What should Electoral Reform Look like?
There are many varieties of electoral system, some better than others — but few worse than ours.
I favour the system outlined below because it’s fully proportional (read democratic) and addresses the most common concerns expressed by UK voters when considering electoral reform. It’s simple and the voting process is familiar. It maintains (in fact strengthens) local representation and it doesn’t use party lists or disadvantage independent candidates. This system also renders gerrymandering pointless and allows constituency borders to be drawn along genuine community lines without any danger of political gain for anyone. And it’s democratic — all votes are of equal value!
So how does it work?
Well, we run the election exactly as we currently do, with everyone voting for a local candidate, and the winner gaining a seat in Parliament to represent their constituency. So far, so familiar. Next, the House of Commons is topped up until the proportion of MPs for each party represents the proportion of votes for each party. The extra MPs for each party come from that party’s closest losing candidates.
That’s it. Democratic elections are really very simple.
This astoundingly simple system provides numerous benefits. It’s democratic for a start, which should be enough on its own. It renders constituency boundaries politically irrelevant, so we can go back to having them drawn with reference to actual communities, instead of twisted for party advantage. (It’s important to realise, though, that the problem with the current system is not where the boundaries are drawn or that constituencies are not of equal size. Fixing either or both of those issues won’t make the system democratic). Perhaps its greatest asset — after the fact that it actually performs the function required of a democratic electoral system — is that it provides us with a number of MPs in addition to the one-per-constituency we are used to under the current system, which can be used to improve the representational role of members. It might be that a spare MP on the government benches assists with local duties for the otherwise engaged PM, or other cabinet members, whose constituents get a pretty raw deal in terms of local representation under the present system. Opposition parties could make similar arrangements to cover constituency duties for their front bench MPs. Other MPs might be used to provide an additional layer of representation for voters saddled with an MP of a different political persuasion to their own. A spare Labour MP might give Labour voters in the Home Counties, for example, a sympathetic representative — in addition to the endless stream of Tory MPs who are part of the furniture at the local golf and country club. Similarly, a spare Tory MP might be assigned to represent the dozen or so people in Liverpool who still buy The Sun and are consequently too embarrassed to take their grievances to their sitting Labour MP.
PR versus AV/STV/RC…
The system I’ve outlined above is an example of proportional representation (PR), as opposed to Alternative Vote (AV) or Single Transferable Vote (STV) which are types of ranked choice (RC) voting. These are ideal for selecting a single candidate for an individual position such as Mayor or President. (Obviously, a single office, held by a single person, cannot be proportional, so this kind of system helps to ensure that the winning candidate is at least palatable to the majority of voters). In UK General Elections we’re electing our legislative assembly and the first concern is that it should be proportional — that each vote should be of equal value and that the proportion of each party’s MPs should match that party’s proportion of the vote — hence the preference for PR.
It should be possible — and it would probably be ideal — to combine the advantages of both systems. Adapting the system outlined above, for example, so that local constituency MPs are selected by a Ranked Choice process, and Parliament is subsequently topped up until it’s proportionate to the national (first preference) vote. Though such a system would be ideal, it would also — in the current climate — be a hard sell to a sceptical electorate. Let’s not try to run before we can walk, but let’s also keep an open mind to future opportunities.
