Readers reply: which electoral system is the fairest?
Which electoral system is the fairest? Cherry Arden, Helensburgh
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Readers reply
Single transferable vote. Each person elected is at a minimum tolerable to the majority of the electorate. Also, each person elected will represent a constituency and is therefore a go-to person for their constituents. JohnARose
I live in Australia and I feel the electoral system here is about the best I have heard about – for three distinct reasons:
Single transferable vote [for Senate elections] means the most agreeable candidate is elected for the majority of voters. It also reduces the hold of the major parties as it encourages independents and smaller parties to field candidates.
Voting is compulsory. This forces people to take politics seriously, and they do. The more engaged people are, the healthier the democracy.
Elections are held on Saturdays, which allows most people to vote more easily. ChaosIsInOrder
It’s the preferential system as used in Australia. Prevents major parties from having horrid candidates. Allows for third parties or independents. Allows for a “protest” vote that doesn’t give, by consequence of “wasted votes”, an easy win to anyone. Jonathan Cantwell
I submit that the fairest is the one adopted by New Zealand in 1996. The mixed-member proportional system allows for a fair representation of the views of all of the electorate while minimising the risk of small, extreme groups exercising undue control. It is a system worthy of the name “democracy” and is far superior to Britain’s outmoded first past the post system, which ensures that only voters in marginal seats have any chance of representation at a general election. Steve Collinson
I live in Luxembourg, where I believe we have basically d’Hondt. We have lists (parties) with (usually) as many candidates as there are MPs in the electoral districts. Each candidate can get one or two votes. Each voter has as many votes as there are MPs to be elected. One can put a cross in a box above a list, thus attributing one vote to each candidate. Or one can give one or two votes to several candidates in the same list up to the maximum. Or one can give one or two votes to candidates in several lists up to the maximum.
For the distribution of seats, the procedure is as follows (without the refinements of the system). The total number of votes for each list is used to allocate the seats in proportion to the votes cast. Then the seats are allocated to the candidates with the most votes in that list . A vote for a candidate that ultimately does not become an MP is thus not lost, because it also counts towards the number of seats that party gets. Another advantage is that the voters classify the candidates according to their preferences, not that of some obscure party hack behind the scenes.
The problem in Luxembourg is that we have four very unequal districts. I vote in the largest and thus get 23 votes for 23 MPs; the smallest district has only seven MPs and the voters only seven votes. This sometimes leads to results where proportionality is no longer really respected, especially in the two smaller districts. Of course, the inevitable result is that no party gets a majority; there will practically always be a coalition government. jmjb
The additional member system, as used in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, Germany and New Zealand, is best. It gives good choices and also retains the link between the constituency and the MPs. It doesn’t rely on lists. In any reform of the House of Lords, which is urgently needed, it should be used to familiarise people in the UK with it. David Cockayne1
The electoral system of the UK has puzzled me in all the 23 years I have been living in England. I came across at the age of 28 from Denmark, where I had some political interest as a supporting youth member of the Conservatives. While I cannot vote due to my Danish citizenship with indefinite leave to remain, it has never bothered me, because I don’t see the fairness in the electoral system. I dare say, a majority of people vote with a strategy in mind. Seats are only overturned if voters go to the box thinking that the majority is, like themselves, protesting against the current government. If the voters in a constituency don’t think they can overturn the current government, they stay at home. This is one of the reasons the Lib Dems generally stand such a narrow chance, because the voters are polarised.
Let me cast a light on the Danish system. The mandates are distributed to the individual parties, proportionate to the number of votes received nationally. Applied in the UK, this would mean that every Labour and Lib Dem vote counted in, say, a largely Conservative constituency. This alternative method also enables smaller, often niche, parties to stand a chance of being elected. I wonder if Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain would be less combative if they felt they had a democratic chance to have a couple of mandates in parliament. Michael Marcussen
Each approach to democracy seems to have strengths and weaknesses. Each one tends to become exposed as problematic when its weaknesses become all too visible. For Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Mill and many others, the most important thing with regard to any form of democracy is the voter’s understanding of the democratic process, what it is they are actually voting for, and what the ethical implications are regarding the party or person they are voting for. Basically, have people been educated or informed in a way that allows them to understand things such as rhetoric, policy, promises, equality, liberty, security, economics, distribution and the media? I lecture in political philosophy and so many times my students have come to the conclusion that a decent, non-biased, civil education based on fairness, good will and wellbeing should be the first principle when considering a question like this. It should be as prevalent in UK education as English, maths or science. aaarghmmmmokaythen
What I expect from democracy is not so much fairness as efficiency. In my country, Spain, proportional representation predominates. One could think that it reflects the nuances of public opinion better than Britain’s first past the post system. But the actual result is that groups that represent minority interests end up having a disproportionate influence in the country’s politics. There are basically two ways of governing, not dozens, so your system is good enough. That lately you don’t seem to be having good governance is a fault of the politicians you choose, not of your electoral system. Anton Digon
A good education. Austin Claffey