Deciding on Electoral Reform

The ConservaTories and LibDems are negotiating about forming a government. One of the central issues is electoral reform. Each party agrees that something must be done to make for a fairer voting system and each have suggested reducing the number of MPs, but they have very different proposals. On the one hand the LibDems prefer a Single Transferrable Vote type of Proportional Representation in which you rank your preferred choices (leaving blank the boxes next to the MPs you don't want). Each constituency can have several MPs. The Conservatives prefer First Past the Post but suggest that each constituency should have an equal number of voters (something that may be deemed fair for a PR constituency, too).

Wouldn't it be properly democratic, and avoid the self interests of each party, to put these choices to the electorate? Should we consider other referendum options too - the Labour Manifesto suggested a referendum on the Alternative Vote, which also allows you to rank Candidates but just one is chosen for each Constituency.

Interestingly, if the electorate were presented with more than two options, then should the ballot be counted on a FPTP basis or a type of PR?

The objective of the referendum should be to reach a clear decision, building a consensus from the degree of support for each proposal, yet be simple to operate. It should accommodate views on preferred, acceptable and unacceptable choices. To my mind it would therefore be sensible to allow voters to rank their preferences, if they wanted to, counting 1st place as worth three times the power of the 3rd place and the 2nd place as double the value of the 3rd place (1st is worth 3 points, 2nd worth 2 points, 3rd worth 1 point). No ranking is effectively a vote against that proposal. While the calculation may not be fully understood by everyone, the ballot paper would be clear and simple.

Morphing Boundaries

The objective of Proportional Representation is to give seats in proportion to votes. An alternative system would be to change the electoral boundaries so that each seat represented the same number of voters. The problem is that unscrupulous people may manipulate the boundaries to benefit their own party. But there is a solution: the boundary configuration could be morphed automatically.

With an electronic database of voters containing their postcode software could be developed to add or subtract postcodes until the seats had equal numbers of voters. The logic may be something like this:

1. Sum votes for each seat


2. Calculate average votes across all seats


3. If Seat1 has less than average votes, calculate the deficit. If it has more than the average, repeat for the next Seat.


4. If it has less than the average seat, look to the first adjoining seat. Does it have a surplus? If not repeat for second adjoining seat.


5. Take surplus to eliminate the deficit by adding the nearest postcode.


6. Repeat for each seat in turn until all seats equal the average.

This type of system would probably favour the main parties at the expense of the independents and single issue parties, as it is still a First Past the Post system. It would therefore reduce the risk of a hung parliament and increase the chance of a strong government.

The sort of database that this system requires is just what is needed for Interactive Democracy.

Unequal Votes

Not all votes are worth the same in the UK's current system of representative democracy. According to this ITN report some marginal seats have votes with 500 times the power of those in the safest seats. You can enter your postcode at this site, to find out how valuable your vote is. It may make a difference to your decision to vote tactically.

Under the proposed Interactive Democracy system, even if winning MPs are "first past the post", policies must be approved by the electorate in a referendum where each vote has the same power as every other. This is much more democratic.