[DM]
The Jenkins Report on voting reform was released recently in the UK.
Here are some useful sites on the subject:
http://www.represent.org.uk/index/links.html
http://www.represent.org.uk/democ/report.html
http://www.votingcom.gov.uk/
[AL]
Thanks for the links. Should be incorporated in sections of the web site
on international trends and electoral systems.
If we trace through existing stuff on the web like this and pull it
together (including things like Alister's "Trap of Lesser-Evilism" (BTW
is there a link for that?) plus quotes from various people on the
bankruptcy of the present system, we should be a pretty useful resource
on the web.
I was hoping they would actually be having a referendum on PR in the UK.
Impression I get from second link above is that the "AV+" system
recommended is primarily aimed at pre-empting that through an even worse
compromise than MNP in NZ. Apparantly about 80% of seats will be single
member electorates using the "Alternative Vote" method as in Australia -
thus ensuring a two party system under the usual justifications of
"stable government" and "local representation". The remainder will be
used to "top up" the result by returning 1 or 2 additional members from
each of a smaller number of regions containing several of the single
member seats using a second vote in which voters choose from candidates
on party lists. The party that was most under-represented by the number
of single member seats it won in the region gets the first "top up"
(presumably going to the candidate on it's list that got the most of
these second votes), then after adjusting the degree of
under-representation of each party to take into account the first "top
up", the same is done again for the second.
If there were no single member seats this would be roughly equivalent to
the d'Hondt party list system used in many European countries, with
"open" lists (voter choice of candidates within the list they choose)
but with small regions to ensure a much higher quota preventing the
election of "extremists" than the 4% quota justified in Germany by the
post-war situation.
Since in fact there are about 80% single member seats the central
purpose (apart from side-tracking demands for PR) seems to be just to
avoid the current situation in Australia where the majority of seats and
hence the government has gone to one of the two major parties whereas
the other had more support overall. The "top ups" make that much less
likely to happen while still effectively retaining a two party system.
It all highlights importance of Neither focussing attention on the issue
of smashing the two party system rather than vaguely speaking of
"proportionality" - and of spelling out a viable concrete method of
genuine PR.
Would be useful to establish relations with anyone campaigning about
this in UK.
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