The EU Parliament: A Fake Democracy

As we digest the Python-esque election of the new Eu Commission President (she was the only candidate on the ballot paper) I thought I’d have a look at exactly how "democratic" the  EU Parliament actually is.

Lets compare the way Parliamentary democracy is conducted in the UK and the way it is conducted in the EU Parliament. 

UK Democracy

As you know, the UK uses First Past the Post (FPTP) for 650 parliamentary seats (soon to be 600 when the Boundary changes take place)

Many think (myself included) FPTP is a pretty crap voting system. It needs updating. It can (and has) lead to over/under representation.

But even so, within the limits of geographical practicality, the UK election process attempts to be scrupulously fair.

Currently we are about to implement changes to the constituency boundary’s as dictated by the independent Boundary Commission. These changes happen to ensure the fairest possible representation across the country

In mainland UK, constituencies must have an electorate of between 72,810 and 80,473 registered voters. 

Northern Ireland has slightly (but only slightly) different requirements where the minimum is lowered to 70,810.

There are four unavoidable exceptions to these rules. All involve islands. But these exceptions are based on practicality and geography, not on deliberate political manipulation.

Even so, the absolute outlier (Western Isles constituency size - 21,200) is only over represented by a factor of less than 3.5:1.

A great deal of effort is expended trying to ensure that constituency sizes are fair. 

In fact, (except for the four anomalies), all constituencies across the UK will be within 5% of the median value regarding electorate size. 

Truly, within the bounds of practicality, one persons vote is worth much the same as another.

But what about the EU Parliament?

Elections to the EU parliament are conducted by a party list system known as the d’Hondt system. 

While d'Hondt does have issues and is not really a true proportional representation system it does (more or less) ensure a fair result across a country.

And in that, we have the problem. 

Or rather the deliberately contrived anti-democratic malapportionment as used by the EU.

While it is true that each country elects its MEPs by d’Hondt, the size of constituencies from one country to another varies massively. 

By massively I don’t mean double or even triple. I talking orders of magnitude.

Lets look at the dynamics of this related to the UK which has 73 MEPs (or a representation per MEP of about 900,000 citizens)

The greatest over-representation is that on Malta which has 6 MEPs each representing about 73,000 Maltese citizens)

So compared to the UK, Malta is over-represented by a factor of over 12:1. 

If you were to reflect the variation in EU constituency size onto the UK, it would be like having constituencies (each still returning one MP) having their electorate size varying between 6000 voters and 80,000 voters.

This is no accidental cock-up or historical legacy. This is deliberate. The EU even have a term for it they call it "Degressive Democracy".

Degressive (or even Regressive) it may be. But I think few would consider it democratic.

Malta is the worst example. But not by much. If you add up the seats allocated to the nine smaller EU countries you soon get to the 73 seats allocated to the UK.

The difference is the UK has a population of 66 million. If you add up the seats and populations of the smallest 9 EU nations you find that they have a total population of 17 million

That means that these 9 countries (compared to the UK) are over represented by at least 4:1 or by an even higher over-representation than the absolute worst case geographical anomaly in the UK parliament.

The difference is the Western Isles is an outlier due to the practicality of the situation whereas these nine EU countries are over represented by deliberate policy of the EU.

But it gets worse.

There is even a significant voter advantage compared to the UK  with larger countries. 

Germany has the largest national population in the EU with a population 82 million. The UK's population is 66 million. Yet Germany still has a per capita (i.e. per person) voter advantage of 1.05:1. 

So the Germans get 96 seats. The UK gets 73. 

If it was fair they’d get 91 to our 73. 

If the EU “Degression” concept was anything more than outright Gerrymandering they’d have around 85.

This can only be called what it is: Rigged and anti-democratic.

Of course that only applies if (like me) you believe that democracy is defined as one persons vote should be worth (more or less) the same as the next persons vote.

When one persons vote is worth the same as 12 others in another country - In my book that is fake democracy.

So why has the EU deliberately set out to do this? 

There are reasons. Most of which in my opinion are malign and are actually more to do with subverting democracy rather than supporting it. (more in another post)

But whatever the reasons, I think it is clear that the UK democracy, even with the crap FPTP voting system does its best to be fair. 

While the EU deliberately sets out to be demonstrably and deliberately unfair. It perverts democracy to its own design and it does this with a ruthless and deliberate policy.

The sooner we are out of this monster the better.

First Past The Post and Vote rigging

Regrettably, things have changed in our country. Voting fraud is now no longer a rarity. Crooks have realised how vulnerable FPTP is to Gerrymandering and vote stuffing.

