark gap in voting intention based on educational attainment, with a huge Conservative lead amongst those with no/low educational qualifications and a huge Labour lead amongst those with degree level qualifications or higher. You can find the original article here.

There are lots of interesting theories about why this might be. Most obviously, this could be about recent political events. Voters without qualifications were disproportionately more likely to support Brexit, and are also far more likely to favour Conservative policies on immigration and crime. There may be a link between the experience of attending university and more social democratic policies, relating to immigration, Europe, crime and other issues. Traditionally, this would have been unlikely to be the case, with voters from working class backgrounds previously being those least likely to gain higher-level academic qualifications, and also being far more likely to vote Labour, so this is a clear example of dealignment.

 Another (linked) interesting thing I saw this week was a map demonstrating the oldest and youngest constituencies in the country (below). It is a further reminder that not only are the preferences and voting patterns of older and younger voters different, but that this does not simply play out in turnout. Namely, there are some seats that are specifically dominated by younger voters and some (a lot more) dominated by older voters. As you can see, the younger seats tend to be in bigger towns and cities, and older towns are often in coastal areas. These also closely correlate with support for Brexit and Conservative/Labour voting patterns.

 

 https://twitter.com/undertheraedar/status/1505828056312676352

 

It Was the Sun Wot Won It - Newspapers and general elections

One major impact on voting that we must consider is that of the media, and there is no stronger manifestation of that influence than that of the traditionally powerful British newspaper industry. Famously, in 1992, the Sun savagely attacked Neil Kinnock, depicting his head in a lightbulb, and writing "if Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights." This anti-Labour stance seemed to work, and the Sun rejoiced with the headline "it's the Sun wot won it".

Britain's most popular newspapers, by far, are the Sun and the Daily Mail, both of which lean significantly to the right. Normally Britain's most successful and popular newspapers do favour the Conservative Party, who also normally win elections. However, during Tony Blair's tenure as Labour leader, the party was able to win support from some of these papers, including the Sun and the Mail, and even the Express in 2001. Whilst this was in itself controversial - the Labour Party was criticised by many on the left for pandering to these papers, and it is seen as evidence that the party went too far to the right - it also seems to provide some evidence that the support of such newspapers is, in itself, decisive.

This chart of party support came from a 2010 Guardian article you can find here.

However, other data may refute this. For a start, how many people changed their minds based on what newspapers say? Most people have made up their minds prior to electoral campaigns, as around 60% of people still say they have a very strong or fairly strong affiliation with one of the parties. Still, this means that volatility (changing parties between elections) is far higher than previously, where party affiliation was previously very strong, as this article from the BBC shows.

Endorsements in the 2019 General Election. I'm not sure the Morning Star will be supporting Labour under Starmer...

So even while one may doubt whether newspapers determine the vote of the increasing numbers of undecided voters they are certainly still capable of having a significant influence. Whilst they may not swing voters in the short term, they can still have an effect in the long term - one only need look at the long-term effect of anti-EU and anti-immigration stories over several years. Newspaper are still blessed with a power to set the agenda, where TV news will often follow stories set by the print media. As well as this, newspapers are still perceived as being hugely important by politicians, where senior politicians will still court the owners of papers, and try to gain their favour (though Ed Miliband tried this with the Sun not long before they published the famous photo of him failing to eat a bacon sandwich).

Was it the Sun wot won it? Well, maybe. But it could well have been the attitudes that were formed over several years rather than one headline.

What factors affect the power of the president?

Joe Biden has not had an easy start to his presidency. Whilst he had some success with the vaccine rollout in the US, and he has not been dealt an easy hand in terms of current events, with the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he has also not given allies a lot to point to in terms of clear successes. 

That said, it would have been hard to get anything done anyway. Whilst the Democrats have a sufficiently healthy majority in the House of Representatives (currently 222-211, with 2 vacant seats), their lack of majority in the Senate, which is effectively 50-50, has given West Virginia's Joe Manchin III and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona a veto over Democratic legislation, and in effect Biden's whole agenda. But what else could have an impact?

