Wednesday, 11 May 2011
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Britain rejects democratic vote amidst lies and deception
Britain's referendum on voting reform was doomed to failure before it was even announced.
The yes campaign and the Clegg Democrats were played as fools and fools they were. Britain's first referendum on electoral reform was a futile excise of cynicism fueled by lies deception and political corruption.
The victory for the "No camp" was shallow with the turn out being less then 50%. The conservative party stood by and sold out its coalition by running a campaign opposing democratic reform. The Labor Party also sold out its constituency preferring instead to prop up the failed discredited first-past-the-post voting system.
Many of the No camp's lies and deception had been exposed by ABC election analysts Antony Green in his electoral blog, but Antony Green was ignored by the British media and his message of facts lost in a see of misrepresentation. The real loser, apart from democracy itself is the Liberal Democrats and Britain's Deputy Prime-Minister Nick Clegg.
They sided with a coalition partner that took then for a ride knowing that if they lose the referendum the Liberal Democrats will also lose support. If the Liberal Democrats pulled out of the coalition and fresh elections were held then the Conservative party would most likely win support and government in their own right.
The Liberal Democrats having fought and lost the referendum is seen as a lost one issue party. A party that lacks direction, substance and commitment. This also showed up in the results of the British local Council elections.
The yes campaign lacked inspiration and commitment of purpose, They failed tenths and engage the voters. The first and most obvious mistake was allowing the system of voting to be referred to as AV "Alternative Voting" as opposed to using the Australian terminology of Preferential voting "The allocation of preference and the need for majority representation. If a candidate does not secure 50% or more votes and your candidate of choice is unsuccessful then the candidate with the lowest number of votes is excluded and their votes distributed according to the voters next prefereed candidate.
Because of the Liberal Democrats failure to hold their coalition partners to account Britain, like Canada, will not be given a second chance to modernise and democratise it's voting system. Britain, Canada and the USA will remain stuck in the 19th century where candidates are elected with less then 40% of the vote. Voting turn out was below 50% and the two major parties regain dominance at the expense of Britain's democratic rights.
Nick Clegg had only one chance and he blew it. He failed to provide leadership and he failed to inspire the people of Britain to embrace reform.
With the referendum out of the way The conservative Tory party will feel dominate over its coalition party in the full knowledge that they are now in a position to go back to the polls with a deflated and rejected middle of the road opposition party and a labor party that has yet to find its moral ground and support from the voting public.
If the Liberal Democrats do not tow the line they will become the scape goat for the next election. They will lose the balance of power and with it political mussel and influence. Nick is a captive hostage to the Tories and he will be soon seen to be their bitch willing to do anything to remain in office. A part deviod of principle and strategy.
The yes campaign and the Clegg Democrats were played as fools and fools they were. Britain's first referendum on electoral reform was a futile excise of cynicism fueled by lies deception and political corruption.
The victory for the "No camp" was shallow with the turn out being less then 50%. The conservative party stood by and sold out its coalition by running a campaign opposing democratic reform. The Labor Party also sold out its constituency preferring instead to prop up the failed discredited first-past-the-post voting system.
Many of the No camp's lies and deception had been exposed by ABC election analysts Antony Green in his electoral blog, but Antony Green was ignored by the British media and his message of facts lost in a see of misrepresentation. The real loser, apart from democracy itself is the Liberal Democrats and Britain's Deputy Prime-Minister Nick Clegg.
They sided with a coalition partner that took then for a ride knowing that if they lose the referendum the Liberal Democrats will also lose support. If the Liberal Democrats pulled out of the coalition and fresh elections were held then the Conservative party would most likely win support and government in their own right.
The Liberal Democrats having fought and lost the referendum is seen as a lost one issue party. A party that lacks direction, substance and commitment. This also showed up in the results of the British local Council elections.
The yes campaign lacked inspiration and commitment of purpose, They failed tenths and engage the voters. The first and most obvious mistake was allowing the system of voting to be referred to as AV "Alternative Voting" as opposed to using the Australian terminology of Preferential voting "The allocation of preference and the need for majority representation. If a candidate does not secure 50% or more votes and your candidate of choice is unsuccessful then the candidate with the lowest number of votes is excluded and their votes distributed according to the voters next prefereed candidate.
