Sunday 22 August 2010

AV -> PR

When people look at PR - they always focus on how to get an elected house where the number of representatives matches the proportion of the vote received by the representatives party.

These various systems of PR rely on ever more complex methods of recording, collecting and counting peoples preferences at the ballot box.

I beleive this is a mistake. All these methods are based on an assumption that every representative/MP should have one vote each. I see no reason that all MPs should have equal voting rights.

If a party get (say) 20% of the popular vote, then that party should have 20% of the votes in parliament -- regardless of the number of their MPs that are elected... instead of one MP one Vote - each MP of each party would wield a proportion of that parties popular vote...

Say there are 3600 votes in parliament, then with 36% of the popular vote and 307 MPs each Conservative MP would wield 4.2 votes, with 29% of the popular vote and 258 MPs each Labour MP would wield 4 votes, with 23% of the popular vote and 57 MPs each LibDem MP would wield 14.5 votes, with 1% of the popular vote and 1 MP the Green MP would wield 36 votes.

There are a few refinements that may be required - UKIP got 3.5% of the popular vote but have no MP's - so there may be a requirement for 'additional members' maybe the most popular three UKIP MPs being made MPs with 'national' constituencies wielding 43 (or so) votes each. It may also be undesirable for an individual MP to have 'too many' votes - this could be diluted by (again) appointing additional members with national constituencies.

However the first step is to get AV, this works on its own, but the national share of 'first votes' could simply be used to implement a system like that described above...

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