House or Senate composition

As we have said, this makes a huge difference. When Obama was able to command a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, in 2009-10, he was able to pass Obamacare (the PPACA). When he lost this in the 2010 mid-terms it meant that Republicans were able to block a lot of Obama's agenda for the rest of his presidency. Whilst the House swung to the Democrats in the second half of Trump's term, the in-built Republican advantage in the Senate means that Trump was still able to successfully put through three Supreme Court picks. Biden may have a more difficult task in this regard.

The Supreme Court

SCOTUS, and the court system in general, does have the potential to frustrate a presidential agenda. The court is now, with Amy Coney Barratt, split 6-3 in favour of conservative justices, or justices that routinely vote in a conservative manner.  This 6-3 vote split was seen in January 2022 when the court struck down Biden's workplace vaccine mandate. In 2020 the court voted 5-4 (pre-Coney Barratt) to block the Trump administration from ending the DACA scheme, for immigrants who arrived during childhood, with John Roberts joining the liberal justices of the court.

Public opinion

One only need look to the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s for evidence of this. Nixon should, in theory, have been in a strong position, having been elected with a landslide in 1972. However, the long-running Watergate scandal sapped his popularity, and would have left him as a lame duck, without the ability to take action on any of his agenda, as well as making successful impeachment a certainty.

Additionally, it should also be said that the popularity of the president can also impact the extent to which even representatives and senators from their own party wish to be associated with them. Democrats from swing states, in mid-terms and in Obama's second term, distanced themselves from him, and Trump was not mentioned in the campaign literature of many Republicans in 2020.

The economy and events

Whilst Bill Clinton was also affected by scandal, and was faced with a hostile Republican House of Representatives, he also presided over a lengthy economic boom, which hugely improved his popularity. By contrast, the state of the economy in 2008 may have contributed to Obama's victory over John McCain, and long term sluggish wage growth in the US may have been important in Trump's victory over establishment-candidate Hillary Clinton. 

Trump frequently mentioned the success of the stock market during his time in office, but 2020 also saw the impact of Coronavirus in America and around the world, and many analysts argue that it was this that prevented Trump's reelection, in spite of a successful economy. Wars and other crises can also make or break a presidency; Bush was hugely popular for several years after 9/11 and during the early stages of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, whilst Lyndon B. Johnson also suffered for his handling of the war in Vietnam.

Conclusion

Not one of these things in isolation is enough to furnish a president with a strong hand, nor is it enough to fundamentally weaken them. But the United States has a complicated political system with a range of powerful actors, and significant checks and balances. Given that the president can still undertake great actions, even without the approval of these other branches, I am reminded of what the Earl of Manchester said about Charles I; "If we beat the King ninety and nine times yet he is still King, and so will his posterity be after him." Many things can block a president or reduce their power, but what they can do is still considerable, and the eyes of the country and the world are still on them.

The politics of immigration, the Home Office and the Russian invasion Ukraine

Immigration is one of the most important political issues to voters, and is never far from the news. Pressure groups like Migrant Watch feed the UK's press with stories and research to consistently push the message that the country is 'swamped' by immigrants, and that same press has played a huge role in continuing the importance of the issue in the minds of many of the public. It is certainly the case that immigration played a huge role in the Brexit referendum in 2016, and many will remember news stories from the subsequent days as voters asked 'why the immigrants hadn't gone home yet'. Indeed, lower immigration was one of the main priorities of Leave voters when polled.

The issue has put pressure on our major political parties, but is very much more comfortable territory for the Conservative Party, who have traditionally enjoyed a strong lead over Labour in terms of who voters trust to handle the issue. Whilst immigration has continued in large numbers over recent years, promises from various Conservative leaders have signalled their tough approach to voters; Cameron promised to cut immigration 'not to the hundreds of thousands but to the tens of thousands', Theresa May, as Home Secretary created the famous 'go home' vans, and we have recently seen Priti Patel donning Police uniform and participating in raids on over-staying rejected asylum seekers.

For Labour, the issue is more problematic. Many of the party's traditional voter base are more likely to oppose greater levels of immigration, whilst many Labour members and their metropolitan and urban support base are far more sympathetic. Strands of Labour thought, such as Blue Labour, advocate tougher immigration policies, and Ed Miliband famously included it as one of his policies on the 'Edstone', which was further encapsulated on the Controls on Immigration mug. This was particularly unpopular with core Labour members, who often tend to have a more liberal attitude towards issues of immigration and race. Therefore, for Labour supporting or opposing immigration can be a case of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't'.

