Showing posts with label May 5th Election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label May 5th Election. Show all posts

Monday, 4 January 2016

Will we ever get a fair voting system?

Here in the UK we are in the first year of a 5 year parliament where the Conservative Party have an overall majority of seats in the House of Commons but that is only because (for the UK Parliament) we have a 'first passed the post' constituency voting system. In this system the way people vote is not reflected in the number of seats in Parliament. For instance, the Conservatives increased their share of the vote by only 0.8% but gained an extra 24 seats. Labour increased their share by nearly double, 1.5%,  but actually lost 26 seats! A crazy system! For more see: the BBC General Election Results 
In fact by a large majority most of the people in the UK did not vote for the Conservatives, who got just over 11 million votes, whereas votes for other parties amounted to 19 million!


Sadly though, we are now beset with a 5 year period of Conservative style legislation despite the huge majority of people NOT voting for the Conservatives. We are having to endure a 5 year programme where the Conservatives impose their version economics (Osbourne’s budgets), their nuclear energy programme, and their relaxation of the human rights legislation, planning laws, climate change legislation and much more!  

http://electoral-reform.org.uk/

If you think that the voting system should change please join the Electoral Reform Society and/or support their campaigns via:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/electoralreform and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/electoralreformsociety




Or support #FairVotesNow on www.change.org


Sunday, 24 April 2011

Voting Reform - AV

Simply put - “AV” is designed to ensure whoever is elected has the broad support of the majority of people in the constituency.

All you do is to say who you would prefer to be your MP by writing 1 against the name. Then you say who you would have as your 2nd & 3rd choice etc. You don’t have to put down a 2nd or 3rd choice if you don’t want to.

This short video clearly explains AV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FstA45lxgFs

Who uses AV now? -
• Leadership elections for Labour and Liberal Democrats
• Elections for UK parliamentary officials including Select Committee Chairs.
• Elections for the Academy Award for Best Picture
• Australian House of Representatives.
• Millions of people in membership organisations, such as my one – the British Computer Society.
• Most Student Union elections.
• Irish Presidential election.
• Numerous American City, Mayoral and district elections.

Australia has used AV for 80 years

If you want the view of the Electoral Reform Society click on this link; http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=55
Or go the yes vote web site: http://www.yestofairervotes.org/