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Majority Plus Voting
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A New Voting System that improves democracy
The next General Election campaign will be like no other we have experienced, especially if Brexit remains unresolved. The problems of the ‘first past the post’ system (FPTP) are well known but will be exacerbated.
As ever, our vote will mean little if we live in a constituency dominated by one party or the other and will matter tremendously if we live in a marginal. More than ever we are likely to have to resort to tactical voting to get what we want, or to avoid what we don’t want. As a result, there are wide opportunities for unintended consequences and/or a hung Parliament which ‘only knows what it doesn’t want to do’. Indeed, we could lock in hung Parliaments for the foreseeable future.
Proportional Representation is not an answer either as that will almost certainly result in a series of hung Parliaments or one in which a coalition is formed with undue influence of a smaller less representative party.
Majority Plus Voting
The short paper at http://www.probably42.net/documents/2/60/proposal-for-a-new-uk-majority-preferential-voting-system puts forward a new system called Majority Plus Voting (MPV) which combines the positive features of both FPTP and Proportional Representation i.e. stability and strength through a guaranteed majority but with fairer allocation of MPs to the smaller parties. It also overcomes most of the democratic problems of ‘first past the post’ and means that voters don’t have to use tactical voting.
The objective we are seeking from this system is one where a Government can get on with the manifesto it was elected on, while still being held to account for its implementation, but without getting bogged down in adversarial two party politics and opposition for the sake of opposition.
Why not give us your views on this paper?
This post was edited by # Probably42 at April 8, 2021 12:56 PM BST -
This document has just been updated to issue 1.8 to include comments received to date, mainly to clarify certain aspects.
It underpins the wider document on democracy just published:
http://www.probably42.net/documents/1/69/transforming-our-democracy-and-political-system-for-the-21st-century