Despite the downcast weather in Liverpool this week there was an upbeat mood at the Labour conference as the party celebrated its second best election result in its history and a return to government. Yet it was clear there remains strong support in the party for electoral reform from the frequent questions at fringe events and panels about proportional representation and the fact Labour won such a huge majority on such a small share of the vote. The party received 63% of the seats in Parliament on just 34% of the votes.

We had a team down at conference this week meeting with new MPs and making the case for the government to take up the pressing electoral and constitutional reforms needed to revitalise and reinforce our democracy. It was against this backdrop that we held our Democracy Reception on Monday to look over the 2024 election result and assess what it says about the state of our democracy.

Low trust in politics putting ‘pressure’ on system

The reception began with our Chief Executive, Darren Hughes highlighting how the general election had been the most disproportional in British history. He went on to say that it had also seen a number of electoral firsts, such as being the first time four parties had received over 10% of the vote. Darren said it is clear that the public are already voting as if we have a proportional system, and it is time we recognised that fact and reformed our elections accordingly.

He also warned that there is ‘structural pressure’ growing on politics as trust in the system has sunk to the lowest levels on record. The British Social Attitudes Survey found this year that 45% of people now ‘almost never trust’ the government, compared to the number being in the low teens in the 1980s, when the survey started.

Move to proportional representation means New Zealand elections now ‘reflect the will of the people’ 

Next, we heard from former New Zealand Prime Minister and current leader of the country’s Labour Party, Chris Hipkins, on what it is like to fight elections and govern under PR. New Zealand moved from a First Past the Post system in the 1990s to an MMP (Mixed Member Proportional Representation) system, which we call the Addition Member System (AMS), and is used in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. Chris said he cast his first vote in 1996, the first election to use proportional representation, and while he had shared concerns in the Kiwi Labour party about moving to MMP, it had produced a ‘very stable’ politics over the last three decades. 

He said the main shift was that the electoral system now ‘reflects the will of the people’ and has helped ‘restore public trust in politics,’ which had sunk to very low levels in the 1980s in New Zealand. New Zealand also now enjoys comparatively high turnout for general elections, usually over 80%. 

Chris also told the audience that moving to proportional representation has also brought a broader stability to politics in New Zealand, as the country no longer has situations where political parties take power on 30% of the vote, meaning ‘70% of people don’t feel represented by them’. 

“Odd” that First Past the Post makes voters work out which party they ‘like least’

After Chris, Jill Rutter, from the Institute for Government, spoke about the broader situation of how the political system is working. She said it was ‘odd’ that Britain has an electoral system that often forces voters to work out which political parties they ‘like least’.  

Jill said it should also be a matter of concern that there was such a low turnout at the last general election, with on 59.7% of eligible voters casting a vote. Jill noted there was higher turnout in the Brexit referendum than many general elections as people knew their vote would count towards the end result. 

Following the event, Chris Hipkins said: “We’ve had proportional representation since 1996 and it’s worked really well for New Zealand. We have been able to keep a really high voter turnout and voter confidence in our electoral system and in our system of government. About 80% of New Zealanders vote in our general elections, which puts us at the higher end of voter turnout around the world.  

“We have been able to avoid situations that we had under the previous First Past the Post system, where parties, and in particular the Labour Party, won more votes than their opponents but didn’t form governments as the electoral system ultimately rewarded an outcome that wasn’t actually reflective of the way people voted.” 

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Prior to 1996, MPs were elected to New Zealand’s House of Representatives using the same unrepresentative First Past The Post (FPTP) system that is used to elect MPs to the UK’s House of Commons. Since then, however, New Zealand has used the Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) system to elect MPs. In the UK, Mixed-Member Proportional is usually described as the Additional Member System (AMS).

How did this change from First Past the Post to Proportional Representation (PR) arise and does New Zealand’s journey provide any lessons for electoral reformers in the UK? Much of the information in this blog is drawn from this recently published in-depth series of articles, by Henry Cooke for the New Zealand-based website Stuff, looking back at the story of how New Zealand made the transition to PR.

