In the last of our public law team's Election Specials we look beyond today's General Election to consider what's on the table in terms of electoral reform.
At the 2005 General Election the Labour Party formed a government with 356 seats in the House of Commons and a share of 35 per cent of the votes cast. The Conservative Party won 198 seats with 32 per cent of votes cast. The Liberal Democrats came third with 62 seats on 22 per cent of the vote. The result was a telling demonstration of the inability of the first past the post system to allocate seats in proportion to the percentage of votes cast.
The 2005 Parliament has been dissolved. Now, as we await the shape of the 2010 Parliament, it appears that reform of the electoral system is a priority for voters, and that this campaign has lifted electoral reform to the top of the agenda.
And yet before the starting gun on this campaign was fired, the UK Government had proposed a referendum on a form of proportional representation. This proposal - contained in an amendment to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 - did not survive the final "wash up" days of the old Parliament. In this referendum that never was, by October 2011 the electorate would have been asked whether or not they preferred an "alternative-vote system" to the current first past the post arrangements.
Labour's alternative-vote system
Under the alternative-vote system proposed by Labour, each constituency would continue to elect one MP. However, rather than vote for a single candidate, voters rank the candidates in order of preference, with 1 as first choice, 2 as second choice etc. After all ballots have been cast, the first choice votes for each candidate are counted. Where one candidate has more than 50% of the votes cast that person is duly elected.
Where no single candidate has enough votes on the first count, the count begins again. But on this second count, the candidate with the fewest number of votes from the first count drops out of the race. The votes originally cast for the last placed candidate are then re-allocated to the next choice candidate of each voter, with the last placed candidate dropping out. After the second count, if there is still no candidate with 50% of the new vote, the re-allocation process begins again with the new last placed candidate dropping out and their votes being re-allocated. This process continues until a single candidate crosses the 50% finishing line.
Liberal Democrats: a clear second choice
Polling suggests that the Liberal Democrats are a clear second choice for a large percentage of Labour and Conservative voters. Therefore under Labour's alternative-vote proposals, where no party has 50% of the vote on the first count, the Liberal Democrats and other smaller parties might expect to receive a boost at the second count when the last placed candidate's votes are re-distributed to their voters' second choice. The SNP are backing a different type of proportional representation for Westminster. Last week the Nationalists supported a motion at Holyrood to introduce a single transferable yote system for the UK Parliament.
Proportional representation - coming soon?
While Labour's alternative-vote system would benefit the Liberal Democrats it will hold little appeal for a Conservative Party likely to have the largest number of seats in the new Parliament, if not an absolute majority. Would a Conservative minority government be prepared to hold a referendum on electoral reform? During the campaign David Cameron has repeatedly attacked proportional representation, instead favouring reform of first past the post through boundary changes.
Would a Labour/Liberal coalition government consider it necessary to take proportional representation to the Country in a referendum, or would they decide that the very fact of their co-existence in office was the mandate they required to push voting reform through Parliament?
Of course the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly already use a form of proportional representation. This additional member system tops up first past the post with a more proportionate election of "regional members" from lists drawn up by the parties.
The experience of this general election campaign suggests that, in the mind of the average voter, hungry for (or at least content with) a hung parliament, the big question on PR is not "If?", or even "When?", but rather "What type of PR shall we have?"
Will we need a referendum or, perhaps, another general election, to answer that question?
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