However, Andrew Marr wrote in the New Statesman this week about the potential impact of war on the political spectrum. The collective and humanitarian impulses of voters are often triggered at this time, and governments necessarily take on a bigger role. But, as we saw with the Conservatives and the furlough scheme, this could play into the hands of the government, as their healthy approval ratings through the pandemic showed. The political spectrum could be shaken, and therefore there is opportunity as well as threat for Labour. In short, the Conservatives are unlikely to make any significant changes to their current policies, and Labour will be fearful of coming across as too soft on the issue.

For the final word I would like to turn to Jonn Ellege, also writing in the New Statesman, who has long argued that the Home Office is a broken institution. Whilst most European countries have extended open arms to Ukrainian refugees, the UK has taken a more restrictive approach, which seems to be out of step with the views of many of the British public. Has the British preoccupation with immigration gone on for so long that the Home Office is no longer capable of anything but reflexive harshness, rejecting people in desperate need? Ellege would certainly argue so.

EU referendum - how did my area vote?

Having spoken to some students regarding the EU referendum, there was a lot of surprise at some areas and the voting patterns that existed. 

Certain factors can be observed:

- wealthier areas normally voted to Remain, even where they tend to vote Conservative

- many working class areas voted to Leave, even where they have historically voted Labour

- there was an education gap, with those with university level educations or above being considerably more likely to vote Remain

- Urban areas were far more likely to vote to Remain, where rural and coastal areas, particularly the east coast, were more likely to vote to Leave

- Scotland and NI were both strongly in favour of Remain, whilst Wales and England voted to leave (more strongly in the case of England).

This has led to a number of subsequent changes in voting patterns, or at the very least has been a key indicator of them. In 2017 the Conservatives led across all occupation groups (normally a key indicator of class), where traditionally have led in C2DE groups. This could be an indicator of a decline of class voting. That said, Brexit may have uniquely brought such issues to the fore, and future general elections could return to similar patters as before.

You can access the data using the link below:

EU Referendum results

Is Putin's regime fascist?

An interesting question came up this week; with Putin's government regularly being described as fascist, is it accurate for us to do so? I have generally stopped short of doing this due to Putin's outward popularity and electoral success. That said, there is no doubt that many other dictators and governments that we would describe as fascist are also genuinely popular due to factors such as their control of the media. I have heard Putin's system described as a 'managed democracy' before, which seems appropriate, and there is a lot of interesting stuff online about Putinism.

The below tweet, by David Klemperer in response to Sam Freedman, states that "one distinction I consider important is that fascist regimes attempt to keep their populations in a state of permanent political mobilisation, whereas Putin's regime has always attempted to do the opposite". So, a traditional fascist regime demands enthusiasm (think the Hitler youth or mass rallies) while Putin's regime pushes apathy.

https://twitter.com/dmk1793/status/1499728826154328068?t=q2xq2DoOhyz_uW1o-aVckg&s=19

I am reminded of a short video in Charlie Brooker's 2014 Wipe by Adam Curtis, where he discusses how Putin used a variety of strategies to keep the electorate in a constant state of confusion, and certainly in the last election this was the case. I read one report of a popular opposition candidate being faced by three opponents who changed their name to be the same as his, and even modified their appearance to be similar so as to confuse voters. Despite the 'enthusiasm anomoly', I would suggest that Putin's Russia does have a number of fascist characteristics, as we will see below.

So what are the criteria for a fascist state? There isn't really a defining statement or ideology in the way we can see for communism or socialism, but it has been defined by Lawrence Britt as having 14 characteristics, which I have listed below, and I think it is clear that Putin's regime fulfil a large number of these criteria:

1. Powerful and resurgent nationalism 

2. Disdain for human rights

3. Identification of scapegoats

4. Glorification of the military

5. Rampant sexism

6. Controlled mass media

7. Obsession with national security

8. Religion and government intertwined

9. Corporate power is protected

10. Labour power is surpressed

11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts

12. Obsession with crime and punishment

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption

14. Fraudulent elections

https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html

As such, despite any genuine popularity Putin may enjoy, on the basis of these criteria it certainly isn't unreasonable to describe Putin's regime as fascist in nature 

Voting behaviour data from the US

 In a recent lesson my students and I talked about how voting behaviour works in the US, and as with anything a lot of our statements about voting behaviour can lean towards being generalisations. That said, we know that:

- African American voters overwhelmingly support Democrat candidates. In 2020, Joe Biden won 92% of African Americans.

