To most people democracy is about living in a country where every (or nearly every) adult is allowed to have their say by casting votes. People take the equality of voters as a given most people would be angry if they were to find out their neighbour or colleague got five votes while they had but one. Yes most of us take it for granted that because every voter has one vote it follows that every voter is treated equal and that this is a good thing. Unfortunately it simply is not true that all voters are treated equally. It is not difficult to understand why when you think about it in a constituency of 100 voters you decide how 1% of the total vote is cast in a constituency of 150 voters you get to cast a lower percentage of the total vote (about 0.7%). So voters in the smaller constituencies get far more of a say. This of course is not a problem if all constituencies have the same or very similar number of voters. In 2005 the Isle of Wight had 108,253 residents who were entitled to vote whereas Birmingham, Yardley had 51,414. That means that voters in Birmingham, Yardley had twice as much power in the 2005 General Election. So you may be wondering why we don't we make all the constituencies the same size. Well efforts are made to make all the constituencies the same size but it never quite happens. The Isle of Wight is a good example, it just is not considered sensible to have part of the island in one constituency and part of it in another. Also rural areas have low population densities so to get say 70,000 constituents you would need to have a massive area of land in the constituency this is not considered sensible by the current government. It is worth noting that even if all boundaries were drawn up with equal populations of voters the equality would not last long as many houses are built in the years between elections. There are however other problems with the current voting system for UK General Elections. The system is called "First past the post" because the candidate with the most votes wins just as the horse which is first to cross the finishing post wins a race. One of the problems is that many people vote for candidates who are unlikely to be placed first or even second in the election and these people often feel that their vote is "wasted” or "ineffective”. A "non-effective” vote is one which does not help a voter a candidate which they support to be elected. They are to think this since only the voters who vote for the winning candidate are represented in Parliament. In fact many of the winning candidates votes may also be ineffective as he/she would still have won had some of their supporters not voted. The proportion of "wasted votes” under the "first past the post” system varies but it is never lower than half, and can be substantially higher. In 2005 the proportion of "wasted votes” in Dundee East was over 62%. This causes yet more inequality voters in some constituencies are far more likely to have their vote wasted than others. Supporters of Independents and smaller political parties are almost certain to have their vote wasted. Even supporters the top three political parties are not treated equally the system currently discriminates against the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and in favour of Labour Party suppo

rters. Supporters of the Green Party and UKIP are almost certain to be denied any representation in a Parliament with 600 seats despite the fact the Green Party received about 1 in every hundred votes cast and UKIP received roughly twice that number. We can only speculate on how many other people might have voted for them but for the fear of their vote being wasted. Party list systems are not the answer. These lists systems still result in many wasted votes (though less than under FPP) and they force voters to choose political parties rather than people to represent them. This is an important point in the recent debate in Parliament on the Education Bill most Conservative MPs voted with the Labour Government, while many Labour MPs voted against. It really is important for voters to choose individuals to represent them. There will of course always be wasted votes. Take a very small and simple example of five voters and five candidates standing for just four positions. Suppose they get one vote each then whatever system you use four of them must be elected and one of them will be unsuccessful and the vote cast for that candidate will be ineffective. There will always be a proportion of wasted votes, so the question is how do we reduce this proportion to the absolute minimum. The answer is a voting system called Single Transferable Vote (STV). Under STV if you vote for a candidate who receives very few votes and is unlikely to win (instead of being wasted) your vote is transferred to your next preference out of the remaining candidates. If on the other hand your first choice candidate has more votes than is required to be elected a proportion of your vote is often transferred rather than wasted. STV would require around five or six Members of Parliament to be elected by each constituency and the constituencies themselves would be about five or six times larger than before. If constituencies with a smaller population were considered necessary in smaller area then the number of MPs could be reduced in the same proportion. I believe that STV can ensure that Parliament is representative of the people and accountable to the people, and that STV is the only system that can come close to treating each voter equally and while providing all voters with the choice that they deserve.Source of election data: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Expodata/Spreadsheets/D9233.xls UK Election Data from the National Statistics Office.

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