Eletoral Reform

One way to make sure that the legislature is more accountable is by reforming the voting system. Currently first past the post is being used for the elections to the House of Commons and English councils. This is a system that has consistently produced strong majority governments that have been able to push through their legislative programme. As well, it is a system that is simple to understand, one voter puts an 'x' next to the candidate or party that s/he wants and the candidate with the most votes becomes MP for that constituency, the party that has the most MPs forms the government.

However, there are still problems with the system. First past the post creates safe seats. This means that certain parts of the country are ignored throughout the campaign. Target seats are created and those voting in these target areas have an unduly high amount on campaigning in these areas and they have an artificially high impact on the election. The idea of strong governments is not always true, for example in 1950, 1964, October 1974 (February 1974 in fact produced a minority government) were all elections that produced governments of wafer thin majorities, as well, there are numerous hung councils for example Cumbria. Neither is this system of election fair. Some constituencies can be won by towering majorities, others by a fraction of a percentage point.

There are alternatives. Proportional representation is the main alternative and mainly offered by parties on the liberal left and is an idea that is worth looking at. Quite clearly the number of MPs correlates to the number of votes. In the purest form, the National list, this is used in Israel. The main problem is that it destroys the link between the voter and their local MP. The list is decided nationally, by the leadership of the parties meaning that the candidates are not accountable to the people, but the organisation that favours them. Also, there would be weak governments that would be at the mercy of smaller, perhaps more extreme parties in backroom deal coalitions, as even with the Conservative landslides of the 1980s and the Labour landslides of 1997 and 2001; they still did not get 50% of the popular vote. More critically, the National list has not been tried in the United Kingdom before though and is usually used in small nations where there is a limited population of voting eligibility.

The Alternative Member System (AMS) is to some extent a compromise between first past the post and the national list. There are single member constituencies by which first past the post is used, but there are top-up seats decided on a proportional list system. In Scotland and Germany, this is a regional list, but can be a national list. Ideally there would need to be 50% constituency MPs and 50% top-up MPs. However, there could be a risk as to the nature of MPs. This system or any system like it could produce two tiers of MPs, those elected representing people and those representing the democratic will of the people. Again, because of the proportionality of the system, coalitions will be formed, meaning disproportionate power given to small or extreme parties. AMS is successful in Germany and Scotland and so could be adopted for the UK with a proven track record of being beneficial for large nations and particular local issues.

It would seem that the proportional voting systems do not seem to form a creditable alternative. With a lack of control for the voter and too much power for the parties it would seem that constituency systems are more appropriate. The Alternative Vote (AV) is an option already supported in the Labour Party, for example, Phil Woolas suggested that it gives the most democratic accountability. The system works by each voter giving their preference in terms of 1 for the first candidate of preference, 2 for the second candidate and so on. However, the winning candidate will need 50% of the vote to win. This is achieved by the losing candidate dropping out and having their number twos attributed to the various other parties. Another benefit of this is that there would be no need to change the format of the ballot paper and has been successful in London and Australia. As with AMS this would allow for tactical and ideological voting and increase participation by reducing the amount of wasted votes that are perceived in many constituencies.

Single Transferable Voting works on a similar principle to AV, but gives a multi-member constituency and is rarely used other than in places where there is deep non-political divides, for example Northern Ireland. Although, for English council elections provide a tri-representative constituencies and allow people to vote for the candidate or a party or split between them.