Because of the Liberal Democrats failure to hold their coalition partners to account Britain, like Canada, will not be given a second chance to modernise and democratise it's voting system. Britain, Canada and the USA will remain stuck in the 19th century where candidates are elected with less then 40% of the vote. Voting turn out was below 50% and the two major parties regain dominance at the expense of Britain's democratic rights.
Nick Clegg had only one chance and he blew it. He failed to provide leadership and he failed to inspire the people of Britain to embrace reform.
With the referendum out of the way The conservative Tory party will feel dominate over its coalition party in the full knowledge that they are now in a position to go back to the polls with a deflated and rejected middle of the road opposition party and a labor party that has yet to find its moral ground and support from the voting public.
If the Liberal Democrats do not tow the line they will become the scape goat for the next election. They will lose the balance of power and with it political mussel and influence. Nick is a captive hostage to the Tories and he will be soon seen to be their bitch willing to do anything to remain in office. A part deviod of principle and strategy.
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Keating's reflections on NSW Labor
ALP steward Paul Keating reflects on the NSW State election and the failing of the State Party's head office
Source: ABC
Source: ABC
Monday, 29 November 2010
Unfinished Business: Accountability of good governance
An area of considerable concern, although not high on the voters list, is the diminishing level of government accountability at the senior administrative level.
Rob Hulls, in his term as Attorney General, did an exemplary job, in all areas of legislative reform, except on parliamentary government accountability.
A Baillieu Government will have to deliver accountability that the labor government had not.
With the possibility of the Liberal Goevrnment securing an absolute majority of the both houses the temptation is to not put in place or dealy the implementation of structure and adminstrative proceedures that will subejct the executive government to held to account.
The role of the Ombudsman had been undermined and structure to hold the government administration to account had not be been put in place.
Officers of the Parliament are currently exempt from independent review and oversight that parliament could not provide.
The Ombudsman should have authority and power to independently review the administration of Parliamentary officers as it does government departments.
In addition to the strengthening of the role of the Office of the Ombudsman the recommendations of the Proust review on the Administration of Government accountability should also be implemented without delay.
Rob Hulls, in his term as Attorney General, did an exemplary job, in all areas of legislative reform, except on parliamentary government accountability.
A Baillieu Government will have to deliver accountability that the labor government had not.
With the possibility of the Liberal Goevrnment securing an absolute majority of the both houses the temptation is to not put in place or dealy the implementation of structure and adminstrative proceedures that will subejct the executive government to held to account.
The role of the Ombudsman had been undermined and structure to hold the government administration to account had not be been put in place.
Officers of the Parliament are currently exempt from independent review and oversight that parliament could not provide.
The Ombudsman should have authority and power to independently review the administration of Parliamentary officers as it does government departments.
In addition to the strengthening of the role of the Office of the Ombudsman the recommendations of the Proust review on the Administration of Government accountability should also be implemented without delay.
Friday, 12 November 2010
Antony Green's confusing flaw explanation explained in more detail by example
In presenting his arguments Green uses quotas, which to some may be confusing and difficult to understand.
The Senate and Victorian formula used to calculate the Surplus Transfer Value is based on the number of ballot papers not the value of the vote and as a result this distorts the proportionality of the election count. In short the system used is not accurate. It was put in place to facilitate a manual counting of the Senate vote, last century, when they did not have computers to assist in the counting of the vote.
To try and limit the impact of this flaw they introduce segmentation - the breaking down of the vote count into parcels or bundles of votes that held a common value. In Tasmania and the ACT they only use the last bundle of votes received to distribute a candidate's surplus. (This has another effect that is equally flawed in principle and its execution - details not covered in this discussion)
The use of a segmented count is akin to dealing from the bottom of the deck in a game of cards. It in itself distorts the outcome of the election as was the case in 2007 Queensland Senate count where Green candidate Larissa Waters was denied representation as a result of this flaw in the counting process.
Western Australia State Government legislated to correct the flaw in the Senate Surplus Transfer Value but they maintained the method of segmented distribution of excluded candidate votes.
With the use of computer aided counting systems there is no need or justification to retain the flawed surplus transfer value calculation and with a value based formula there is no need to retain segmentation either. All votes should be transferred in a single transaction - one transaction per candidate. Pure simple and proportional
Senate and Victorian Legislative Council formula
Surplus transfer value (Stv) equals Candidates surplus value (Csv) divided by the Candidate's total value of votes (Ctv) divided by the total number of ballot papers (Tbp).The problem with the formula is that they use the number of ballot papers as the divisor not the value of the vote at the time it is being distributed . This problem is highlighted when a candidate is elected in a deferred count where the value attributed to each ballot paper is significantly different. The impact of this flaw in the system is it inflated the value of the major party ticket vote and devalue the independent below-the-line Minor Party vote.