Under First Past the Post, New Zealand general election outcomes displayed many similarities with those in the UK. Two parties, Labour and National, dominating and winning majorities in parliament on fewer than half the votes cast; wrong-winner outcomes (National winning parliamentary majorities in 1978 and 1981 despite winning fewer votes than Labour); and smaller parties unable to get a foothold in parliament despite sizeable vote shares, for example in 1981 the Social Credit party won almost 21% of votes but only two MPs. Of the 1,470 MPs elected under First Past the Post between 1946 and 1993, all but eleven represented either Labour or National.

Although many key figures in Labour and National were opposed to electoral reform, it crucially also had some prominent supporters. One important person in the early stages of the road to reform was Geoffrey Palmer, a Law Lecturer turned Labour MP, who briefly became Prime Minister. He was a firm believer in the need for PR and in 1978, shortly before entering parliament, he persuaded a Labour Party conference to commit to a Royal Commission on the electoral system, with a remit to consider a change to PR.

Following the two elections of 1978 and 1981, where Labour won the most votes but National won a majority of seats, Labour finally returned to power in 1984, Palmer finding himself as deputy Prime Minister, from where he launched the Royal Commission on the New Zealand Electoral System in early 1985. Palmer appointed a judge, two statisticians and two academics to the Commission but resisted pressure from within Labour to appoint politicians, as he felt their inclusion would be unlikely to lead to a recommendation of PR.

For nearly two years the Commission deliberated, visiting many European countries to better understand how their systems worked. In December 1986, the Commission published their report and recommended a system very similar to West Germany’s, renaming it Mixed-Member Proportional for the New Zealand context. The Commission felt that Mixed-Member Proportional best met their criteria of being fairer to political parties, giving voters more choice and making parliament more diverse.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Commission’s recommendation of Mixed-Member Proportional met with strong resistance from the parliamentary Labour party and MPs more generally, with Palmer being something of an outlier in his support for reform. The Commission recommended that a referendum be held on the idea on the same day as the 1987 general election but there was no way that the Labour government was going to legislate for this to happen.

Despite the Commission’s report receiving a frosty reception in parliament, it fired up support in other parts of the country. Many in the wider Labour party and trade union movement had been unhappy with First Past the Post for some time and the Royal Commission’s report provided a recommendation that they could get behind and campaign for. Then, during the 1987 election campaign, those campaigners managed to get PR firmly on the agenda. In a live TV debate, a supporter of PR asked David Lange, the leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister, if he would commit to a referendum on Mixed-Member Proportional at the next general election. Much to everyone’s surprise and to the anger of many in his party, Lange responded that he would indeed commit to referring the Commission’s report to a Parliamentary Select Committee, followed by a referendum, something that was by no means Labour Party policy. Labour went on to win in 1987 but it soon became clear that Mixed-Member Proportional would not feature in any referendum at the following general election, the Select Committee watering down the terms of any such vote and ultimately there was no referendum on electoral reform at all in 1990.

However, just as in 1987, the issue of PR rose to prominence during the 1990 general election campaign. National leader, Jim Bolger, called the broken promise a “despicable betrayal” and a backbench Labour MP put forward a bill to run an indicative referendum on Mixed-Member Proportional at the general election. Momentum built to such an extent that by April 1990 both Labour and National were pledged to hold a referendum on PR in 1992, with National promising a binding referendum on a more extensive list of reform options than just Mixed-Member Proportional versus First Past the Post.

National won the 1990 general election and Bolger became Prime Minister. Although much more sceptical of PR than Palmer on the Labour side, Bolger was another frontline politician who played a key role in reform coming to fruition, simply by keeping his promise of holding a referendum on it in 1992, despite the majority of MPs continuing to oppose reform and despite the fact his party had won a landslide victory under First Past the Post in 1990. However, the referendum was a modified version of the one that had been outlined. Instead of a one-off binding referendum laying out a number of options, the referendum was to be a two-step process.

In 1992, voters were asked two questions.

1. Did they want a change from the current voting system.
2. Of four options for change, which did they prefer – Mixed-Member Proportional; Single Transferable Vote (STV); Preferential Voting (known as Alternative Vote in the UK); or Supplementary Member (or Parallel Voting), which has some similarities with Mixed-Member Proportional but is in practice less proportional.

If the answer to the first question was ‘No’, then the process would end there. If the answer was ‘Yes’, then the most popular of the options at question 2 would be put up against First Past the Post in a binding referendum on the day of the 1993 general election, with any change coming into effect at the following election in 1996.

