Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Letter in Sunday Telegraph - 16 August

'Daniel Hannan is right to praise the use of an open primary in Totnes but forgets to state that, even if all MPs were selected this way, the end result would remain an unrepresentative parliament, still disproportionate to the voters wishes.

'The best answer is to adopt an electoral system known as Single Transferable Voting (STV). This is a method of large constituences with a number of MPs and allows voters to choose the individuals they want, rather than parties. A Tory voter would be able to choose from more than one candidate (as Mr Hannan encourages).

'An advantage would be that voters could vote against their MP (if angry over his/her expenses) but still vote for someone from that party, which they can't do at present.

'This is a more flexible and democratic process and the end result, although not exactly proportional representation, would be a far more representative parliament than is currently the case. I would encourage our politicians to back this method.

1 comment:

  1. STV is considered a proportional voting system, and can give highly proportional results if there are at least five candidates elected in each district, which would would work very well in urban constituencies. Even with fewer than five MPs per district, it would be far more proportional than single-member districts.

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