Call for citizens' assembly on electoral systemCampaigners have called for ordinary voters to be given the opportunity to reform the electoral system.
By Daniel Forman
Published August 4th 2005 in ePolitix.com
The groups highlighted the unfairness of the current first-past-the-post system, pointing to the anomalies thrown up by May's general election results.
Labour's 66-seat majority was achieved despite 65 per cent of the voting public not supporting the party, while it took just 26,858 votes to elect a Labour MP but 44,241 to elect a Conservative and 98,484 to elect a Liberal Democrat.
The campaigners want a system of proportional representation to replace first-past-the-post, to more accurately reflect the votes cast in the results.
And they said citizens, as opposed to politicians, should get the chance to draw up an alternative.
In Canada repeated unrepresentative election results led to a panel of 160 randomly selected people spending 10 months considering the problem before deciding on a move to the proportional single transferable vote system.
Their proposal was put directly to the country in a referendum, although it failed to achieve the 60 per cent approval required to the change the country's constitution.
However Debbie Chay of Charter 88 said a similar process should not be ruled out in Britain.
"The results of the last general election in the UK underline the widening gulf between those in government and us , the 'people'," she said.
"To reverse this worrying trend, we must ensure that those of us who are affected are given a real voice in any key changes to the way in which we are governed."
The government is currently reviewing the operation of the UK's multitude of electoral system, but has refused to commit to a referendum on proportional representation for the Commons, despite promising to do so in 1997.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.