The Alternative Voting System in the UK - Essay Example

?The use of the Alternative voting system in parliamentary elections would improve democracy in the United Kingdom Introduction Right from the beginning of the civilisation, the relationship between a state and its individuals has been an important subject of study for the sociologists and historians. This relationship which is at the core of good governance also delineates the various types of state rule, starting with authoritarian dictatorship, to complete democracy. The subject of individual rights and responsibilities and the state role, has been a subject of perpetual debate, and has led to many subsequent state reforms. These reforms are sometimes evolutionary in nature and take place gradually over a long time-period; sometimes are revolutionary in nature and takes place at the spur of a moment; while at other times are deliberately brought in through changes in the legislation. UK has seen in many such reforms that have made it a modern democracy with elected representatives, from being a monarchic state (Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, 2007, 9). My article will examine the current electoral changes that have been proposed, which signal the ushering in of the Alternative Voting system (AVs). This topic has been in debate in the UK parliament for quite some years, and is currently under review, in the House of Lords and the Parliament. My article will explore to find out whether the changes in the electoral processes that will bring in use of the Alternative Voting System or AVs in parliamentary elections, would actually work towards improving democracy in United Kingdom. Discussion What is AV: “AV represents a very simple change to our current First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) voting system. The principle behind AV is a no-brainer: the winner in an election should need the support of a majority of the people. AV makes this happen with ‘preference voting’. All that means for voters are swapping the ‘X’ on the ballot paper for numbers, so voters can rank the candidates in order of preference 1, 2, 3…” (Electoral Reform Society, Introducing the Alternative Vote). Fig 1: (Source: Electoral Reform Society, Introducing the Alternative Vote). In this figure, we take an example of a voting centre, which has 4 candidates A, B, C and D, standing for an election, while the number of voters is taken to be 100. In the present electoral process that is known as the First-Past-the–Post or FPTP, Candidate ‘A’ has garnered the maximum number of votes, and is the clearly the winner, though he hasn’t received even 50% of the total vote share, that is, majority of the voters are not backing him, yet under the present legislation, yet he must be declared the winner, thus casting aspirations on the true nature of UK democracy. However, under AV we find there are certain changes in the whole process that are certainly more democratic in nature. “With AV voters’ ‘first preferences’ are counted as before. As no candidate has 50% support the last placed candidate, ‘D’, is eliminated, and her supporters’ second preferences are transferred to the others. Still no candidate has 50% support, so candidate ‘C’ drops out and his voters’ second choices are transferred. ‘B’ emerges with majority support. She wins!”(Ibid.) Is AV more democratic in nature? A basic problem of the FPTP system that undermines the very meaning of the word democracy is that, often under this process the candidate who does not have the support of the majority of the voters, emerge as the winner. AV addresses this fundamental problem, and ensures that the winner is the person who genuinely enjoys the support of the maximum number of the voters in UK. Thus, we find we find that this system represents a more fair form of the electoral procedure, which brings forth the person who is the actual choice of the majority. The FPTPs that is in use in present day UK general elections and also used for local councils in England and Wales, is an ancient and rather outdated process, which started during the middle-ages, when there were no technical systems for counting logically. In this process there can be as many as possible candidates (mostly from different political parties, with a handful scattering of independent candidates), standing in for the elections that takes place over the 650 UK constituencies. As we have already seen, in each constituency, the candidate that gets the maximum number of votes wins. Thus, the winner does not necessarily have to get majority of the votes (i.e. < 50%) in order to win the election. He/she simply needs a ‘plurality of votes,’ meaning, just one more vote than the other candidates for winning the election. So we find that in reality, when there are a large number of parties contesting the elections, the MPs very often get elected with incredibly low majority support within their local constituencies (a fact which is proven, when we look at the 2005 election vote share statistical figures, that show that most of the MPs came to power with only around 35 to 49 % support from their local constituencies, while a similar scenario was again seen in 2010 elections, as shown in fig 2). In fact, this “system has survived so long because it favours the top two parties, who pile up most votes in their ‘safe’ areas – Labour in inner cities and industrial regions, and the Tories across the south-east and eastern England. It heavily discriminates against the Liberal Democrats and against other, smaller parties like UKIP, the Greens and the BNP, who all get appreciable levels of support across the country as a whole, but find it harder to build up a top of the poll position in particular local areas” (Dunleavy, and Gilson, 2010). Fig 2: The chief beneficiaries of the FPTP system are the two major political parties