Quote:
Originally Posted by Ignitionnet
I'm fine with STV my only concern is how it translates to the current constituencies. It would need to be done by borough, county or a similar administrative division and would cause upset among some constituencies - there would be a number of MPs without one or constituencies that have been assigned one.
Overall not a bad idea and not actually massively different from FPTP so long as it's done that way - each of the enlarged constituencies electing directly via FPTP then across the area a 2nd MP being assigned to each of those larger constituencies based on STV results across the administrative area would ensure local accountability and if the electorate weren't happy with who they were assigned a robust process to remove them democratically would be a prerequisite as part of the reform.
As a compromise STV could even be used alongside the current system to elect a second house if election to the Commons via it were so unpalatable.
I must admit the more I think about it the more I like it. It's all kinds of democratic.
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You seem to be thinking of the system used for Holyrood and for the Senedd in Cardiff, but that isn't STV. In the top-up list system used in Wales and Scotland, you elect a representative for a constituency by FPTP, then you clump a number of constituencies together into a region and elect representatives for that region by asking voters to choose a single party via an X. The seats in the region are allocated proportionally, also taking into account the seats already won at constituency level.
It delivers reasonably good proportionality overall, and it retains a close link between a constituency and an individual representative, but the major drawback is the use of a list of candidates drawn up by the Parties to top up at regional level. In practice, what happens is, all the constituency candidates are also on their party's regional list. So even if they don't win their constituency contest, they stand a pretty good chance of getting elected, if they are high enough up their regional list (seats being allocated to the first name on the list, and then on downwards until the allocation for that party in that region is filled).
Under this system, the likes of Jacqui Smith, Neil Hamilton and Lembit Opik are almost impossible to get rid of, no matter how personally unpopular they may have become to their local electorate, because as prominent members of their party they are always going to get a prominent place on their regional list. They lose their constituency seat, but they still get in as a regional top-up.
The only way to mitigate this is to either make the party list open - so that you don't just mark your X for a party, but for a named individual from that party - or else dispense with lists altogether and go for full-blown STV, which gives voters in a given area a list of names and a requirement to rank them in order of preference. This is the system used in local council elections in Scotland, and was a precondition of the LibDem coalition with Labour in Scotland way back when the Parliament was first founded.