The European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee has recommended that some MEPs should be elected from a pan-European list drawn from at least one third of the Member States. The recommendation comes from a proposal by British MEP, Andrew Duff (Liberal Democrat).

STV Action is neutral about whether there should be a pan-European list but, if there is to be one, we strongly recommend that the MEPs on it should be elected by STV.

The typical voter’s first choice would probably be for a candidate who is from both that voter’s party and country. The kind of list system the UK uses now to elect MEPs would prevent that. If the top of the pan-European Conservative list was a German, a British Conservative voter might have to choose between voting for the German Conservative and, say, a British Labour candidate. STV would let British Conservatives choose a British Conservative candidate first.

Now let’s say a British Labour voter has chosen a British Labour candidate as first choice and there are no other British Labour candidates. The freedom of choice that is available only with STV would let the voter choose between another Socialist candidate (say, French) or another British candidate (say, Green). With a party list system, this would not be possible.

Of course, some voters might want to vote other than on party or nationality. For example, a voter who wanted more women in the European Parliament might prefer to vote for women across national and party boundaries. Only STV would allow this.

We very much regret to announce the death on Friday 16 December of Henry, Lord Kitchener at the age of 92. He was the third Earl Kitchener and the title has died with him.

There will be a cremation for family only and there will be a memorial service in the Spring.

He was one of those rare creatures, a Conservative who strongly supported electoral reform. A mathematician, he believed that STV was the fairest voting system yet invented and would be good for the country. He had been a stout supporter of STV for very many years. Despite his age, he attended AGMs of the Electoral Reform Society until very recently.

He was a member and Vice-President of the Electoral Reform Society and a Registered Supporter of Make Votes Count In West Sussex.

Electoral reformers will miss him greatly.

Congratulations to Michael D Higgins, who won this AV election against six rivals. With 39.6% of the 1st preference votes compared with 28.5% for Sean Gallagher, the runner-up, he would probably have won if the election had been by first past the post. However, that would have been unsatisfactory. We would not have known how the other 31.9% would have voted once it became clear that their preferred candidates could not win. Under the UK’s first past the post system, he would have won despite 60.4% of voters having voted against him. This would not have been a real mandate.

As it is, the election was held by the Alternative Vote (AV) system, which is so much more democratic than first past the post. As no candidate had at least half the votes in the first stage of counting, the losing candidates were eliminated and their votes were transferred as directed by the voters. Still no candidate had half the votes, so the process was repeated until only the leading two candidates remained.

The result of the final stage of counting was:

Higgins 1,007,194 (61.6%)
Gallagher 628,114 (38.4%).

Thus Mr Higgins had a clear overall majority and a real mandate for the presidency.

This proves the value of AV for filling a single vacancy.

I cannot show the full result in tabular form here, but you can see it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_presidential_election,_2011#Result.

Ireland’s voters go to the polls today to elect a President by the Alternative Vote (AV) – the voting system that UK voters rejected in a referendum earlier this year.

There are seven candidates. If the Irish used the first past the post voting system used in the UK, there would be a danger that the winner would have only just over a seventh (say 15%) of the votes; i.e. that nearly six-sevenths (say 85%) of the voters did not want the winner!

Fortunately, Ireland uses the much more democratic AV system, which will make sure that the winner is elected by over half the final votes and will thus enjoy the confidence of the majority.

The result is expected on Saturday afternoon (29 October).

We’ve had a referendum ON AV. What about referendums BY AV?

The Scottish Government is reported to be considering a three-way referendum on Scotland’s future in the UK and some UK MPs are demanding a three-way referendum on the UK’s future in the EU. In both referendums, the choice would be between:

• Retaining the status quo;
• Negotiating a new relationship within;
• Leaving.

Surely even the most adamant supporter of FPTP and opponent of AV in the recent referendum can see the danger of running a three-way referendum by FPTP.

Would supporters of compete independence accept the result if the status quo won with 33% of the votes with 32% for each of the other two options? How would supporters of the status quo feel about the opposite result? Come to think of it, how would any group feel about coming second in, say, a 44 – 42 – 14 vote?

Frankly, it would be unrealistic and rather silly to assume that the side that came second would accept any such result or that the public would have any faith in it.

The only sensible way to hold a three-way referendum is by AV. It would ensure that the result reflected the views of the majority of voters.

For the benefit of new readers, let’s explain how it works:

Voters would simply vote “1” for their first choice and “2” for their second.

All the first choices would be counted. If one of the three options had more than half the votes at that stage, it would be the winner.

If not, the losing option (in third place) would drop out and its votes would simply be transferred to the second choices of its supporters. Whichever of the two remaining options then had the more votes (i.e. over half) would be the winner.

Then we’d all know which option the majority of voters wanted. Don’t politicians want to know what the majority of voters think?

Labour politicians may well be right that the Conservatives want to abolish compulsory registration because they (Conservatives) think that voluntary registration would give their party an advantage. However, it is equally true that Labour probably want to keep compulsory registration because they think that favours them.

It’s just like the argument about voting systems. Labour and Conservative politicians accuse the Liberal Democrats of wanting STV so there would be more Liberal Democrat MPs and Councillors but, of course, we all know that Labour and Conservative politicians want to keep FPTP because that gives them more seats nationally than STV would.

