Which means I was not the only one to rank them lower than the Libertarian party candidate!
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
Council elections 2022
(520 posts)- Started 2 years ago by Stickman
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Posted 1 year ago #
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Was just looking at some of the things the parties were promising if the voters backed them.
Saw this -
“
The amount spent on weed killer by Edinburgh Council dropped in 2020 to £5,888 from £24,326 in 2019, with less weed spraying happening during the pandemic.
Lothian MSP, Miles Briggs, has said that Edinburgh Council needs to make an extra effort to deal with the number of weeds which have grown unchecked across the capital.
“
I know ‘weeds’ are controversial and there must be some votes in ‘neat and tidy’ and this is the party that likes “consultations” for finding out what complainers care about.
BUT
“
According to a Freedom of Information request by the Scottish Conservatives, there have been no weed complaints made to the council since 2019.
“
Posted 1 year ago # -
Is it just me or does anyone else find it rather churlish for an MSP from the party that ended up with the smallest number of seats on the council to be making some kind of claim to relevance and importance at local level? At the very least, shows a lack of humility and reflection upon why his party did so poorly last week.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Interesting thread on the national results in a historical context:
Having a pick through Scotland's council election results with fresh eyes, and a few things jump out - some obvious, some slightly more counter-intuitive. A brief thread...
Posted 1 year ago # -
Jeezo are journos still trying to push the notion that Gordo "The Vow" Broon, No Surrender Sarwar, and Mr Sir Kier Starmer Esq provide an actual alternative to the Tories on the Union issue? I'm not saying they're the same in general mind, but even assuming they haul their flag down from the Better Together pole if they have a realistic prospect of scraping a win down south, anyone who believes they'll deliver whatever Devo UltraSuperDuperTopMax they promise is a giant novelty Toby-tier mug.
Posted 1 year ago # -
There's some "Comedy Gold" on Social Media around SfP and LTNs.
The local elections were a chance to throw out those crazy schemes etc. is what we heard before the election. Now that the democratic process has taken place, some individuals still believe they should be ripped out! Ermmm the electorate have voted against that?!?!
One thing I have been pondering is that all Councillors have an equal vote? Doesn't sit right with me that somebody elected on 7th or 10th redistribution of votes gets the same power as somebody elected in the 1st round / had the most votes.... So they basically have the power to veto things for making people's lives better despite the majority voting for candidates who have this aim... Hmmm.....
Posted 1 year ago # -
“Doesn't sit right with me that somebody elected on 7th or 10th redistribution of votes gets the same power as somebody elected in the 1st round“
Sounds like ‘bad’, but while none of the PR systems are ‘perfect’, most people consider them better than FPTP.
Obviously there will be people who feel ‘cheated’ by the vote transfers.
It seems some ‘anomalies’ have come about because some people put a number by every name and some didn’t.
Obviously ‘personal choice’, and no way of making it compulsory to mark every candidate - especially as some papers have lots!
Perhaps better explanation of the system next time.
Certainly parties that hope to get more than one candidate elected in some wards should do some explaining - and should perhaps make sure all their candidates have a surname in the early part of the alphabet!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Quelle surprise. Libdems rule out coalition with SNP
https://twitter.com/EdinburghLibDem/status/1523391528978112512
Posted 1 year ago # -
@twinspark - my take on this is that you accept whoever has been voted in legally as legitimate government, for good or for ill, whether through a preferential or FPTP system. You then lobby those representatives accordingly, whether they got in on a list vote, limped in on a redistribution of votes, or as in a FPTP system, were seriously outvoted by the combined votes of the losers. No voting system is perfect - though FPTP is the least perfect. I really do hope at the next GE a Lib Dem/Labour/SNP coalition finally gets some proportional representation voting method pushed through.
Posted 1 year ago # -
“Doesn't sit right with me that somebody elected on 7th or 10th redistribution of votes gets the same power as somebody elected in the 1st round“
I get the sentiment but I don't really agree given the maths of it.
The number of rounds that it takes to elect a Councillor is dependant on many features outwith their control.
Anyone score above the quota (total votes / (seats +1)) with their 1st preference votes gets elected in round 1, with round 2 being the allocation of their surplus votes, which depending on how far above the quota theye were, not be that many votes.
Rounds 3-(say)5 can then be the elimination of the no-hopers who have to be ruled out 1 by 1 starting with the fewest votes, so again the total votes of the likely winners doesn't necessarily move that much.
It's only when you get to elimination of the candidates that got a decent number of votes that the marginal candidates score move markedly.
