British local elections included a national referendum on what they call Alternative Voting (AV). That is as opposed to First Past the Post (FPTP) voting (what we do). Alternative Voting is where one ranks the candidates in order of preference and then when the first combing is done the bottom person drops out and those ballots are awarded to the voter's second choice and so on until someone gets 50% of the vote in the district.
The issue of AV reminds us that here in Lowell we have a committee of residents, from the Neighborhood Groups, looking at ways to increase voter participation in our fair City. They will soon be holding hearings and looking for input.
(I would like to note that for elections like those in Lowell, where there are a group of folks running for a number of "at large" seats, I favor bullet voting. Bullet Voting is where the voter gets the same number of votes as there are eventual winners. The voter may use those bullets any way he or she favors. Nine can be given to one candidate, say Rita Mercier. Or, three can be given to Rita and three to Joe Mendonça and three to Patrick Murphy. Or, they can be spread out over nine different candidates.)
The Brits rejected the AV idea soundly, 67.9% to 32.1%. The details can be found here. Note it is the BEEB.
The other big news is that the Scottish National Party (SNP) picked up enough seats to form a government in the Scottish Parliament. Per the BBC, the SNP's victory was humbling to "Labour in one of its traditional heartlands and paving the way for a referendum on Scottish independence." That would be interesting. If Scotland goes, is Quebec next?
On the other hand, in Wales the Plaid Cymru suffered losses.
Regards — Cliff
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