In council elections both main parties have indulged in despicable practices to boost their candidates. There is strong evidence that even during the last General Election major corruption was evident.

The May 5th FPTP/AV referendum only relates to parliamentary elections, but the scams and criminality of some council elections serve as a useful window into the dark world of subverting democracy - and how fragile FPTP is to such scams.

Of course, whatever the voting system, such activities are totally reprehensible.

But the facts of life are just this: It is easy to "game" FPTP.

Vote rigging in our country is easy, almost undetectable and already seriously undermining the confidence of the electorate.

In my last post (HERE) I detailed four such scams. Unfortunately this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Here I will detail a couple more that have resulted in prosecution or at least controversy. I would put money on that for every scam found out, ten go undiscovered.

So why is AV more resilient than FPTP? I went through the main mechanisms used by fraudsters in my last post (HERE). But here is a brief resume about the most common fraud - Vote stuffing

Vote stuffing involves falsly registering phantom electors Then the fraudster usually uses the bogus postal vote. The type of seat/ward that is particularly vulnerable to this is where there is a sizeable third/fourth vote and the two leading parties are closely matched.

Because, in FPTP, all the votes for the third/fourth parties are essentially wasted, stuffing the ballot by a handful of false votes may well be enough to tip the balance. With AV the need to reach 50% from either direct votes or transfers renders most vote stuffing scams totally ineffective. Stuffing the ballot by (say) 100 votes will be totally swamped by the thousands of reallocated votes from the second preference votes.

With FPTP, a General Election can be decided by a few swing seats. Due to the nature of FPTP this means that in a close election the result is determined by a few thousand geographically critical votes. The trouble is now that the infection of disonesty is so ingrained into some communities within this country that those few thousand voters may only be imaginary. Mere figments of a criminal plan.

Two More Scam Examples:

One of the scams below resulted in jail sentences for the fraudsters. At least the second must have given the crooks a few sleepless nights.

1. Birmingham City Council 2005 (Labour)

This was a major fraud mainly involving vote stuffing (via postal ballot) and Personation (where known non-voters have their unused vote stolen). Six Labour councillors were found guilty of fraud. The judge famously described the fraud as: "that would disgrace a banana republic". This fraud was only viable because of the fragility of FPTP to vote stuffing. With AV the second choice votes would have overwhelmed anything but a massive (and one would hope) easily discoverable fraud.

The Times article on this fraud can be found HERE. The Times described this as the most corrupt election since the Victorian era. The BBC article on this fraud is HERE.

2. Tower Hamlets General Election 2010 (Labour)

A criminal investigation into vote stuffing before the 2010 general election found that there were over 5000 new applications for a postal vote at the very last minute. In the news reports (below) are reports of 18 freshly registered "voters" living in a single flat. Several Labour councillors appeared to have numerous new voters registered at their address.
This though was only one of 28 criminal investigations across the Capital. Anti-sleaze campaigner Martin Bell said: ‘There is actually a possibility that the result of the election could be decided by electoral fraud.'
The Daily Mail article on this can be found HERE

Many will rail against changing our voting system simpy because it is open to abuse. But really, democracy MUST be defended. The crooks MUST be defeated.

AV would make life much harder for the crooks to get their way.

I personally think AV is a better system for many reasons. But top of the list is its resilience against vote rigging.

 

First-Past-The-Post, AV and Fraud

In the current debate on which voting system we should adopt, nobody seems concerned about how resilient each system is to fraud.

I hope to show here (with examples) that one of the major issues with the current system (FPTP) is that it is wide open to Gerrymandering, Vote Stuffing and other forms of election fraud.

Proportional vote systems of just about any variety are much less sensitive to ballot rigging. This includes AV.

In recent times there has been major ballot rigging by both the Conservatives and Labour, you can guarantee that for every fraud that is discovered there are another ten that go unnoticed.

All of the all the fraud schemes are based around manipulating small numbers of votes or voters. These frauds will only work effectively if you have a flawed voting system like FPTP.

Example 1
Gerrymandering (or Manipulation of Demography.)
(Used By Conservatives, Westminster Council 1990)

The conservative council moved council tenants out of marginal wards into wards already strongly Labour, thus nullifying the vote of those moved. The council then sold the properties to owner occupiers, who, they assumed were more likely to vote Conservative. In this way they gamed the system so they made a small reduction to the Labour support base and at the same time made a potential small increase to the support base for the Conservatives. The fraud then relied on the fact that much of the vote went to other parties and was essentially wasted. A manipulated but tiny change in voter demography in these marginal seats gave the Conservatives a massive electorial advantage.

