Author Archives: Simon Read

Opinion: Proportional voting

By Simon Read | Mon 10th May 2010 - 9:20 am

I propose a method of voting in the House of Commons which has the effect of proportional representation without any of the complexity.

There are two possible sacred principles in British democracy:

1) A Member of Parliament has one vote;
2) A party’s voting strength in the house should match its share of the countrywide vote.

Each principle has its adherents. Principle (1) seems to be assumed by everyone but never mentioned.

These principles are in fact contradictory, leading to much complexity, so I propose to abandon principle (1) above, leaving us with principle (2).

The mechanism is simple: take the number of votes cast at …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged proportional representation | 38 Comments