22ANDUK

Rather than the mass substitution of a current FPTP system with a PR based one, why not a hybrid one instead in local council elections?

I'm thinking local councils adopting a London Assembly style party 'top-up' system?

Many wards (such as mine) have 3 Councillors. Why not shave 1 councillor of these wards and add these seats to a PR based party top-up list in local authorities?

Say having 80% FPTP seats and 20% PR seats?

It maintains a constituent link, increases voter and party choice and best of all, wouldn't cost any more money in adding new councillors?

Britannist

Former UKIP leader Mr. Roger Knapman MEP is thought to support Total Representation (TR).

This voting system keeps the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) election constituencies and does not require preferential voting or voting for a separate list of candidates.

TR works like this: a small party which gets votes in most or all constituents - but not enough votes to win a single constituency - is given a seat (or more than one seat) in the Commons anyway based on its overall vote share across the country.

This means that the 'wasted vote' scenario disappears - every vote counts in each constituency: even if your vote was for a party which did not win the constituency you live in.

So if UKIP won several hundred thousand votes across the UK at a General Election (it got over 600, 00 votes in the May 2005 General Election) but not one single constituency it would still get some seats in the Commons anyway - UKIP MPs would come from a reserve list of candidates compiled by the party.

TR may not be fully proportional. How proportional it is depends on how many 'reserve' seats in the Commons there would be for small parties who got votes but failed to win many/any constituencies.

But because TR eliminates the 'wasted vote' scenario more people would vote UKIP in the constituencies in a General Election and the chances of UKIP winning one or more directly-elected constituency seats in the Commons - as well as seats from the 'reserve' list of candidates - would increase.

TR could be implemented using the existing constituency boundaries.

TR, like the FPTP electoral system used for UK General Elections, only requires one cross on the ballot paper.

22ANDUK

Great post Britannist, thank you - I like the idea of 'TR'.

Anthony Butcher

That would require an increase in the number of MPs, which is certainly possible but not necessarily desirable. I believe that thr original TR called for increased constituency sizes to around 100,000 people.

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Britannist

Yes, if present constituency boundaries were retained.

But under the Total Representation voting system one could have a House of Commons with 450 MPs representing constituencies of about 88, 000 voters each (constituencies slightly larger than we have now in terms of average number of voters in each) and another 100 - 150 MPs from a 'top-up' partly or fully proportional voting list of the kind I refer to in my last posting to this thread. A total of up to 600 MPs - less than the number we have now.

Britannist

Thank you for your kind comment 22ANDUK.

TR (Total Representation) retains the single member constituency and keeps elections simple - just one cross on the ballot paper by the name of the candidate the voter wants to win. No 'second preference' or 'third preference' votes, no multi-member (Single Transferable Vote) constituencies and no additional votes for separate lists.

Total Representation is a voting system which the europhile ruling 'elite' and pro-EU parties such as the Liberal 'Democrats' do not like because, if implemented in UK General Elections, would result in UKIP MPs being elected from the 'reserve' 'top-up' list of candidates and - since it reduces the 'wasted vote' scenario in the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) election constituencies - eventually in some constituencies too.

Anthony Butcher

TR is the best system I have seen suggested. The fact that it keeps the same voting system and constituency MPs is a big plus.

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kernow

I agree! What and when are the chances of it happening?

Raymond Finch

Less than zero for precisely the same reasons we like it.
Do you really think the 3 parties with a stranglehold on Westminster would allow the possibility of parties like ourselves or the Greens getting the balance of power?

Britannist

The europhile political establishment are not going to allow any partly or fully proportional electoral system in which UKIP wins seats in the House of Commons. And since UKIP got more votes than the Liberal 'Democrats' in the last EU Election the Liberal 'Democrats' have gone quiet about proportional voting (PR - which they claim to support) because they fear being beaten again by UKIP in a PR election.

In France when small parties started to win seats in the French National Parliament in a PR election the very first thing the French President (Mitterrand) did was change the system back to one similar to our First-Past-The-Post (FPTP).

UKIP should aim to win seats under any electoral system - including FPTP.