Following up on yesterday's post, according to the BBC the Commons will be offered a vote next week on reforming the voting system after the general election. The system on offer is the Alternative Vote system, whereby voters rank the candidates and anyone over 50% is elected, otherwise you drop the lowest scored candidates and pass over their next choice till someone is over 50%.
Not quite Single Transferable Vote as I'm used to in the Irish system, but a rather large change if it were to arrive in the UK from the old first past the post system. There will be barely a moment before someone will start saying that such a system provides weak governments and coalitions don't work. If I hear Italy trotted out one more time ... According to the Electoral Reform Society, AV can be more disproportionate than first past the post! And for those looking for precedent, apparently Australia and Papua New Guinea use the system among others.
Will try to dig out models of the past elections under varied systems ...
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