Tag Archives: single transferable vote

Opinion: Never Mention “STV” Again

By Alex Wilcock | Published 17th September 2011 - 3:15 pm

The Liberal Democrat Conference opens today in Birmingham with perhaps the most depressing talking shop ever put on a Lib Dem Agenda. It’s the consultative session for the “May 2011 Election Review”: a big drop in the popular vote; a major setback on local councils; a disaster in Scotland; a total and utter thrashing in the AV referendum. And it’s the last that looks the most hopeless.

Is electoral reform finished for good, or at least for a generation? Instead of endlessly debating what went wrong, there’s one major change we can make right now to improve things next time: …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged birmingham 2011 conference, electoral reform, proportional representation | 29 Comments

Opinion: Chris Bryant is right, though he doesn’t know why

By Jonathan Featonby | Published 21st October 2010 - 2:43 pm

As I write, Chris Bryant is arguing during the Whole House committee for the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill that a method for drawing up constituency boundaries that is severely confined by a mathematical formula is misguided.

I completely agree, although possibly for a different reason to the one he uses to support his argument.

Mr Bryant has been arguing that a strict mathematical formula will have to ignore natural geographical and physical boundaries.

It’s true: to bring in the Bill as it stands will create constituencies that are almost constantly shifting and where previously combined communities may very well find themselves …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged alternative vote, voting reform | 1 Comment

LibLink: Edward McMillan-Scott – AV is not the only vote

By NewsHound | Published 5th July 2010 - 3:45 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, former Conservative, now Liberal Democrat, MEP Edward McMillan-Scott argues there should be a third option in the coming referendum on electoral reform – the single transferable vote. Here’s an excerpt:

I understand that the Electoral Reform Society and senior Liberal Democrats have concluded that the alternative vote option presented in the coalition agreement is the best that can be achieved at this stage and that any discussion on the issue will cloud the debate. …

Single party advantage has no part to play in what amounts to a change of constitutional significance. Westminster has

…

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged alternative vote, edward mcmillan-scott, electoral reform | 7 Comments

How can we sell the Single Transferable Vote to the public?

By Stephen Tall | Published 11th February 2010 - 10:25 am

The last 24 hours’ focus on voting systems – surely every Lib Dem’s dream come true? – have highlighted just how hard it will be to gain acceptance for the party’s preferred proportional voting system, the single transferable vote.

It’s no surprise that almost all MPs from the two establishment parties, Labour and the Tories, are desperate to hold onto the electoral system that secures their cosy hold on power: just five Labour/Tory MPs voted to include STV in any referendum on voting reform.

But it will also be the case that a significant portion of the country will …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged denis mollison, fabian society, featured, james graham, next left, proportional representation | 42 Comments

The 14 non-Lib Dem MPs who backed the Single Transferable Vote

By Stephen Tall | Published 10th February 2010 - 6:43 pm

The House of Commons yesterday voted by 365 votes to 187 to hold a UK-wide referendum on changing the voting system next year from first-past-the-post to the alternative vote. The Lib Dems reluctantly voted for the alternative vote, as the most modest of improvements on the current, broken system.

But the party, in the person of Cambridge MP David Howarth, also moved an amendment to leave out ‘an alternative-vote’ and insert ‘a single transferable vote’ – in other words, to ask Parliament to approve an electoral system which would at last reflect the votes cast for parties across the country, …

Posted in Parliament | Also tagged alternative vote, electoral reform, house of commons, james purnell, proportional representation | 13 Comments

LibLink: Chris Huhne – The alternative vote is not the solution

By NewsHound | Published 9th February 2010 - 4:20 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free site, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne argues Labour has got it wrong in proposing a referendum on the Alternative Vote: only the Single Transferable Vote will remedy the unfairness of the present system. Here’s an excerpt:

[The Alternative Vote] is very similar to first-past-the-post in two key respects. Because it is based on single constituencies – a virtue for its proponents, who say they prize the constituency link – the parties continue to select one candidate each, and the voters only have one choice for each party.

That means that in the majority

…

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged alternative vote, chris huhne, electoral reform, proportional representation | 12 Comments

The Independent View: Three myths about PR – and one uncomfortable truth

By Jason O'Mahony | Published 26th January 2010 - 4:30 pm

Jason O’Mahony was a former activist and candidate for the now defunct Irish Progressive Democrats. He now blogs on politics at www.jasonomahony.ie .

Let’s be honest. In the darkest chambers of British psephologist hell, beneath the pit of Parliament Channel subscribers, and even deeper than the cavern of sweaty handed ‘I’ve just found a 1970 Enoch Powell election poster. In crisp condition!’ enthusiasts, there is a special place reserved for Proportional Representation aficionados. Even amongst political anoraks and people who feel passionately about Peter Snow they are the underclass.

Of course, as an Irish political activist, who has lived his entire …

Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged bertie ahern, brian cowen, fianna fail, irish politics, proportional representation, STV | 15 Comments

Lord Roberts writes … Our Electoral System – not fit for purpose

By Lord Roger Roberts | Published 28th November 2009 - 6:45 pm

The need to reform the Electoral System was underlined by a number of us on the Liberal Democrat benches in the House of Lords.The possibility of it being included in the Queen’s Speech was always minimal but we dared to hope..

We are still living in an age with a system that goes back 200 years. We are trying to run a modern democracy on a dinosaur of a system. In 1832, the Great Reform Act just doubled the electorate from half a million to 1 million. In 1867, the electorate was increased to 2.5 million. In 1884, agricultural workers were added and the electoral total went up to 5 million.

In 1918, the great leap forward came when women aged over 30 were given the vote and the total electorate became 21 million. This was further increased to 28 million in 1928 when women and men aged 21 and over could vote. In 1960, 18 year-olds were added and today the total electorate is in the region of 45 million.

We are using a system devised for half a million people for an electorate that is now 45 million. The system goes back to the time when there were only two parties, Whigs and Tories, later Liberals and Conservatives. There were straight fights in every constituency apart from those with unopposed returns.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged electoral reform, house of lords, proportional representation | 1 Comment

Opinion: Forget open primaries, and go for STV instead

By Geoffrey Payne | Published 4th October 2009 - 10:45 am

During the debate on MPs’ expenses at the Lib Dem conference recently, one of the speakers, Michael Meadowcroft, suggested that instead of having open primaries as a way of restoring trust in the political process, why not use the Single Transferable Vote (STV) instead?

STV has been the preferred voting system of the Liberal party and Liberal Democrats for many decades, and was championed by the greatest liberal of all, John Stuart Mill, in the nineteenth century. This week Gordon Brown announced that Labour, if re-elected, would propose a referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) system, in which instead of marking your ballot paper with an X, you write down your preferences by rank, 1, 2, 3, etc …

The problem with AV is that you are still only electing one person per constituency.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged alternative vote, electoral reform, michael meadowcroft, open primaries, proportional representation | 17 Comments

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