Voted

This morning, I voted in our local elections. That is, I either exercised my democratic right or discharged my democratic duty, depending on your view.

It's the first time I've voted in-person since the introduction of photo ID requirements. (I have postal voted in the meantime.)

I was curious how long the process would take, so I timed myself. I left the house at 8:22 (so this doesn't include getting ready to go out, since I was doing that anyway). I had voted by 8:29. At that point, I was on my way to work, so didn't go straight back home - but I had gone out of my way to get to the polling station.

So, it was about 8:35 by the time I was back on my normal route to work. So, one could say about 15 minutes total or perhaps 10 (because it would have taken me some time to get that far anyway).

I'm always slightly resentful of the fact that our polling station is in the opposite direction from work, so I was interested to learn that experiments are underway that might allow voters more choice over where (and when) they vote. That's something I'd welcome.

Slightly ironically, I then spent much of the day writing against the idea of compulsory voting, in response to this recent proposal. I may have more to say about that later.

Disrespecting a game

Luke Maring has an interesting article (here) on the obligation to vote. He argues that democratic citizens have a role-based obligation to vote, since failing to do so would disrespect democracy. And he motivates the idea that it's wrong to disrespect a practice with an example of a basketballer. (I forget the exact details of the case.)

I was reminded of this today, when I saw this article about Memphis Depay, in which the Brazilian Football Federation (CBF) is reported to have issued a letter saying that standing on the football is "provocation to a rival and disrespects the game."

I assume this was in Portuguese, so not sure how easy it would be to track down the original, but it's an interesting example (for those with more interest in football than basketball, at least).

EDIT: See follow-up post here.

Commons vote on PR

I'm teaching about proportional representation tomorrow, so it's timely that the House of Common approved a motion on PR today (3rd December). Coverage in various places, including the Guardian, Telegraph (sign-up required), and Independent, plus several less-prominent sites that seem to be carrying the same version of the story (here, here, here, here, and here - I link to several in case some links don't last).

This is pretty meaningless, since it's clear that the government doesn't plan any changes. Nonetheless, it's slightly frustrating to see Conservative MP Lewis Cocking trotting out things like "The British people have made their opposition to this clear. In 2011, 13 million voted to retain the first past the post system". That refers to the AV referendum, but choice there was between FPTP and AV, not PR. So, the British people haven't had chance to express their views on that.

I should say though that Sarah Olney (whose motion it was) may be partly responsible for this, since her comments seemingly focus on criticising FPTP. We could change away from FPTP without introducing PR (for instance, if each constituency used AV to choose its MP - the result might still be very disproportional, though it would be slightly less clear how to judge that).

Anyway, one particular point of interest is the breakdown of votes. Amongst those who voted against is David Pinto-Duschinsky. My students will be reading a critique of PR by his father. (My knowledge of the relationship is based on Wikipedia, so I hope it's right!)

Oxford uses the Alternative Vote

Unfortunately, I missed the registration deadline to vote for Oxford's next chancellor, but I was interested to see that they use a (slightly modified) AV system for the election. I blogged quite extensively about AV back in the day of the UK referendum (e.g. here and here).

It doesn't seem that AV is particularly likely to be adopted for general elections these days, even if the recent election (parliament; BBC; Wikipedia) has sparked some renewed debate about the problems with FPTP (e.g. this short feature, posted in the run-up to the election).

I assume Oxford's use of AV constitutes an endorsement of sorts and, at least, an illustration of how it works.

Starmer on voting rights - is he consistent?

The Telegraph reports that Keir Starmer has backtracked on an earlier pledge to give voting rights to EU citizens. (This is behind a paywall but, for now at least, reproduced via MSN.)

This isn't entirely new news it seems, because they appear to have run a similar story last year. Although an earlier Guardian story is a bit less clear on plans anyway - suggesting that it's simply being looked at.

What struck me about the original story, however, is his comments (quoted at the end of the piece) about the voting age:

"On the votes for 16 and 17-year-olds, I strongly believe if you can work as you can when you’re 16 and 17, if you can serve in our Armed Forces, if you pay your taxes as you do if you’re a 16 or 17-year-old, you have a right to say how those taxes are going to be used."

