Letter t the Media - May 2015 election results - May 2015 - Printable Version +- LIBERAL TALK (http://talk.liberal.org.uk) +--- Thread: Letter t the Media - May 2015 election results - May 2015 (/showthread.php?tid=31) |
Letter t the Media - May 2015 election results - May 2015 - ReadingLib - 12-10-2015 May 2015 has indeed seen an historical Conservative win in the general election, but a dispassionate analysis of the results shows something remains amiss in our first past the post electoral system. The conservative parties slender parliamentary majority, is actually based on just 36.9% of the national vote. That equates to 32244 votes per elected MP. By comparison the populous, insurgent UKIP, which took third place in the general election with 12.7% of the national vote, needed 3.8 million people simply to elect one MP. The corresponding figured for the Green Party was over 1.5million, yet the figures for Labour and SNP were 40292 and 25972 respectively The fairest solution to this issue is an advanced form of proportional representation termed the Single Transferable Vote. Existing single member constituencies would be replaced by multi-member constituencies returning 4 or 5 MP's. Each constituency would be based on natural communities, rather than unnatural constituencies that happen to be the right size to return one MP. Moreover, electors would no longer vote with an inflexible "X" - the mark of illiteracy - but would number their candidates in order of preference and the ballot would be counted in a way that would ensure that their votes would be utilised as fully as possible. That is an electoral system in which the Liberal Party would like to see all voters believe their vote matters, and is not 'wasted' on any party who national popularity is crowded out locally. |