It’s 3.20am London time, and nothing so far has really upset the picture formed from the last week’s worth of opinion polls.
The Conservatives have obtained a substantial swing and will clearly be the largest party in the new House of Commons. They may or may not have a majority — from the figures at the moment it seems probably not — but they will be close enough to it that it will be very difficult for their opponents to form a successful coalition.
The Liberal Democrats have fallen away from their high of a fortnight ago, but their fundamental problem is still the electoral system, rather than a lack of votes. There have been some gains by the far-right parties, but nothing spectacular; the regional parties are mostly holding their ground and the big surprise has been the defeat of Democratic Unionist leader Peter Robinson by the Alliance (an affiliate of the Lib-Dems) in his seat of Belfast East.
An anti-Conservative coalition is still a slight possibility, but it’s much more likely David Cameron will be prime minister. How secure he will be in that position will depend on this afternoon’s counting, with possible recounts and challenges to come. It is, of course, a feature rather than a defect of the system that no party wins a majority when votes are this even, but the Tories perhaps should not be blamed for not seeing it that way.
What has been most troubling the British commentators, however, is the logistical problems of the election, which apparently saw significant numbers of people unable to vote.
As the BBC’s Nick Robinson put it: “What a tragedy that, after a campaign which engaged and energised many who were previously cynical about politics, tonight’s story may be being overshadowed by the extraordinary revelation that Britain cannot competently run the most basic part of the democratic process.”
Australians are spoiled in this regard; we have been world leaders in electoral administration for a long time. The pre-printed secret ballot is still in other countries often called the “Australian ballot”, and it’s no coincidence that we are (as far as anyone knows) the only country to have an electorate named after an election official — William Boothby, who was the first Commonwealth returning officer.
To be sure, some variations in how elections are run are just cultural differences — different countries do things differently and have different expectations, but each finds its own way satisfactory. But unless you’re a mad relativist, there is also such a thing as better and worse ways of running them. (Disclosure: I’m a partner in a small firm that does this for a living, so I know something of what I’m talking about.)
No-one, even the British, thinks standing for ages in a queue and then being turned away without being able to vote is a good thing. The increased turnout was widely anticipated, and it should have been provided for.
Polling stations should have been adequately staffed to keep queues moving steadily, and a few minutes before closing anyone still in the queue should have been herded inside (this was apparently done in some places, but not universally — polling is run by local authorities, so practice varies). Provision of absentee voting would help, or at least letting people vote somewhere other than their local booth.
I don’t want to give the impression that running elections is easy — it’s not. But it’s also not uncommon; there’s plenty of experience worldwide to draw on. These things really should have been sorted out before now.
Mind you, a system where a party can win a large majority with 35% of the vote, as Labour did last time, has bigger problems than just long queues.
Damn right, Charles. That last point was a beauty. One thin’s for sure, the exhaustive preferential system we have here federally certainly sorts the wheat from the chaff. I have always struggled to see the attraction of a first-past-the-post system. You rarely get a majority preference. While there are anolalies with all systems (such as the coin toss to break an equality of preferences in preferential voting) at least you actually get the majority preference in a count.
I agree that Australia’s electoral administration is excellent – hurrah for the Australian Electoral Commission! But Australia can still do much better by introducing voting by computer, initially for the absentee votes that take so long to count, and eventually for standard voting. This would allow validation checks to be built in to reduce inadvertent informal votes and of course it would make counting much faster and more efficient.
Yes, the Australian Electoral Commission is first class. I’ve always thought we leave the American system for dead. Now the English voting system as well?
I agree with DAMIEN re preferential voting system
GAVIN: I don’t know if this is germane to your idea of computer voting or not. About six months ago my local Supermarket installed DIY computer check-out systems-well, one system but several machines.
Even after six months there are still longish queues at the regular check-out exits, whereas I can almost always find an available machine.
My point being that many normal, intelligent people, can find computers challenging, in private and in public.
It’s a marvellous idea to use them for absentee votes.
The only thing I’d change about Australia’s system is to bring in multi-member electorates. It’s a silly situation here also where smaller parties can capture 10 – 20% of the primary vote and not get any seats in parliament. Not to mention that in any particular electorate nearly 50,000 people effectively have no representative in parliament because their candidate ended up with for example 49.9% of the 2 party preferred vote.
Thanx Venise
I agree that voting by computer will challenge several voters, and indeed some politicians since they are technophobes. But a start has to be made to introduce people to ‘new’ technology and new ways of doing things.
Pommy supermarkets introduced DIY computer checkouts years ago but still many shoppers prefer staffed checkouts, so this will take a long time. The bigger Boots pharmacies in England also have DIY computer checkouts and these are much better patronised, I presume because the transactions are fewer and simpler.