Who did you vote for?
Back as a kiddy I was a fervent supporter of proportional representation (about the only chance my then party would have had of getting double figure seats). Since ‘97 though, it’s been tempting to think pragmatically and do anything that’ll prolong Labour’s time in office and artifically extend their majority, so my interest - and I think the interest of a number of people - has waned a bit. This election has seen a party get a pretty good majority with only around a quarter of the potential electorate tuning in, and whilst part of me thinks “woo, yay!” at the prospect, the niggling doubts that democracy is growing further away from the voters are harder and harder to keep quiet.
I’ve always been more in favour of Additional Member systems than Single Transferable Vote ones (AM adds extra MPs, who are allocated based on the proportion of the vote - whereas STV gives you a 1,2,3 choice for your MP. The votes for the lowest-placed candidate are then examined and the 2nd preference counts towards the tally, and so on, til there are only 2 in the race). STV gives you the “least worst” candidate, rather than the best one, and promoted 3 party rather than multi-party politics. Interesting though to see Jack Straw hinting that STV might be a possbility for future elections - it’s definitely better than what we’ve got, and should also bring in more partnership and less ping-pong in politics if the 3rd party is strengthened.
A middle ground would be STV+, which is not an expensive way of getting footy on TV, but an amalgam of the 2 systems, adding an AM-style party list to the STV system to give 4th and 5th parties a look-in too. I’ve signed up at www.makemyvotecount.org.uk, which is pushing for this option, at what seems like a pretty opportune time to do so, whilst there’s a good bit of media interest. Come on board with us and let’s see what we can get Jack to agree to! (Glad I’m not one of the unfortunates who’ll have to actually count the votes!!)