If these are his reasons for wanting to lower the voting age, then it seems odd that EU citizens - and, indeed, other immigrants - who are able to work and pay tax shouldn't also be given the vote. Maybe (the right to) military service is more important than this passage suggests.

A House of Citizens?

I don't know whether the Metro letter page is preserved for posterity or not, but there are some interesting comments on the House of Lords in today's letters. This seems to follow on from recent discussion, which includes one call to abolish the HoL entirely. This follows the recent news that at least one peer also wants to abolish the HoL.

I'm not clear whether some replacement is envisioned or whether James Bradshaw from London would prefer a unicameral parliament. However, David Jubb from Devon offers an interesting alternative in today's letters:

"I’d rather have a House of Citizens than a House of Lords, with people from all walks of life contributing, as we do with jury service.

It would bring common sense to Westminster from every part of the UK and could be based on the model of successful citizens’ assemblies."

This idea isn't new (as he perhaps knows, given the reference to citizens' assemblies). Random selection, along the lines of jury service, is generally known as sortition. It has been proposed before, as a way to replace the House of Lords (Amazon affiliate link) or, indeed, even to replace elected representatives (Amazon affiliate link).

JME blog

I've just had a post, about strike ballots, published on the Journal of Medical Ethics blog. You can find it here. 

Readers may recall that I've written about similar themes before. The latest piece is indeed similar, but applied to a new issue (strikes by healthcare workers, rather than UCU).

Toronto Mayoral Election

I saw via the BBC that there are over 100 candidates, including a dog, running for Toronto mayor. Despite looking at a couple of sites that claimed to cover everything one might need to know, I struggled to find the voting system involved. The site just linked mentions that a candidate could win with just 20% of the vote. In fact, it seems that the election uses first past the post - at least, according to Wikipedia, though no citation is given. This means that, in theory, one candidate could win with just 1% of the vote.

FPTP seems pretty undesirable when there are this many candidates. However, while some form of instant run-off could overcome some problems, it would also be burdensome on voters to rank all of the candidates.

Why my vote wasn't counted

I didn't vote yesterday, but that's because I registered for postal voting and had posted my ballot last week. As it turns out, the election in my ward was declared void when one of the candidates died. My condolences to his family.

I didn't hear the news until later, and I doubt that many did, so I don't know how much effect it would have had one voting. However, this does highlight some interesting things about voting.

First, discussions of contraction consistency sometimes consider the effect of one candidate withdrawing. It is sometimes assumed that if A wins a three-way contest between A, B, and C then A should also beat B (or C) in a two-way contest. But this is not the case in many voting systems.

Second, this case also highlights the fact that - in the UK - voters elect individuals, not parties. If the votes were cast for the Conservative Party, rather than for Mr Galton, then he could presumably be replaced with another party nominee. But the votes are for the individual. This is relevant when elected officials decide to change party. It is sometimes suggested that this ought to trigger a by-election, though this is not the case.

Voting age in New Zealand

I was aware that the minimum voting age has been challenged in Canada. That's something I mentioned a while back. However, I only very recently learned of some similar developments in New Zealand.

I gather than their Supreme Court has already ruled that restricting the vote to adults (18+) amounts to age discrimination against 16- and 17-year olds. Nonetheless, according to this article on The Conversation, it seems that proposed legislation to lower the voting age for national elections is unlikely to proceed - although it seems that the age may be lowered for local elections only, partly because this change only requires the support of a simple majority, rather than a 75% super-majority, of MPs. That may also be of interest when I teach about majoritarianism and constitutional entrenchment.

SNP use STV

Since I'm no longer in Scotland, I haven't followed the SNP leadership contest too closely, but this recent article caught my eye. It's mostly about membership numbers and transparency, but the bit I found most interesting was mention - at the very end - that the process uses the single transferable vote system.

This is slightly unusual terminology, since STV is normally used to refer to PR systems. When only one person is being elected, this is usually referred to as the alternative vote system - something I blogged about long ago. 

Nonetheless, it could be a useful example next time I'm teaching about these voting systems. I've previously used Conservative leadership contests as an example, though these aren't ideal in a couple of respects. First, unless there's a 'coronation' without a vote (as happened for May and Sunak), the final vote goes to party members, rather than MPs. This changes the electorate between rounds. Second, as a sort of consequence of this, someone can get over 50% in earlier rounds but not automatically win. This happened in 2019, when Boris Johnson received over 50% in the fourth and fifth rounds.