The net result of this scam was that the Conservative won the marginals. Labour increased their share of the vote in their strongly Labour wards but lost the marginal seats.

This scam is only effective with FPTP. With AV the second choice votes would come into effect and and it is highly unlikely that Westminster council could have changed the demographics anywhere near enough to game AV.

The Conservative Westminster Council only got caught because they were so blatent about it (politicians conceit again) I suspect that this methodolgy has been used on numerous occasions by both major parties, but with a little less arrogance and a little more concealment.

The leader of Westminster Council (Dame Shirtly Porter) was fined £37 million and stripped of here title.

Details of this scam are   HERE (Independent) and HERE (Wikipedia)

Example 2.
Vote Stuffing 
(Used by the Labour Party 2010 general election - unproven but highly likely)


Vote stuffing has a number guises. The most common is fraudulent postal voting. It works by the fraudster(s) registering fictitious residents into a marginal seat or ward. Each of these fictitious residents gets a postal vote. Because the votes for third parties are essentially wasted, these few fraudulent votes can swing the balance of the vote. According to Lady Warsi, The Conservatives lost three seats in the 2010 election due to postal vote stuffing.

Again this is only an effective scam under FPTP where the winner can win with a small percentage of the vote. With AV the second choice votes would mean that any candidate would need 50% of the reallocated vote to win. To stuff the vote to the extent as to counteract the transferred votes as well  would be untenable.

Lady Warsi's allegation is Here (Telegraph)

Articles on occurences of Postal vote fraud can be found HERE , HERE, HERE and HERE


Example 3  
Granny Farming
(Used by Conservatives, Bedford Borough Council 2005)


With Granny farming, older vulnerable residents, who under normal circumstances would not vote, are persuaded to give their vote to a proxy. This proxy themn uses the vote to their advantage. This is a variant of Vote Stuffing and there have since 2005 been put in place some controls (i.e. a proxy can only act for one other person not many as was the case).
Like other forms of vote stuffing this scam is only effective under FPTP. In AV due to the need for the winner to secure 50% of the vote, manipulating a few votes is far less likely to affect the outcome.

Article on Granny Farming can be found HERE

Example 4.
Personation.
(Used by the Labour Party, Glasgow North By-Election 2009)

When a party has a secure seat it is only vulnerable to voter apathy (i.e. people failing to turn up to vote) Personation is where the fraudster turns up and pretends to be someone else and uses the other persons vote, assuming that that person will not show. This is a desperate and dangerous version of vote stuffing and like all forms of vote stuffing is only effective under FPTP.

Article on Personation at the Glasgow North By election is HERE

I could go on and on.

Unfortunately election fraud is no longer a freak event in our country. One of the main reasons for this rise in fraud is simply because the FPTP voting system is so fragile and open to criminal manipulation.

It is considerably more difficult to game any form of proportional representation system simply because with AV you cannot win with a small share of the vote, you have to get 50% from direct votes or transfers.

That reason alone should mean we choose AV.

But FPTP also can foul up on a grand scale even without fraud. If you've not read them, have a look at my posts on the elections of 1929, 1951,  1974. Particularly look at 1951 where the Conservative Party that formed the government with an absolute majority, actually got a smaller  share of the national vote than Labour party.

Democracy and Gerrymandering

Billothewisp was delighted to see this article in the Independent claiming that there has been a “Remarkable” rise in voter registration.

Believe me, nobody would be happier than me if it turns out to be genuine. One of the failures of our democracy is that it engages with too few of the electorate.

But I have worries. Hopefully this is paranoia, simply brought on by a lack of a regular haircut. But one comment at the end of the Independent article raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

Quote:
“The officer at the council showed me his computer screen to validate my details, what was then immediately noticeable that some moderate sized houses on my road had 40-50 registered voters registered to them which were at most able to accommodate 8 people.”

When questioned the officer shrugged his shoulders.

I will repeat that.

He shrugged his shoulders.

Democracy can easily be subverted by its enemies. Especially if no one cares.

Really, we must guard our democracy better than this. It is more important than income tax, traffic offences or VAT all of which have hoards of police/inspectors/officials protecting them. Democracy needs to be defended as well.

Gerrymandering is an ugly inexcusable crime. If it is found (or suspected) it must be vigorously and publicly investigated. Any perpetrators must be prosecuted.

If proven, those involved should go to jail.

Our democracy is in enough trouble as it is without being perverted with Gerrymandering.

Hat tip to Richard at EU Referendum Who blogged about this here first.