Referendum on Electoral Reform

Negotiations over who forms the next coalition government have seen both Labour and the Conservatives offer a referendum on the Alternative Vote, not the Lib Dems preferred Single Transferable Vote. Why, because AV is most likely to benefit the larger parties and STV is most likely to benefit the minor parties.

They could offer a referendum on two or three plans for electoral reform from the three main parties and, to my mind, offering a referendum only on AV is a cynical attempt to disenfranchise voters. It says that they really don't trust voters to make a fair and considered decision about the merits of each system, after hearing a broad debate.

Democracy? What democracy?

Driving Fringe Issues to the Centre Ground

Single Transferable Vote may result in the election of more fringe parties and independent MPs. This may encourage the centre ground parties to adopt policies palatable to the extremes. We have already seen environmentalism and immigration become central issues, but with PR the main parties may be encouraged to change that bit quicker.

Left to Right

Did the UK population vote in support of the centre left, only to allow a centre right party to form a government? (Labour and the Lib Dems are centre left parties and the Conservatives represent the centre right). Looking at the results from that perspective, is the country getting the sort of government it asked for? Or is our system of democracy not representing the sentiment of the majority?

It seems clear from the above graph that PR (with several MPs from each Constituency) would likely have resulted in a Labour/LibDem coalition. (The inner ring of the graph indicates votes and the outer shows seats. More here.)

Of course, Interactive Democracy would largely avoid all of these types of issues, because the voters would have to be persuaded on each policy.