When is a woman (not) in Iran?

Democracy is rule by the people, but one key question is 'which people?'

If one believes in a principle like 'no taxation without representation' then there's no obvious justification for restricting the franchise to citizens. Immigrants pay taxes, so perhaps they should be enfranchised too. Indeed, it might even be necessary to extend voting rights to non-resident foreigners too, if they are subject to taxes.

Those working on this issue are often interested in laws that claim universal jurisdiction - that is, they are not restricted to the territory of the state in question, but purport to be binding (on citizens or even people generally) wherever they are.

I noticed an interesting example of something like this in this BBC article about Iranian headscarves. According to the article, "Women in Iran are required to wear headscarves in public, even when abroad" but this obviously doesn't make much sense. If an Iranian woman is abroad, then she's not in Iran. Thus, the law doesn't apply only to women in Iran.

I'm assuming this law applies to Iranian citizens, though perhaps it applies to all women ordinarily resident in Iran. In any case, it seems that they can commit an offence outside Iran.

Publication: Why Strike Ballots are Undemocratic (The Political Quarterly)

My latest paper has just been published, with open access, in The Political Quarterly. It's about strike ballots, so rather topical at the moment.

Here's the abstract:

"Since 2016, new legislation governing strike ballots has made it more difficult for trade unions to achieve a mandate for industrial action. Such a mandate now requires that a majority of members vote in the ballot. This article argues that these balloting processes are undemocratic. The turnout requirement means that a mandate for industrial action does not simply depend on its level of popular support amongst union members. This has surprising consequences. Sometimes opponents of action would be better advised to abstain, rather than to vote against it. Thus, it is not always clear how they should vote. Whatever they do, their actions may be counterproductive. Further, even when they do know how best to promote their desired outcome, there may be a conflict between voting strategically and clearly expressing their true preferences. Consequently, there is no guarantee that the outcome of the ballot accurately reflects what people really want."

And here's a word cloud (produced by this handy site):

If you want to know a bit more, without reading the full paper, then it's based on issues that I blogged about earlier in the year, so that post is a kind of summary or preview of the paper.

Should under-18s get to pick the Prime Minister?

One subject that I'll be covering in my Democratic Theory module in the coming semester is the voting age. There's been a long-running debate over votes at 16 and some political theorists have gone even further, suggesting that the voting age should be lowered to 12, to 6, or even abolished altogether. Of course, there are others who think that it should stay where it is, or perhaps even be raised higher.

In this context, I was quite interested to learn that children as young as 15 can vote in the current Conservative Party leadership contest. There's no need to be eligible to vote in general elections in order to participate. (Similarly, one need not be a British citizen either.)

The BBC article, linked to above (first one in the previous paragraph), includes interviews with several young Conservative Party members, most of whom seem to oppose a general lowering of the voting age. One is reported as saying that the fate of the country should not be in the hands of those who don't pay taxes, have mortgages, or support families. However, this ignores at least two things.

First, lowering the voting age to 16 wouldn't put the fate of the country in the hands of 16- and 17-year-olds, since they would still only be a small portion of the electorate. Those over 18 would continue to have a major say. Indeed, the electorate is currently dominated by the relatively elderly (because there are a lot of them and because they are more likely to vote).

Second, many over-18s don't do these things either. If one were to apply this principle consistently, then it would seem that these groups also ought to be excluded. I take it that this would be obviously undemocratic. Perhaps, then, the exclusion of 16-year-olds is also undemocratic.

Raising the age of criminal responsibility

It seems that I've had a little series lately concerning cases where the minimum age at which one can engage in certain activities is being raised (or where it has been proposed that it be raised). Just last month, there were examples involving competitive figure skating and smoking. I've just come across another, more significant, example.

The age of criminal responsibility in Australia is currently ten, but it seems that there are moves afoot to raise this to 14. (I discovered this via this piece on The Conversation, which is particularly concerned with First Nations issue, but the age thing seems to be universal.)