Politicians should no more decide such issues than generals should decide whether to go to war. An alternative for voter registration would be a period of public consultation (preferably with politicians keeping quiet, but that might be too much to expect) by the neutral Electoral Commission followed by a recommendation by the Commission.

According to the Mail Online of 13 October, the SNP Government of Scotland proposes to allow 16-18 year olds to vote in a referendum on Scottish independence in 2014 or 2015. It is calculated that this would add about 125,000 (3%) to the Scottish electorate. Apparently, Scottish teenagers tend to be more nationalistic than their elders so, presumably, the SNP hope that this move will boost the vote for independence.

I understand that a referendum held by the Scottish Parliament would be only advisory so far as the law was concerned but, of course, it could be persuasive and, if there was a majority for independence, the SNP would no doubt claim a moral victory and use it to press the UK Government for independence.

The UK Government, especially one led by the Tories who oppose votes at 16, might say that the result was flawed by the children’s votes and almost certainly would do so if the margin of victory was less that the number of voters under 18. The UK Government might even then hold its own referendum in Scotland for electors with a UK franchise (i.e. over 18) in the hope of getting a different result. Imagine the constitutional wrangling!

Purely from an electoral reform point of view, I believe that Scottish independence would be good for England. I think there would be tremendous pressure, not least from Labour, to introduce PR for what was left of the UK to avoid a permanent Tory government.

Nevertheless, STV Action should remain completely neutral on both Scottish independence and lowering the voting age in Scotland to 16 and I hope that other electoral reform organizations will also avoid taking sides on these issues. Whichever side they took on either of these issues, they would alienate loyal supporters of STV who legitimately held the other view.

This excellent letter from Martin Pugh appeared in the Hexham Courant on 27 September. It provides us all with a model that would need little adaptation to be made suitable for other parts of the UK.

“Reducing the number of MPs by 50 is wrong in principle. Why? Because this makes the ministerial ‘payroll’ vote effectively larger and thus makes it almost impossible to defeat any government policy however bad.

It is no use blaming the Boundary Commission. It simply implements the policy of the Conservative-led coalition, and in a county like Northumberland with undersized seats at both ends (Berwick and Hexham) drastic changes are inevitable.

In my estimation the effect of the proposed alterations is that the Conservatives will probably not return a single MP in the entire North-East.

Yet as the party polls about a quarter of the votes in the region it is morally entitled to more not fewer MPs. Only one answer to this dilemma is known to political science: ditch our crazy, undemocratic electoral system in favour of a proper scheme of proportional representation using the single transferable vote.

Conservatives who wish to work toward this end should join the all-party Electoral Reform Society.”

Under the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, the Government intends to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 and to make constituencies more equal in size in terms of numbers of constituents. It is claimed that, by making constituencies more equal in size, the value of your vote will no longer depend on where you live. Many believe it to be simply an exercise in gerrymandering.

Not unexpectedly, the proposals for new constituency boundaries are proving to be very controversial. No wonder! Even when you simply merge two constituencies, say a safe Labour one with a safe Conservative one, one of the parties will lose an MP. If you merge two safe seats of the same party, one of the MPs will lose. Who wins or loses will depend on where the boundaries are drawn. When constituencies are broken up and put back together in a different combination, there are many unforeseen, and possibly unintended, consequences.

One hope of the Conservatives is that, by equalizing constituencies, they will overcome what has become a continuous bias against them in elections – the previous see-saw and Buggins’s turn principles no longer apply because the Conservatives need more votes to win an outright majority than Labour does. Some academics say this is nonsense and the reasons for the bias are different registration and turnout rates and socio-economic patterns in the constituencies. Nevertheless, both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats said in their manifestos they wanted to reduce the number of MPs.

In fact, the seemingly beneficial change is a radical innovation with undesirable effects. For the first time in the history of the UK parliament or the English parliament before it, MPs will be expected to represent people instead of natural communities. To equalize constituencies, local authority boundaries will be ignored. This means that parliamentary constituencies will no longer be natural communitites. Many aren't now when a city is divided into a number of constituencies, but even fewer will be under the new arrangements.

A potential future problem is that, to keep constituencies equal in size of electorate, constituency boundary changes may have to be more frequent than they have been as populations move and change. Each time they are changed, political parties and MPS will wrangle to try to protect their own interests. Moreover, more frequent boundary changes will diminish the so-called vital link between an MP and his or her constituents, so prized – really over-prized – by supporters of first past the post.

Of course, STV would considerably reduce all these problems:

• With STV, it is easy to alter the number of MPs nationally or regionally by varying the number per constituency instead of changing boundaries.
• STV enables MPs to represent people and natural communities. A whole town or county can form one multi-member constituency. If its population grows or declines the number of its MPs can be increased or reduced without any changing the boundary, splitting the community or separating constituents from their only MP.
• STV really would make votes of equal value instead of depending on where you live.

When asked why STV would not be a more sensible way of reducing the number of MPs and making votes more equal, Lord North, a key proponent of the changes, said very strongly that he was not in favour of PR of any kind and therefore would not be assessing STV as a way of achieving the changes.

Nevertheless, the Government’s proposals may be a good thing in the long run. Many people will be dissatisfied with the proposals. They will not know how STV could help. This gives electoral reformers an opportunity to explain some of STV’s less well-known advantages.