The parliamentary petition site is in the news at the moment, as nearly three million people have signed a petition asking for a new general election. The petition is set to be debated on the 6^th of January, although eager petitioners might not hold their breath on the outcome. On this topic, just as on our issue of proportional representation, parliament’s petition site isn’t a magic route to changing the law.

Why doesn’t the ERS use parliament’s petition site?

As an organisation that runs petition on a variety of topics, you might have noticed we host petitions ourselves, rather than set up petitions on petition.parliament.uk. While parliament’s petition site offers opportunities that our petitions lack, there are also more substantial downsides.

Firstly, parliament’s petition site either takes away your control of the wording of the petition, or the timing. The Petitions Committee can reject a new petition if one on that topic is already live on the site. With the obvious need for proportional representation, there is nearly always a petition on electoral reform live. So we would need to either promote a petition we didn’t write, or wait to register a new one when any existing petition expires on the site – removing any control over timing.

Secondly, the benefits are not that useful. The government does respond to any petition that reaches 10,000 signatures, but we already know the government’s position on electoral reform. The Petitions Committee will consider any petition that reaches 100,000 signatures for a Westminster Hall debate, but even this isn’t what many may think. They can simply ignore the petition if they want, but more importantly, a Westminster Hall Debate is not a debate that can change any laws.

Westminster Hall debates are better understood as an opportunity to have a debate for its own sake. Often held in a side room to the historic Westminster Hall (which is different to the House of Commons) MPs make speeches, then hold a vote to say that the matter has been debated, which is the end of the process. There is no mechanism for the topic of the petition to ‘win’ the debate.

A petition also isn’t the only way to get one of these debates. Any MP can apply to run a Westminster Hall debate via a ballot arranged by the Speaker’s Office  without having to go through the petition process. So, if we want a Westminster Hall debate, we could ask a supportive MP if they wanted to organise one.

One of the biggest issues with the parliament petition site is that the data on who signed the petition becomes the sole property of the government – those whose very actions we are challenging. We can’t contact the people who sign the petition again, for instance to ask their MP to vote a certain way or to tell them more about developments in the campaign.

Will there be a new general election?

On the 6^th January, MPs will debate the petition to ‘Call a General Election’. Once MPs have had their say, they will take a vote to say the petition has been debated and that is that. There is no legal way for the debate to result in a general election.

That’s not to say parliamentary petitions are entirely pointless – we have supported petitions in the past that have reached 100,000 subscribers and generated a Westminster Hall Debate. It was an opportunity to get MPs to record for why they support or oppose electoral reform, and it provides a focus for the media to talk about an issue. You can watch videos of the MPs who spoke at the debate on proportional representation on our YouTube channel.

Likewise, the petition to ‘Call a General Election’ has generated endless column inches on whether Labour have gone back on promises made during the election, and will give opposition MPs the chance to try and set the narrative that Labour have done exactly that. It just won’t call a General Election.

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Join the Electoral Reform Society

Earlier this year, the scale of public anger at our broken voting system was revealed.

Despite no General Election being on the horizon at the time – and starting from scratch – voters shattered expectations: over 100,000 signed the Parliamentary petition for proportional representation.

That meant it was in the running for a debate in Parliament – putting fair votes back on the agenda.

Then June’s unexpected election was called. With that, and the summer recess, the Petitions Committee was suspended for months – meaning we had no idea whether this huge public response would be given the attention it deserved in the Commons.

Now though, Parliament – and the Petitions Committee – is back. And they’ve just set a debate to discuss the petition: “To make votes matter, adopt Proportional Representation for UK General Elections”.

The debate is scheduled for 30 October 2017 – giving us the next month to build the momentum for fair votes.

In the next few weeks, we’ll be writing to every MP asking them to back the motion – and we need you to, too.

The arguments for PR are stronger than ever – and that’s saying something given the travesty for democracy that was the 2015 election (the most disproportionate in UK history).

Our report on June’s vote, ‘The 2017 General Election: Volatile Voting, Random Results’, shows millions of those people’s votes are being thrown on the electoral scrapheap. 68% of votes had no impact on the result. That’s 22 million votes going to waste.