This is particularly relevant to my teaching, since one of the articles that I use when teaching child enfranchisement is this piece by Joanne Lau. She argues that the age of political responsibility (and thus voting) should be in line with the age of criminal responsibility, mentioning that this is ten in Australia. This doesn't mean that she supports voting rights for ten-year-olds (though some would go even further than that) - the appeal to symmetry could be met either by lowering the voting age or by raising the age of criminal responsibility (or a bit of both).

It seems that Australia is going for the latter, though there is still some asymmetry, assuming that they're not lowering the voting age to 14. (Even lowering it to 16 is controversial.) But this still means that those aged 14-18 are liable to criminal punishment, while having no say over the laws in question.

UPDATE: There's another Conversation article on this topic here.

Things that you can no longer do at age 16...

 I've posted a few times over the last year or two about the voting age (e.g. here and here). It's an interesting topic, which I regularly discuss with students.

A common argument that comes up in these debates is an analogy between voting and other activities. The argument goes something like this: if you are (not) old enough to do X, then you are (not) old enough to vote. The X can be filled in with various things, such as get a job, pay taxes, have children, etc.

In light of these arguments, it's worth keeping an eye out for changes in various other activities that may fill the place of X. I commented last year on moves to stop 16- and 17-year-olds from marrying. This is one respect in which many other age thresholds are being raised, rather than lowered.

Yesterday, I saw that the minimum age for competing in figure skating is being raised, from 15 to 17. Admittedly, this is not a commonly cited value of X in debates over voting, but it is another example of something that 16-year-olds are no longer permitted to do.

Publication: Making Non-Voters Pay

I have an article forthcoming in the Journal of Politics - due out in next month's issue. They just published a post summarising/previewing the article on their blog here. 

If you want a pictorial illustration, here's a word cloud (courtesy of wordclouds.com) that should give some idea of the content.

Stalin Road

 Back in September, I was in Colchester visiting relatives when this picture was taken:

There's a post-war estate that contains Churchill Way, Roosevelt Way, and - more controversially - Stalin Road.

This was featured in the local newspaper back in 2009, when it reported that only four out of thirty households responding to a poll wanted the name to change. It was back in the newspaper the other day though, in a more recent article that partly repeats the older one. This article was also reprinted further afield. However, this also gives more detail of the debate at the time.

First, it reports a tweet from the council (which I haven't located) according to which changing the road name would require consent from 75% of the residents. (It's not clear whether that's 75% of those who vote, or 75% of all residents - making abstention an effective no vote.) That's interesting, given that I've been teaching majority rule lately. Here we have an example of bias towards the status quo, as often used in cases of constitutional entrenchment.

Second, it reports disagreement over who should have standing here. One resident is quoted as saying, "it should be our decision" because it is the residents who would be inconvenienced by a change of address. On the other hand, another letter argued that the name is an embarrassment to Colchester (and even Britain) and that residents don't have the right to choose the name of their road. (For the record though, I think the latter point is something of a non-sequitur. The residents here didn't choose Stalin Road. Their objection is to having the existing name changed.)

This is also interesting, given that I've recently been discussing the so-called 'boundary problem' with students on my democratic theory module. This is a case where it's not clear what the relevant 'demos' is. If not the residents of the road in question, then who should it be? Everyone in Colchester? Everyone in Britain? What about residents of the former USSR?

On voting in UCU strike ballots

 Strikes are currently taking place at many UK universities, with staff protesting over workloads, casualization, and (in pre-1992 institutions) further cuts to the USS pension scheme. These grievances are not new and have been discussed elsewhere before, for instance here and here. But there’s been less discussion of the ballot (voting) system that’s led to the strikes, which is pretty interesting in its own right.

 

A legal mandate for industrial action requires that more members vote in favour of action than against it, but also that at least 50% of members participate (vote) in the ballot. This is intended to ensure that there is wide support for action. Without some provision like this, a small number of workers might claim a mandate for action simply because of low turnout. But this requirement also produces some rather surprising consequences.

 

In ballots last year, a number of universities narrowly missed this turnout threshold, meaning no mandate for industrial action even though a significant majority of votes cast were in favour of it. For instance, at the University of Southampton, 491 out of 998 members voted – only eight short of the required turnout. This means there was no legal mandate, even though 348 of those votes (71.5% of valid votes) were in favour of strike action. (These figures all focus on votes for strike action, rather than action short of striking, and on the USS dispute in particular. Further, all figures are from November 2021, though a number of universities that narrowly missed the threshold subsequently held a second round of ballots.)