in UK, the Conservative (Con) and the Labour (Lab) party, that come to power without having the majority support of the national voters (Source: Rosenbaum, Alternative voting systems for choosing a voting system, 2010, Besides, pinning down on the candidate that enjoys the actual majority support of each local constituency, AVs also allow “two or more parties to compete against each other for first preferences – thereby getting an impression of their relative support – but to combine their support at the later stages if no other party’s candidate gains majority support... Another advantage is that electors can use their first preference votes to indicate support for a small party but their later preferences for a larger one – thereby indicating to the latter the types of policy they wish it to follow”( Hix, Johnson, and McLean, 2010, 53). Owing to such delusionary electoral processes, more and more people are staying indoors, and refusing to cast their votes. In 2009 we find that two of the major UK political parties, the Labour and the Conservatives, enjoyed only about 43% of majority vote share-count in the European Elections Parliament elections. Observing such unbalanced and unfair figures, many of the voters have become even more discouraged, and are not willing to ‘waste their votes,’ while many of them are aware of the fact that “the voting system as skewed towards artificially boosting Tory and Labour MPs representation”(Dunleavy and Gilson, 2010). In this context Hix, Johnson and McLean, opines that “If a country has a multiparty system, single-member constituencies tend to lead to unrepresentative parliaments. And, if seat-shares in parliament do not correspond closely to vote-shares in the election, this usually leads to disproportional representation in government: where the party which forms the government has less than 50 per cent of the support of the electorate and, as a result, might be some distance either to the left or to the right of the average voter” (2010, 21). AVs are not unknown in UK and are in fact, widely use by the politicians (both the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party) to choose their party leaders, their Speaker, and Select Committee Chairs. This process is in place during the various union elections, and also while choosing professional bodies that represents the nurses, physicians, engineers, or teachers. AVs are also used in private elections, like that in selecting the Chancellor of Oxford University, and the Rector of Edinburgh University. Thus, a widely used system that represents democracy in a more fair form is being unnecessarily delayed by the political parties in the UK parliament, through various debates and reviews, for their own benefit. This is evident when we read, “The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill [Bill No 63 of 2010-11] was introduced on 22 July 2010 and had its Second Reading on 6 September 2010.The committee stage of the Bill was taken on the floor of the House and the report stage and third reading were on 1 and 2 November 2010. The Bill is due to have its second reading in the Lords on Monday 15 November 2010 and has been reprinted as HL Bill 26 of 2010-11 together with a new set of Explanatory Notes”(Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill 2010-11: Commons Stages [Bill No 63 of 2010-11], 2010). The next representation of the bill referendum is again to be held on 5th May 2011, with the question on the ballot papers as “At present, the UK uses the “first past the post” system to elect MPs to the House of Commons Should the “alternative vote” system be used instead?”(House of Lords, 2010) This referendum, if endorsed by all on 5th May 2011, will see the passing of the bill that would allow next the general elections to use AVs. Conclusion: From the above discourse, it is very clear that the use of the Alternative Voting system (AVs) in parliamentary elections would certainly help to improve democracy in United Kingdom. While it is for sure that any electoral system will have its own faults and loopholes, presently to win back the confidence of the UK voters, the parliament must necessarily endorse the bill for AVs application, on the 5th of May 2011. Bibliography Dunleavy, P and Gilson, C. March 2010. How unfair or disproportionate is the UK’s voting system for general elections? The London School of Economics and Political Science. British Politics and Policy at LSE. Retrieved from, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2010/03/16/how-unfair-or-disproportionate-is-the-uk%E2%80%99s-voting-system-for-general-elections/ Electoral Reform Society. Introducing the Alternative Vote. Retrieved from, http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/downloads/What%20is%20AVweb.pdf Hix, S., Johnson, R., and McLean, I. 2010. Choosing an electoral system. Report for the British Academy, 53. Retrieved from,   http://personal.lse.ac.uk/hix/Working_Papers/Hix-Johnston-McLean-choosing-an-electoral-system.pdf. House of Lords. 2010. Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. Retrieved from, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldbills/026/11026.1-5.html#j01 Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill 2010-11: Commons Stages [Bill No 63 of 2010-11], Research Paper 10/72, 11 November 2010. House of Commons Library. Retrieved from, http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/rp2010/RP10-072.pdf. Rosenbaum, M. 2010. Alternative voting systems for choosing a voting system. BBC News. Retrieved from, http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2010/02/alternative_voting_systems_for_choosing_a_voting_system.html Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. July 2007. The Governance of Britain. Retrieved from, http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm71/7170/7170.pdf Read More