The outcome of the 1992 referendum was a landslide in favour of reform. Almost 85% of people voted ‘Yes’ to question 1. There was also a clear majority in favour of Mixed-Member Proportional over all of the other options. Just over 70% of people who expressed a preference voted for Mixed-Member Proportional, with the next most popular option, STV, garnering just 17.4% support. It should, however, be noted that the turnout was only 55%, much smaller than the 85% who had voted in the 1990 general election.

It has hard to pin down exactly why the result of this first referendum was so heavily in favour of changing the voting system. Polling from the time and the recollections of people involved indicate that there was a public mood of anger against politicians in general and with both of the mainstream parties. It seems likely that this contributed to a desire for change. Also, there was a mismatch between the effectiveness of the campaigns. The pro-PR campaign, led by the Electoral Reform Coalition (ERC) ran a well-organised campaign across the whole country. The campaign for the status quo was lacklustre in comparison, despite or perhaps because of prominent politicians, such as Prime Minister, Bolger, and Labour’s deputy leader, Helen Clark, speaking out in favour of First Past the Post.

The second, binding, referendum between Mixed-Member Proportional and First Past the Post, held on the same day as the 1993 general election, was to be a much closer and more keenly fought contest. Supporters of First Past the Post coalesced around the Campaign For Better Government (CBG), which was very well-funded by businessman Peter Shirtcliffe. As the campaign against Mixed-Member Proportional got into full swing in 1993, the polls started to tighten, with support for Mixed-Member Proportional dropping slightly below 50% in July 1993, having been as high as 69% earlier in the year. That month, a parliamentary select committee published details of how Mixed-Member Proportional would work in practice if it defeated First Past the Post in the referendum. The introduction of Mixed-Member Proportional would see the number of MPs rise from 99 to 120 and  a closed list system would be used for the List MPs, meaning parties, rather than voters would be in control of the order in which the candidates were elected

The CBG spent a large amount of money on advertising criticising the increased costs of extra MPs and the fact voters would not have a say in the ordering of party list candidates. However, despite being financially outgunned, the ERC now had years of campaigning and organising for electoral reform behind it and had grown deep roots across the country. Ultimately, despite a much closer result than in the first referendum, the forces of reform prevailed, with Mixed-Member Proportional winning 53.9% support, against 46.1% for First Past the Post, on a turnout of 83%. Thus, the general election held on that same day in 1993 was the last to be held under First Past the Post. The nine general elections since then have all been held under Mixed-Member Proportional and the system is firmly part of the fabric of New Zealand’s democracy.

As expected, the nature of politics in New Zealand has been changed by the switch from First Past the Post to Mixed-Member Proportional, though perhaps not as drastically as some thought it might be. The first eight general elections under Mixed-Member Proportional saw no single party win a majority of seats. However, Labour and National continued to be the biggest two parties by far, continuing to produce Prime Ministers, it is just that they have now needed to seek an element of consensus from third parties, in order to govern.

The ninth general election since Mixed-Member Proportional’s introduction, in 2020, saw this pattern broken, as Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party won a small majority of seats, having won just over 50% of the Party List votes. Despite this, Ardern still led Labour into a ‘cooperation agreement’ with the Greens, whereby the co-leaders of the Greens are ministers outside the cabinet. Such a move reinforces how the introduction of Mixed-Member Proportional has seen New Zealand politics move from a very confrontational approach to a more consensual one. And Helen Clark, the Labour deputy leader who had spoken against reform? She became Prime Minister and is now an active advocate for reform.

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A common feature of many Party List PR systems is an electoral threshold – a pre-set bar that parties have to reach if they want to win seats.

The exact level at which the threshold is set varies from country to country. The lowest is in the Netherlands, where a party has to win just 0.67% of the vote nationally to win a seat, and the highest is currently Turkey’s 10% ‘mega-threshold’ (EDIT: This was reduced to 7% in March 2022). Most electoral thresholds are, however, somewhere between 3 and 5%.

The rationale

The main argument in favour of electoral thresholds is that they reduce party system fragmentation – i.e. parties splitting into smaller ones – with countries with higher thresholds generally having fewer significant parties than those with no or low thresholds. This is typically seen as desirable as a higher number of significant parties often leads to government formation becoming more difficult. There is also a worry that, with no threshold, extremist parties can win a few seats and then use their parliamentary presence to gain legitimacy.