- Trump won white voters by 55% to 43%.

- Within the white voter base there is quite a split. College educated whites supported Biden by a margin of 56-42, whilst voters with a high school or lower education level favoured Trump by a margin of 56-41.

- Hispanic voters favoured Biden by 59-38, though we know that there is variance within this. Cuban voters tend to be considerably more likely to vote Republican than other Hispanic voters.

- women voted strongly for Biden, by a margin of 55-44, whilst men favoured Trump by 50-48.

- age was also a strong indicator of voting behaviour. Younger voters (18-29s) favoured Biden by 59-35, whilst voters over 65 favoured Trump by 52-48. In both these cases there was an improvement for the trailing candidate on 2016, with Trump gaining amongst younger voters, and Biden gaining amongst over 65s compared with Clinton.

You can find more information from Pew Research below:

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/

Putin and the end of the liberal international order

As we know from our study of liberalism, the rational, democratic state with checks and balances is seen as the correct model for the state. The state should protect rights and allow for liberty, though some liberals, such as Rawls, would argue for a more advanced role in promoting greater equality.

In the post-Soviet world, many believed that the world was moving towards a rational ordered world where such themes were universal. Francis Fukayama famously said that it was 'the end of history' - that is to say, human rights and the liberal, democratic state were now universal.

If we think of this internationally, we can see this as an ordered and rational system, using diplomacy and encouraging democracy and rights, much like in the EU and the UN. John Gray, writing in the New Statesman, says that the reality of the modern world is now apparent, and it is not a peaceful, disarmed one. The original article is posted below.

https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/geopolitics/2022/03/the-new-age-of-disorder

Biden's State of the Union address

 Joe Biden delivered his maiden State of the Union address this week. His speech was hugely wide ranging and ambitious, and it should be noted that these speeches are not necessarily intended to change the minds of those in attendance.

We often talk about presidents having the power of the 'bully pulpit' - that is to say that they are visible above all others, and the State of the Union is a great opportunity for presidents to speak directly to the nation. It is one of what we describe as an 'informal' power of the president. (Formal powers include, for example, vetoing legislation, or appointing judges)

Biden has had a year punctuated by high level domestic failures, such as his huge Build Back Better bill, and on voting rights, both of which failed to win the support of all 50 Democrat and Democrat-aligned senators in the face of unified Republican opposition. The State of the Union, therefore, is a highly staged and scripted opportunity to get the president beamed directly into the homes of Americans, looking presidential.

You can read more about Biden's SOTU here.

How is this relevant? Political events 02/03/22. - SCOTUS, party funding

One of the first things we should know is that Joe Biden is making his first attempt to appoint a Supreme Court justice, in the form of Ketanji Brown Jackson. You can read more about that here.

If appointed, Brown Jackson would be the first African American woman appointed to the Supreme Court. Additionally, it would take the number of women justices to four, an all time high. However, and perhaps most importantly, it would not impact the overall balance of the Supreme Court, leaving a 6-3 conservative majority, or at least a majority of 6-3 of those appointed by Republicans and tend to vote in a conservative direction. Ketanji Brown Jackson would replace outgoing justice Stephen Breyer, who was appointed by Bill Clinton. 

 In the UK, the Times reported that the Conservative Party has received a large amount of funding from so-called Russian oligarchs. Additionally, several large donors were included in an 'advisory council', which had access to the Prime Minister. This evokes memories of previous party funding scandals such as 'cash for access', where Peter Cruddas was alleged to have offered 'premier league' access to David Cameron for £250,000. I should add that all major parties have received large donations, and many Conservatives would point to donations given to Labour by unions such as Unite, which has traditionally had a lot of influence over the party. 

Links to these stories are below: Russian donations to Conservative Party, the Times, subscription required link here. Summary in the Independent here. Advisory council article here.