The impact of the distorion in the count can be explained by looking more closely at the 2010 NSW Senate count and the distribution of the Liberal National Parties third candidate surplus votes using real numbers not percentage of quotas as in the Green explanation. In NSW the distortion delivered the LNP ticket a bonus value of 14,317 equivalent votes which is enough in a close election to change the result
In 2007 Victorian Senate count the distortion in the calculation of the Surplus transfer value came close to defeating ALP's Senator David Feeney as the LNP ticket gained a "bonus" of over 7,000 votes which was then transferred to the Greens candidate. The 7000 votes effectively "stolen" from Family First, the DLP and one Nation all of which opposed the Greens candidature.
If we counted money and dividends as we count votes our financial system would collapse over night
Facts suspressed by the ABC
The following facts surrounding the 2006 State Election have been suppressed by the ABC's Electrical Analyst, Antony Green.
WESTERN METRO
In 2006 the Greens won Western Metro after a recount.
FACT: 500 votes went missing and unaccounted for between Count A and Count B. Either the VEC double counted in count A or votes were removed. the total number of votes between count A and count B should never change. The Greens won on the second recount by less than 150 votes.
FACT: When the Parliament requested copies of the Count A preference data files for comparison, the VEC claimed that the data had been deleted and overwritten.
FACT: No backup copies were made. This is hard to believe for a professional organisation were this information costs millions of dollars to collate. No audit trail of Count A in comparison to Count B exists.
FACT: The AEC maintain copies of both count A and count B data comparisons. What benefit was there in the VEC duplicating the development of software to count the vote when the AEC already had a better version which could have been used free of cost? Millions of dollars wasted in duplicated software resources.
NORTHERN METRO
FACT: The VEC's lack of due diligence resulted in doggy data being feed into their computerised count.
FACT: There was no check or verification to ensure that the number of votes recorded reconciled with the number of ballot papers issued prior to the calculation of the election results. We are told that the VEC will this election produce a reconciliation report prior to the count but has yet not provide a sample copy of what this report will look like and what information it will contain.
FACT: In 2006 the VEC failed to provided copies of the preference data files to scrutineers. This information was only made available following an FOI application and even then they only provided information related to the final count not the preliminary counts. Data files had been overwritten without backup copies being made. Even though copies of this information had been requested prior to the commencement of the count.
FACT: The State elections cost Victoria over 50 million dollars, costs in duplicating resources that the AEC already provide. Hopefully we will not see a repeat of the mistakes that were made in 2006.
WESTERN METRO
In 2006 the Greens won Western Metro after a recount.
FACT: 500 votes went missing and unaccounted for between Count A and Count B. Either the VEC double counted in count A or votes were removed. the total number of votes between count A and count B should never change. The Greens won on the second recount by less than 150 votes.
FACT: When the Parliament requested copies of the Count A preference data files for comparison, the VEC claimed that the data had been deleted and overwritten.
FACT: No backup copies were made. This is hard to believe for a professional organisation were this information costs millions of dollars to collate. No audit trail of Count A in comparison to Count B exists.
FACT: The AEC maintain copies of both count A and count B data comparisons. What benefit was there in the VEC duplicating the development of software to count the vote when the AEC already had a better version which could have been used free of cost? Millions of dollars wasted in duplicated software resources.
NORTHERN METRO
FACT: The VEC's lack of due diligence resulted in doggy data being feed into their computerised count.
FACT: There was no check or verification to ensure that the number of votes recorded reconciled with the number of ballot papers issued prior to the calculation of the election results. We are told that the VEC will this election produce a reconciliation report prior to the count but has yet not provide a sample copy of what this report will look like and what information it will contain.
FACT: In 2006 the VEC failed to provided copies of the preference data files to scrutineers. This information was only made available following an FOI application and even then they only provided information related to the final count not the preliminary counts. Data files had been overwritten without backup copies being made. Even though copies of this information had been requested prior to the commencement of the count.
FACT: The State elections cost Victoria over 50 million dollars, costs in duplicating resources that the AEC already provide. Hopefully we will not see a repeat of the mistakes that were made in 2006.
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