The arguments for Proportional Representation (PR) have been well-rehearsed – as have the arguments against. I’m going to assume we’ve listened to them all and decided that PR is a Good Thing – giving politicians an incentive to make us happy being the key point. But, now what? Which system should we institute?
One class of methods involves padding out the legislature with additional members. So, there are pure list systems, where no one member represents any specific constituency. There are additional member systems, such as MMP in New Zealand or AV+, where constituencies return members and then additional MPs are drawn from party lists to make up numbers.
STV and AV (including AV+) are very imperfect at producing even approximate proportionality; but, even if they were a lot better, they are blunt instruments, because any given politician either gets the job or doesn’t. A small change in the happiness of the electorate will go unnoticed by the system, because a change has to be big enough to trigger the removal of an MP of this party, and their replacement with an MP of that party.
Is there not a more supple, nuanced and responsive system? The Utilitarian Principle would have us look for a method that slightly punishes parties that do a slightly poor job, and seriously punishes those that do a seriously poor job. It would mean that a Tory voter in Barnsley who switches to UKIP has the same right to be heard as a Tory voter in Whitney who does the same thing. And really, none of the MP-based schemes can offer that.
Is there a method that can?
Yes. Yes there is. There is a system that we could introduce today that would instantly provide near-perfect responsiveness. It would give every voter the same power to rate our law-makers’ performance. It would enfranchise every citizen equally. It’s the Weighted Vote system.
More on this tomorrow.
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