More on Electoral Reform

alexhilton Sun Sep 16, 2007 at 05:03:24 PM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

This is a bit of a follow up to Mike Ion's post of compulsory voting. Between mandatory voting, all woman shortlists, PR and votes at sixteen, there doesn't seem to be much room for further innovation in electoral reform - but there are a few ideas I'd like tested at local government level to see if they are popular.



1. Gender Parity
In local government, multi-member wards are common. I'd like us to test a redrawing of boundaries that allowed each constituency to elect two MPs, one male and one female. Voters would have two votes indstead of one and the top man and top woman would win. (and  AWS would be obsolete)

2. Weighted votes
Imagine that an MP had their votes in parliament weighted according to the number of people who voted for them - so the parliamentary vote of an MP with 11,000 supporting votes had half the weight of an MP who had attracted 22,000 votes. Would more people vote if their representative had more power on that basis? Would lazy MPs in safe seats be penalised effectively this way? Would it be interesting or engaging for the public to see parliamentary votes being reported in millions rather than out of 647?

3. Multi-member constituencies. There's also an opportunity to do away with boundary changes. Cities, towns and sub-regional areas could set an overall boundary and the boundary commission's job would be just to define how many MPs would be elected according to population. They could be elected by multi-member STV.

4. Write in ballots. Should people be allowed to for someone not on the ballot paper?

5. Floating constituencies. Should people be allowed to revoke their constituency membership in favour of forming a virtual constituency with people with whom they share an interest? Why is geography the prime definition? There could be virtual constituencies of Taxi Drivers, Doctors or Citroen 2CV enthusiasts - not to mention about five Jedi MPs would be returned.

The longer I sit here, the more ideas I can have. What are your thoughts?


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More on Electoral Reform | 5 comments (5 topical)

Re: More on Electoral Reform (#1)

by Mark Colburn on Sun Sep 16, 2007 at 06:41:21 PM GMT

1. Gender parity: interesing idea but be prepared for the howls of anguish as hundreds of male councillors are chucked out during the transition, would make the fuss over AWS seem like child's play by comparison.

2. Weighted votes: unfair every vote should be equal and can you imagine the tellers adding it all up in their heads?

3. Multi-member constituencies: not against this in principle but I doubt Gordon will go for it. He's more likely to offer STV in single member constituencies and watch the Libdems squirm.

4. Write in ballots: not likely to produce any benefits that I can see and not likely to be of benefit to us as a party anyway.

5. Floating constituencies: yes this is just as barmy as you think it is.. :) 


Re: More on Electoral Reform (#2)

by alexhilton on Sun Sep 16, 2007 at 07:16:58 PM GMT

On weighted votes - the principle would be that you are delegated votes by the constituency rather than earning one vote for winning. Of course, it means that MPs would not all be equal - but then that's the case anyway in many matters.

Floating constituencies - yes i realise the concept sounds barmy - but why is the place where you live the most important political factor? It could as easily be the place where you work or the place where you were born. We could as easily elect politicians ro prepresent us by age group as by geography.


[ Parent ]

Re: More on Electoral Reform (#3)

by alexhilton on Sun Sep 16, 2007 at 07:21:37 PM GMT

hmmm - i'm just mulling over a local authority where councillors are elected to represent age groups rather than wards.

i can see how that may be an improvement


[ Parent ]

Re: More on Electoral Reform (#4)

by NorthernMonkey on Sun Sep 16, 2007 at 10:45:48 PM GMT

Not too keen on any of them to be honest - sometimes too much tweaking of the political system turns people completely off voting.

The most credible option is the STV one. I'd support STV being used in the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Parliamentary elections (presuming they all eventually get Parliaments like Scotland). I'd have each Parliament containing 100 members with 20 constituencies having 5 members each. These would be elected by STV. I'm happy to see STV being used in local elections too. But in the UK Parliament, I'm not sure STV would be a good idea.


Re: More on Electoral Reform (#5)

by Radford Mann on Mon Sep 17, 2007 at 10:58:11 AM GMT

It seems to me that a good electoral system needs two main features. Firstly, it should be at least broadly proportional. Secondly, the act of voting should be fairly simple for the voter, although it can be complex for the returning officer(s) to operate the count. From a party perspective, a second order of priority would be that, at leat as far as Labour elected figures are concerned, there should be at least a rough parity between the genders.


As you say, Alex, local government is already familiar with multi-member wards. However our present electoral system produces some very strange results with single party rule, and sometimes almost complete exclusion of opposition parties, on a relatively small % of the vote. For local government I would go for STV in wards returning 5-7 councillors. In very rural areas this could be reduced to 3-4 at the expense of some proportionality.


For parliament, the British experience is for one MP to represent a constituency. However, I do believe there is a need for PR for the House of Commons. I find that the German AMS is the best solution for Britain with 50% of MPs elected as we do now, the other 50% on the basis of a regional list. A 5% threshold keeps out the very small parties whilst allowing representation to any party that can get enough support. And 5% is one voter in 20 so I think such support ought to be recognised by representation.


The Labour Party can ensure gender parity by zipping its list for AMS and by a party rule that half the candidates in a local authority election be men and the other half women. Where an authority has an odd number of members, the last candidate could be either gender. In addition, for any individual ward, if five candidates are required no less than two should be of one gender. Obviusly, if you have two men standing in one ward, then that means that three will stand somewhere else. I think that if a local authority has 40 seats, say, then the relevant Local Government Committee of the party should decide who its best 40 candidates are and then leave it to the local parties to select for their individual wards.


The problem with your suggestions, I think, is that they are either too complex (e.g. weighted votes in parliament) or too gimmiky (e.g.floating constituencies or write in ballots).


More on Electoral Reform | 5 comments (5 topical)