They also keep the quota at the same figure throughout the rounds when they could conceivably reduce it once the voters haven't shown any more preferences.
Posted 1 year ago # -
“Doesn't sit right with me that somebody elected on 7th or 10th redistribution of votes gets the same power as somebody elected in the 1st round“
I'm not sure this is the right way to think about it, there are X seats to fill and the system works out who has most support out of all the candidates to be one of those X. If you made it have a sliding scale of voting power, you'd be back towards FPTP where even if two candidates took the lion's share of the vote, the one who got most takes most of the prize.
Posted 1 year ago # -
“They also keep the quota at the same figure throughout the rounds when they could conceivably reduce it once the voters haven't shown any more preferences.“
Ah, two things there.
The idea of reducing the ‘value’ of transfers - which might deal with the concerns of twinspark. Whether that would get widespread support is (obviously) unknown. It could also complicate the counting system - not in itself a reason for not doing it, but a potential reason for not doing it, due to extra complexity.
The other thing (which I referred to upthread) is the (possible) consequences of not ‘voting for everyone’
If there are (say) four people/parties that you are ok about seeing elected and one you really aren't, then giving them the number 5 vote is doing them a favour (via the transfer system) that you didn’t intend.
Whether/how there should be more info on ‘voting to the end’ (or not), seems, to me, to be a key question.
It’s partly about tactical voting (or perhaps the tactics of voting) which some people think is important/legitimate/necessary/desirable and others seem to think is ‘unpure’ either because of a view of democracy or the ‘sanctity of the polling booth’ (or something).
Similarly some people are strongly against the idea of electoral pacts - either an explicit agreement between parties or by ‘not trying to win’ in some seats.
Posted 1 year ago # -
"Similarly some people are strongly against the idea of electoral pacts - either an explicit agreement between parties or by ‘not trying to win’ in some seats."
A friend of mine did not approve of polling voting intentions, because they would encourage people to vote tactically instead of ideologically. My argument was that you use your vote intelligently, supporting the bad against the worse. In Scotland we have the added constitutional issue, so every vote becomes for or anti-indy.
Posted 1 year ago # -
“They also keep the quota at the same figure throughout the rounds when they could conceivably reduce it once the voters haven't shown any more preferences.“
My thought was a mathematical one rather than a comment about vote worth.
If you have a 10,000 vote ward with 4 vacancies. The quota starts at 2,001, as anyone getting this or above can't be beaten by 4 other candidates.
If the top 3 candidates all get above this number then their surplus is spread across their next preference once these 3 have been eliminated.
This leaves the remaining candidates fighting it out amongst the 3,997 remaining votes to get above the 2,001 quota.
You then get the drawn out process where each of the no-hopers are eliminated and their piddly 24 votes are reallocated to the next remaining candidate on their ballot.
What we can see in the voting patterns across the country is that lots of people will have not voted all the way down and so a growing figure of 'No further prefernce' votes.
So the remaining candidates aren't really fighting it into within the remaining 3,997 votes but maybe something like 3,500 active votes remaining.
In which case the winner will be the 1st one to get to 1,751 votes. However the process is doesn't declare victory until the 4th person gets the quota of 2,001 votes or their is only 2 candidates left and they take the one with the highest votes.
Hope that make sense.
Not sure how much of a difference in the number of rounds it would make and it definitely ends up with the same results so I doubt the further confusion to voting structure would be worth taking but it irks my mathematical thinking the way it is.
Posted 1 year ago # -
So
Whatever the outcome
‘No one voted for it’
Maybe…
As has been mentioned, lot of new councillors (inevitably mostly younger). Some have already made positive noises about active travel.
Of course committee composition important (as well as the overall administration/coalition).
I wonder if Cllr Macinnes will want to continue with Transport or prefer the challenge of something less challenging?!
Posted 1 year ago # -
The number of rounds correlates with how closely fought the seat is and the number of parties standing. In many ways it means the electoral system is working hard rather than working badly.
In a 3 party seat you might have candidate A on 50%, candidate B on 40%, candidate C on 9% and candidate D on 1% first prefs. Candidates A and B would be elected at round 1 and D could plausibly overtake C on the overflow from A and B and get in at round 2.
You might also get A, B and C on 30% each, with candidates D-Z on some fraction of the remaining 10%. It might be round 10 before even one of them got elected. Are they less deserving of a council vote as a result?
