If Welsh Labour wants a two-member-constituency voting system, this is the one they should adopt

In the recent row over possible changes to the voting system used for elections to the Welsh Assembly, one of the alternatives proposed by the Labour Party was a system of two-member-constituency First Past the Post (see the Devolution Matters blog for an overview of the row). In other words, to expand the number of [...]

AV referendum: for the sake of England, don’t vote!

Do you think the First Past the Post voting system used for electing UK MPs should be changed to the Alternative Vote? Do you even care? Firstly, should anyone who supports the idea of an English parliament give a monkeys about the voting system used to elect the UK parliament? On one level, no: the [...]

DPEV: absolutely the best single-member voting system for the UK and England – honest

OK, I admit it: I’m a voting-system geek, if not obsessive. I really dislike AV, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it leaves England short-changed: nothing done to address the West Lothian Question or the broader English Question, to say nothing about the unaccountable nature of executive power in [...]

Send A V-Sign to Westminster: Spoil your ballot in the AV referendum on 5 May

Check out the article of the above name at Rise Like Lions and sign up to the Facebook campaign to send a message to Westminster about the referendums we really want (English parliament and the EU) by spoiling your ballot in the AV referendum next May!

AV could bring about a Tory landslide, increase the North-South divide and bring back two-party politics

Very little joined-up thinking appears to have been done about what the real-world political impact of AV would be if the British people collectively decide to introduce it at next May’s referendum. Here’s how I think it could pan out: Scenario No. 1: By spring 2015, the coalition is still in place and is popular, [...]

Alternative alternative voting systems, part five: AV+, or denying (proportional) representation to England

The Alternative Vote Plus (AV+) is the system for UK-parliamentary elections recommended in 1998 by the Independent Commission on the Voting System (the Jenkins Commission) appointed by the New Labour government. That government then reneged on its 1997 manifesto promise to hold a referendum on whether to adopt the recommendations of the Commission. AV+ is [...]

Lessons from the Australian election for AV in the UK

The Australian elections are heading towards an almost perfect tie. At the time of writing, the governing Labor party had won 70 seats, with the opposition Liberal-National Coalition gaining 72, while independents had won four seats and the Greens one. This meant that, with three seats still outstanding, no party would cross the threshold of [...]

Alternative alternative voting systems, part four: TMPR

TMPR stands for ‘Two-member proportional run-off’. This is another method that I’ve invented, in the wake of ARV, which I discussed in the last post in this series. TMPR is a blend of, and compromise between, the UK’s present single-member, highest-plurality system (First Past the Post – FPTP); an instant run-off, majority system such as [...]

Alternative alternative voting systems, part three: Approval Rate Voting (ARV)

In this series of posts on alternatives to the First Past the Post and Alternative Vote (AV) voting systems, which are the only alternatives the British people are going to be offered for English and UK elections in the proposed referendum in May next year, I’ve discussed AV itself and Approval Voting (which could also [...]

Alternative alternative voting systems, part two: Approval Voting

I’ve been re-examining one aspect of my critique of the Alternative Vote electoral system of the other week: the extent to which it enables voters to express the full range of their political opinions – one of six criteria against which I’ll be measuring a number of alternative voting systems. In my previous post, I [...]