Electoral Reformweek 5

Will it mend a broken system?

Joy Johnson

Electoral systems – key texts

• Morrison, Public Affairs for Journalists• King, British constitution• Laws, 22 Days in May• Renwick, a citizen’s guide to electoral reform• Kavanagh & Cowley, the British General Election of 2010• Various papers inc:• John Curtice, Parliamentary Affairs, Vol. 63 No. 4, 2010, 623–

638• Curtice http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/blogs/recent_event

s/archive/2010/09/17/2708.aspx• Monica Threlfall, Purpose of Electoral Reform, Political

Quarterly Vol 81, No 4 + her website has various papers on AV

Labour defend their positionresult a hung Parliament

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8667457.stm

• UK polarised – Conservative in the South, Labour in the North and Scotland

• Result - First Past the Post (winner takes all) is broken (?)

Day after the night before

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8667843.stm

• Clegg addresses media following the 2010 general election

• With no outright winner he tells reporters that he would talk to the Conservatives as they had the most votes

• He declares that this election showed that the present system is broken

Protesters demand electoral reform

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8670002.stm

Examples - Safe Seat – Birmingham Erdington (2005)

• Turnout 64939 (48.9%)• Simon S.L. (lab) 16,810 (53.0%)• Evidge V.T. (Con) 7,235 (22.8%)• Evans, J (LD) 5,027 (15.8%)• Ebanks S.E (BNP) 746 (2.3%)• Williams, T (NF) 416 (1.3%)

• Lab majority 9.575 (Robinson p10)

Result of Erdington

• Single plurality system Simons won the vote • And with more than half the vote• Other candidates votes wasted

• Party machines tend to ignore the safe seats and concentrate on the marginals – key seat battleground

• 2011 labour party defended their seats – helped prevent a Conservative overall majority

Examples – Argyll & Bute

• Turnout 67,271 (64.3%)• Reid, A (LD) 15,786 (36.5%)• Mcgrigor, J.A.R.N (Con) 10,150 (23.5%)• Mnson, C (Lab) 9,692 (22.4%)• Henderson, D (SSP) 881 (2.0%)

• LD majority 5,636

Result of Argyll & Bute

• Winning candidate well short of fifty per cent• Those opposing Liberal Democrat accounted

for nearly two-thirds of the vote

Result of 2005 UK Gen Election

• Party %votes No of seats % seats • Labour 35.3 356 55.1• Con 32.3 198 30.7• Lib Dem 22.1 62 9.6• Other 10.3 30 4.6

Result

• Labour’s majority reduced from 2001 yet the party achieved 55 per cent share of H of C seats with just 35 per cent of the national vote.

• Majority of the seats with a minority of the votes

Majoritarian systems

• Term used to classify candidates who win by obtaining majority of votes cast

• (first past the post can result in candidates winner on fewer than half the total votes cast)

Types of majoritarian

• Supplementary vote – used in London Mayoral election

• If only two candidates first past the post used• More than two• Votes cast on preference 1st and 2nd choice• If candidate wins more than half (majority) he

or she elected• If not others drop out and their 2nd preference

redistributed

Alternative Vote (AV)• Lib Dems compromise to get the agreement• Referendum 5 May 2011• Referendum on AV had been in Labour 2010 manifesto • Preferential not proportional• All candidates ranked in order • When all votes cast if one candidate has won over 50% elected• If not candidate with the fewer first preference is eliminated and his or

her are redistributed • Last candidate eliminated• Eventually candidate with more than 50% wins• More than 50% produces legitimacy• Least unpopular wins• Elector’s first choice not counted

AV cont

• Still has single member constituency• Shouldn’t produce extremist parties• Result of this system would be the election of many

candidates who were not the first choice of most of the electorate

• Leading to least common denominator of the electorate• Nick Clegg in the past had called it a ‘miserable little

compromise’ but this was before the coalition government

• Political parties still retain power to chose candidates

Proportional Representation

• In systems of proportional representation, every party provides a list of candidates for selection on a regional or national basis.

• These lists may be open or closed: an open list means electors have the ability to indicate some preference over which of the candidates they choose from the party list; a closed list means electors must vote for the party as a whole and the list is presented to them as a fait accompli.

• Each party standing for election wins seats in accordance with the proportion of votes it receives.

A closed list system is used for European parliamentary elections.

London Assembly – 2008 election

Referendum on 5 May 2011

• Provided Bill going through Parliament is passed during the next week

• Tories favour first past the post• So do most Labour MPs although Miliband

supports AV• Lib Dems need to win the referendum vote to

save face in the coalition• But even with change will it be enough

seminars

• Read any of the texts as above• Plus numerous websites – Electoral Reform,

Constitutional Unit, BBC websites