Whereas even multi-member FPTP hands the seat to the first person who looks like a winner, STV takes a breath if things are close and tries to figure out who the electorate really wants in.
It would be interesting to take a 'high-rounds' ward and see if the final result really looks so unreasonable given the first and second preferences initially expressed.
Posted 1 year ago # -
"I wonder if Cllr Macinnes will want to continue with Transport or prefer the challenge of something less challenging?!"
I wouldn't blame her for passing over that poisoned chalice, especially given the "nice" pro-motoring party are refusing to work with the SNP...
Posted 1 year ago # -
“
Glasgow council SNP-Green deal 'most likely' - but Labour party open to talks
“
https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/glasgow-council-snp-green-deal-23909242
Posted 1 year ago # -
Lots of info/details -
Posted 1 year ago # -
https://twitter.com/cllrchasbooth/status/1523922564514729984
Summary:
Nobody wants to work w Tories (except those who do)
Lib Dems ruled out working w SNP (unless they really must)
SNP will work w anyone (more or less)
Labour locally really want to be in coalition (but Anas is vetoing it)
Greens want to tackle climate crisis.Posted 1 year ago # -
The current national Labour party's attitude seems to be "getting into power is the most important thing as you can't get anything done without it."
Which makes it a bit odd that they have taken a national policy decision to exclude themselves from power in almost every council in Scotland.
I saw whispers that the Scottish Tories might be ready to drop their hardline anti-independence campaigning strategy and start to focus on other things. If even they can do it, is it too much to hope that this is the last local elections dominated by an issue that has very minimal relevance to local politics?
Posted 1 year ago # -
“is it too much to hope that this is the last local elections dominated by an issue that has very minimal relevance to local politics?“
Assume you mean Indy?
(Partly) depends IF there is IndyRef2 next year (or soon after) AND the aftermath.
Apart from that, will depend on how much there is increasing taste for ‘ignoring the local’ OR a serious concentration on ‘local’ and - particularly - what LAs could/should do.
Posted 1 year ago # -
These animations of votes moving through the rounds looks very interesting.
https://election.indylive.radio/results/?council=edinburgh&ward=S13002924&year=2022
Posted 1 year ago # -
“
Edinburgh appears to be edging towards a minority SNP-Green coalition running the city after Scottish Labour bosses made clear they would block a continuation of the SNP-Labour partnership which has been in power for the past five years.
“
Posted 1 year ago # -
Another EEN classic:
It is not entirely clear if the council would need the approval of ministers before it could introduce a congestion charge as proposed.
It really is clear - Section 51 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001 states:
A charging scheme shall not come into force unless the order making it has been submitted to and confirmed by the Scottish Ministers
Posted 1 year ago # -
An SNP-Green coalition would be a good outcome for the city. However they'll have to work co-operatively with other parties to get decisions through. I suppose Labour the most likely informal partners there. It's a pity that Scottish politics has become ever more polarised around the constitution and the state of parties at Holyrood. Makes a mockery of the idea of "local" politics and priorities.
Posted 1 year ago # -
The animations on the indylive site are interesting and in my mind answer the question of whether the quota should be lowered as the rounds go by. My opinion is that they shouldn't, at least not until the last round. In this example it wouldn't have affected the outcome but it's likely that it would have done somewhere in Scotland.
Looking at Drumbrae/Gyle in round one aldridge is elected and his surplus votes (above 2363) are redistributed, mainly to his fellow ld running mate.
In round 5 Euan Thornley is then elected and around 300 votes are redistributed (although only about half of them appear to have a preference for a remaining candidate). The majority of these go to Labour.
If the quota had been lowered then Labour would have been awarded somewhere up to 50 extra votes. Although they would still have been eliminated it's not impossible that another year this would see them elected. However this would mean that Labour have benefited from the lowering of the quota in round 5 in a way that ld couldn't in round 1 and may have affected the electoral outcome.
Once there is only one seat left reducing the quota could reduce the number of rounds. For instance by round 6 even if all of Mark Brown's votes had moved to Labour then the lds would still have won the third seat. However I don't think it's worth the added complication for something which is being processed by computer anyway.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Imagine an STV election for a constituency with three seats. There is one left wing candidate and six right wing candidates.
The left winger gets 34% of first preference votes, and is elected at the first stage.
The right wing candidates share the other 66% of first preferences (roughly 11% each), and as the counting progresses, four are eliminated and two are elected at stages 6 and 7.
Is the proposal that the left winger in this situation has a heavier vote than the two right wing members?
Posted 1 year ago #
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