Proportional Voting Powers for UK MPs

[jedaisoul]

This is my first post on this site, so please excuse my presumption in posting a new thread. I'm normally active on science and philosophy sites, so this is a new departure for me. I'm doing this because I've written a paper about a form of proportional representation that I've not heard of before.

I include below the abstract from the paper. The whole paper can be read and/or downloaded here.

ABSTRACT

This paper suggests a way of improving the proportionality of representation in parliament without changing the "first past the post" electoral system. The idea is that, instead of each MP having one vote in parliamentary divisions, they would have voting powers proportional to the percentage of the votes cast for their party in the general election.

This would make all votes cast for parties represented at Westminster of equal value in parliamentary divisions. What it would not do is enfranchise the 1.75 million voters who, in the 2010 general election, voted for parties which did not win a seat at Westminster. That said, it could represent a significant improvement in the proportionality of representation at Westminster.

I hope that this will stimulate a debate on the topic...

[Midas]

This is my first post on this site, so please excuse my presumption in posting a new thread. I'm normally active on science and philosophy sites, so this is a new departure for me. I'm doing this because I've written a paper about a form of proportional representation that I've not heard of before.

I include below the abstract from the paper. The whole paper can be read and/or downloaded here.

ABSTRACT

This paper suggests a way of improving the proportionality of representation in parliament without changing the "first past the post" electoral system. The idea is that, instead of each MP having one vote in parliamentary divisions, they would have voting powers proportional to the percentage of the votes cast for their party in the general election.

This would make all votes cast for parties represented at Westminster of equal value in parliamentary divisions. What it would not do is enfranchise the 1.75 million voters who, in the 2010 general election, voted for parties which did not win a seat at Westminster. That said, it could represent a significant improvement in the proportionality of representation at Westminster.

I hope that this will stimulate a debate on the topic...

Hi jedaisoul, and welcome to the Politics Forum!

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We have had several debates about proportional representation, but with the topic being still on the political agenda from the coalition government, perhaps some further views and opinions won't go amiss.

[Wayne Smith]

This is an idea that is not much discussed, and not, to my knowledge, put into practice anywhere in the world. Why should an MP get only one vote? Why not as many votes as he or she received at the election? As for the losing candidates, they could transfer their votes to someone who did get elected, normally their party leader. Instant, perfect proportional representation, at no cost and with no change to the voting system.

The only real objection to it is this: our current system stifles diversity, and proxy voting does not solve this problem. When you elect only one candidate per constituency, it is very difficult for anyone to get nominated if they are in any way "different". This is why first-past-the-post has such a bad record when it comes to electing women and minorities. This could be solved by going to a system of multi-member ridings, but in that case, why not use one of the tried and tested systems of proportional representation?

The practical problem is this: there will be enormous resistance to the idea that all MPs are not equal, and some have more votes than others.

[jedaisoul]

This is an idea that is not much discussed, and not, to my knowledge, put into practice anywhere in the world. Why should an MP get only one vote? Why not as many votes as he or she received at the election? As for the losing candidates, they could transfer their votes to someone who did get elected, normally their party leader. Instant, perfect proportional representation, at no cost and with no change to the voting system.

That is a variant of what I was proposing. What I suggested (in the full paper) was that the total votes for a party nationally should be divided by the number of MPs they got, to derive the voting power of the MPs for that party. The numbers were then scaled down so the MPs with the fewest votes for their party per MP got 1 vote, and the other parties proportionately more. Overall this results in 649 MPs having 1,326.80 votes between them.

So all MPs for a given party would have equal votes. E.g. Labour MPs would have 1.59 votes each, Tory MPs 1.66 (almost the same), but Liberal Democrats 5.70 votes each. This reflects the enormous discrepancy nationally between how many people voted for the Liberal Democrat party, compared to how many LD MPs were elected.

The only real objection to it is this: our current system stifles diversity, and proxy voting does not solve this problem. When you elect only one candidate per constituency, it is very difficult for anyone to get nominated if they are in any way "different". This is why first-past-the-post has such a bad record when it comes to electing women and minorities. This could be solved by going to a system of multi-member ridings, but in that case, why not use one of the tried and tested systems of proportional representation?

I think that the gender and race imbalance is a separate issue. Do we want MPs to be selected for their race, gender and/or sexual orientation? Surely the best candidates should be chosen? Also I think that the centralized list system proposed by many proportional systems is a retrograde step, as it weakens the link to the constituencies.

The practical problem is this: there will be enormous resistance to the idea that all MPs are not equal, and some have more votes than others.

As mentioned above, I'm proposing that the voting power is the same for every MP of a given party. It is the party to party imbalance of electoral votes per MPs I'm trying to rectify. But, as you say, even that may not be popular with the MPs with the lower voting powers.