Should Your Vote Always Count? (Changing the Voting System)

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Should your vote always count? (Changing the voting system) Many attempts at producing a voting system that makes every vote count and prevent a minority of the electorate electing a governing body (especially a National Government). Voting systems 1. Plurality voting system/relative majority (First past the post /UK system) 2. Majority voting system (Requires more than half the votes cast/used by some institutions to elect executives/leaders) 3. Single Transferable Vote a. On Election Day, voters number a list of candidates. Their favourite as number one, their second favourite number two, and so on. Voters can put numbers next to as many or as few candidates as they like. Parties will often stand more than one candidate in each area. b. The numbers tell the people counting to move your vote if your favourite candidate has enough votes already or stands no chance of winning. 4. Alternative Vote a. The voter puts a number by each candidate, with a one for their favourite, two for their second favourite and so on. They can put numbers on as many or as few as they wish. b. If more than half the voters have the same favourite candidate, that person becomes the MP. If nobody gets half, the numbers provide instructions for what happens next. c. The counters remove whoever came last and look at the ballot papers with that candidate as their favourite. Rather than throwing away these votes, they move each vote to the voter’s second favourite candidate. This process repeated until one candidate has half of the votes and becomes the MP. 5. Alternative Vote Plus (AV+) a. Recommended by the Jenkins Commission in 1998, the Alternative Vote Plus (AV+) system has not been used anywhere in the world. b. System uses a mix of seats, some elected via the Alternative Vote and some via a Party List. 6. Proportional Representation a. Vote for the party not the candidate MPs elected from Party List. b. Party Lists are the most popular way to elect representatives in the world, with more than 80 countries using a variation of this system to elect their parliament. c. At the moment we have 650 constituencies, each electing 1 Member of Parliament (MP); under a Party List system we might have 26 constituencies each electing 25 MPs. d. "Party list systems can be very proportional, but if voters can't pick their representatives, the politicians don't have a strong link with their voters". e. Disadvantages independent candidates who would not have party support. Electoral Commission Analysis of 2015 Party FPTP Seats List PR Seats AV Seats STV Seats Con 331 242 337 276 Lab 232 208 227 236 Lib Dem 8 47 9 26 UKIP 1 80 1 54 Greens 1 20 1 3 SNP 56 30 54 34 Plaid Cymru 3 5 3 3 G Cannavina .

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