Using Me!

Electoral Reform (Part 2)

To follow on from my last post. I am left wondering…

In the AV+ system, why does the proportional part of the system only have one fifth of the weight of the AV part which for the most part is just first-past-the-post?

What if instead the House was made up from 50% AV and 50% proportional voting? You’d still have a regional MP but the overall result would be much closer to proportional representation and there would be almost no reason to vote tactically.

In fact if you’re going to go down this road you could turn it on its head and make it 20% AV and 80% proportional – or any other combination more balanced towards the proportional part of the equation.

Politicians defending the current system would probably tell you that as you move down that scale your local MP becomes less and less relevant to the views of the people in their region. And to a large extent they would be correct. But that is the whole problem with the Party system. If every candidate was an independant and the ‘party’ system only existed ephemerally as loose and shifting alliances on individual issues everyone could have a candidate who’s job it was to represent them rather than to represent their party’s views. The only time I ever wrote to my MP I got a response back that said my views were not those of the MP’s party and therefore could not be given any consideration.

Here’s another idea then…

You can keep the party system but each consituency is increased in size by a factor of 20. Each of these new mega-constituencies elects 20 MP’s on effectively the STV system. For each 5% of the vote gained by a party they put one MP in Parliament. After the 5%’s are knocked off the remaining votes generate candidates exactly as in the STV system with secondary votes being distributed.

Every region would have a range of MP’s that in and of themselves would closely resemble the voting in that region. Parliament itself would obviously also be very close to proportional representation. Any party that could attract 5% of the vote in a region would get a seat or seats.

It would genuinely lower the bar to entry to Parliament that prevents the smaller parties from having seats that represent their true popularity.

I hereby name this new system ‘Multi-Candidate per Party Single Transferable Vote System’ – MCPSTVS. That doesn’t roll off the tongue well…

Perhaps… 5PASM – ‘Five Percent And Secondary Mediation’. Henceforth to be known as ‘Spasm’.