 

Matters were even closer in some other cases. The Newcastle University was just six votes short (619 out of 1,250). At the University of Manchester, the threshold was missed by a single vote (1,094 out of 2,094). This despite, respectively, 80.1% and 77.7% of those votes cast supporting strike action.

 

These figures reveal that some media coverage has been misleading. For instance, the BBC reported that staff at 58 universities voted in favour of strike action. While it is true that only 58 secured the necessary turnout, this overlooks the fact that a majority of votes cast at every university were for strike action. (The lowest level of support for strikes was 61.6% at the University of Reading.)

 

This isn’t simply a case of ‘near misses’ though. These figures also reveal some surprising consequences of the 50% turnout requirement. For instance, Reading did secure a legal mandate because 50.6% voted, albeit with only 61.6% of those (31.2% of eligible voters [228 out of 731]) favouring a strike. In contrast, Newcastle did not secure a legal mandate, because only 49.5% voted, even though 80.1% of these (39.7% of eligible voters [496 out of 1,250]) favoured a strike. This seems strange, to say the least.

 

The oddity of these rules is even more apparent if we consider some possible ‘what if’ scenarios. As noted above, Manchester was only one vote short of the turnout threshold. Had just one more person voted, then they would have the necessary mandate. But this would be the case regardless of how that person voted. Even had they voted against the strike, their single vote would not have stopped yes from winning, but would have met the turnout threshold.

 

In fact, support for strike action was so strong that it would still have won even had an extra 576 of those who did not vote instead voted against strike action. Again, it’s puzzling that a vote of 807-to-231 in favour of strikes fails to achieve a mandate, but 807-to-806 would do so. Why should more people voting against something give it a mandate it otherwise lacked?

 

This isn’t the end of the strangeness though. As we’ve just seen, one more person voting against a strike would have resulted in a legal mandate (807-to-232). But this mandate would have been lost had one of those 232 opposed to strike action abstained, rather than voting against it. So, not only can voting against a strike give it a mandate, but not voting at all might serve to block strike action!

 

Ordinarily, we expect abstention to be a ‘neutral’ option, between yes and no. In this case though, it was abstentions – rather than no votes – that blocked strike action where ballots failed. It might well be that some members realised that not voting was their best chance to avoid a strike and acted accordingly. (And, perhaps, some others voted no – making a strike more likely – because they didn’t want to block a strike in this manner.) However, if this was the case, then this strategic abstention might have backfired.

 

As it happens, the strike ballots that failed to secure a legal mandate did so because of low turnout, rather than low support from those that did vote. But things might have been otherwise. It could have been that turnout thresholds were met, but that the vote was a close one. In that case, there might have been a narrow victory for strike action that would have been overturned had strategic abstainers voted against it.

 

This means that some union members are faced with difficult choices, even if they know what they want. It’s clear what those in favour of strikes should do – they should vote yes to strike action. But opponents of strike action are faced with a dilemma. It isn’t obvious whether they best promote their cause by voting no or by abstaining. Either option might unwittingly create the strike mandate that they sought to avoid.

 

While the working conditions that have led so many academic staff to vote for strikes are the main issue, the success or failure of strike ballots is often the result of voting rules, rather than whether workers support strike action. The turnout requirement makes strike ballots harder to pass, but also has some rather surprising results.

 

A striking question

Once again, academics - or, at least, some of those who are UCU members - are voting over strike action. I'm not going to go over the grounds for this, nor the bizarre (but legally mandated) voting system - though I may blog on that another time. Right now, my attention is on the ballot paper:

There's perhaps some ambiguity over what 'prepared' means here. I suppose someone may be prepared to strike over one issue but not another, based on (what they see as) the justice of the cause or chances of success or whatever. 

 

However, one might have no particular desire to go on strike, yet be prepared to do so in solidarity with others (assuming they want to). In that case, one might reasonably answer yes, one is prepared to take action. If everyone were to do that though, then they would all end up engaged in strike action that none of them actually wanted, simply because they were all prepared to do it.

(For the record, the photo is of my ballot paper, but I've already returned it now.)