Amid that sea of wasted votes, it’s the tiny ripples that make the difference. Just 0.0016% of voters choosing differently would have given the Conservatives a majority, while the election saw rise in very marginal seats: eleven seats were won by fewer than 100 votes.

On top of that, this was the ‘hold your nose’ election: we estimate that 6.5 million people voted tactically, alongside surge in smaller parties standing aside.

It’s great news our MPs will be debating the need for fair votes, following the vote-wasting scandal that was June’s election.

Thank you for making this happen. Now let’s build the pressure to show that the desire for a more democratic, modern way of electing our representatives is even stronger than before.

Ask your MP to attend the debate

Next week voters across 21 of Wales’ 22 unitary authorities will head to the polls to decide the political make-up of their local councils.  Voters will express a view on where they want to see their council head for the next five years.  The direction of travel on a range of critical issues like council tax, social services, schools, transport and economic development will all be set.

Democracy deserts

But for nearly 140,000 the opportunity to express a view has been stolen from them by an unfair and outdated electoral system.  For them, next Thursday won’t be Election Day.

Across Wales, 96 individuals have already been elected unopposed.  The simple task of submitting nomination forms was all it took.  No need especially to phone canvass, knock a single door, or attend a hustings.   In one ward, no one submitted nomination forms.  Residents there will go unrepresented until a by-election is organised.

Electoral Reform Society Wales research shows that across the country, 12 of the 21 councils up for election contain uncontested seats.  The worst, Powys is home to an estimated 32,132 residents denied a vote.  Gwynedd has approximately 22,861 residents robbed a voice; and in Pembrokeshire its 20,038.

This is not just a problem for rural Wales. Voting won’t interrupt the daily routine of 7,085 residents in Bridgend county borough next Thursday.  Nor the 7,524 taxpayers who live in local government minister Carl Sargeant’s own constituency.

Is this a sign of a declining interest in politics?  A sign that fewer and fewer people are interested in standing?  Or is it an illustration of how our ‘winner takes it all’ First Past The Post system is crowding out competition, particularly in single-member wards?

Meaningless votes

All of the 96 democracy deserts are single member wards.  Yet seats which elect more than one member (‘multi-member’ wards) are even more unfair under the current system as a party can gain all the seats – as many as 5 – despite not winning a majority of the vote. Most ‘multi-member’ wards are held by one party, because the system doesn’t allow for a politics that accurately reflects the diverse needs and interests of the community.

Across Wales at the last local government election in 2008 two thirds of voters might as well have thrown their ballot paper in the bin as only 34% of votes cast actually got a councillor elected.

• In the Morriston ward in Swansea, Labour won ALL of the 5 seats, despite gaining 39.6% of the vote.

• In the Plasnewydd ward in Cardiff, the Lib Dems won ALL of the 4 seats, despite gaining only 44% of the vote.

Under the current system those who finish 3rd can still go on to win. In the starkest example from last election the Lib Dems came third in Cardiff according to the number of votes they won, but gained twice as many seats as the Conservatives, who won the most votes.

Votes Cast:

Seats Won:

The ‘winner takes all’ feature of FPTP is an unfairness which is repeated in county after county across the country.

The case for reform

Scotland had similar problems, but in 2007 moved to a fairer system of electing local councillors.  There are now no single member wards in Scotland.  Local voters there get to express a preference at the ballot box, ranking in order their preferred candidates.  In comparison, the Scottish local elections under STV meant that 74% of voters got their first choice of councillor elected. The unfair situation where the ‘winner takes all’ is avoided as seats are distributed more proportionately.

It’s a system that the 2004 Sunderland Commission, established by the then Labour and Liberal Democrat partnership government, recommended.   It’s a system that would have provided a vote to the 140,000 Welsh taxpayers who live in one of the 96 democracy deserts.  It’s a system that the Welsh Government must now get on and implement. Wales cannot afford to waste a further 8 years waiting for fair votes.