These concerns were apparent in the development of Germany’s 5% national threshold in the 1950s. Memories of the instability of the Weimar Republic meant there was some concern when early post-war elections saw ten parties win at least five seats. The installation of the national threshold in 1957 is often regarded as key in making Germany the bastion of moderate multi-partism that it is today.

Thresholds also aim to make sure that national parliaments are composed of parties with a national reach. This can contrast with single-member voting systems, such as First Past the Post, where parties only need to be marginally the most popular in a small area to win a seat. This is particularly apparent in the Indian parliament, where nearly 8% of seats are held by parties who won fewer than 1% of votes.

National, state or constituency?

Where you set the threshold matters. Belgium and Germany both have 5% thresholds – but Belgium’s is set in each constituency, while Germany’s is based on national vote share. This means that Belgian parties like DéFI, who win around 10% of the vote in Brussels but only 2% nationally, can win a few seats in the Belgian parliament. But German parties, like PDS in 2002, were left with no list seats despite winning more than 14% of the vote in five states, as their poor performance elsewhere left them at just 4% nationally.

In multi-tier list systems or mixed-member systems (like the Additional Member System), it is common for the threshold to include ‘get-out’ clauses for parties that achieve some success at the lower level. For instance, New Zealand’s barrier for list seats is 5% of the vote nationwide or one FPTP seat – something the Māori Party took advantage of at the last election, with their victory in Waiariki offsetting their 1% national vote and enabling them to take a list seat as well.

Nationally Imposed Thresholds

Thresholds that are based on national vote shares and which affect seat allocation at a sub-national level can have peculiar effects. The 2013 German federal election is a great example of this – 16% of voters voted for parties that failed to cross the 5% threshold. So while seats were allocated perfectly proportionally between the parties that crossed the threshold, 100% of seats were being allocated based on 84% of votes – distorting things so much that, between June and September 2017, the British House of Commons was more proportional to its most recent election than the German Bundestag!

At the national level, the 5% cut-off is clean and simple, but German list seats are actually allocated at the state level. This can create perverse results such as in the south western state of Baden-Württemberg, where Die Linke were able to win seats on 4.8% of the vote, while the FDP and AfD won no seats on 6.2% and 5.2% respectively. Nationally imposed thresholds mean that the representation of one area will be, in part, determined by votes cast in other areas and can prevent popular, regional voices from being heard.

Effective Thresholds

While thresholds are generally an effective way at reducing party system fragmentation, there are other ways of achieving this. Smaller constituencies create a higher ‘effective’ threshold making it more difficult for smaller parties to win seats. This effect can be seen in countries like Portugal as well as the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, where moderately multi-party systems have been created without the need for fixed thresholds.

Do thresholds work?

Where the efficacy of thresholds is less clear is when it comes to preventing extremist parties from winning seats. Today, most of Europe’s parliaments are home to at least one party deemed unsavoury by the political mainstream, with right-wing populist parties frequently attaining vote shares to clear even the highest thresholds – statutory or effective.

The surest guard against such parties actually comes from systems like the Single Transferable Vote – whose preferential nature and small constituency size combine to make it very difficult for small, divisive parties to win seats and can penalise larger parties that have limited secondary support.

Though, of course, if a substantive number of people vote for such parties, they should be entitled to some degree of political representation. There is little risk of many of these parties entering government as they are usually subject to a ‘cordon sanitaire’ – whereby major parties simply refuse to work with them.

The same can’t be said of situations in two-party systems under First Past the Post, where extremist factions can take over one of the parties. The logic of First Past the Post limits voters’ and elites’ ability to prevent them from winning power.

Every party system is unique – shaped by a combination of the political culture and history of a country and the rules of the voting system chosen for it. Western Europe alone presents us with a rich selection of systems varied in their breadth and purpose. As with anything even tangentially related to voting systems, the questions over what the party system would look like in a proportional Britain are often asked in electoral reform debates. Critics have tended to point to the more extreme examples. But, by looking at the experiences of similar countries and the devolved governments, we can see which kinds of party system are most probable given the sorts of voting system that are most likely to be introduced.

One of the more common scurrilous suggestions by PR’s critics is that introducing any form of PR would open the floodgates on parliamentary parties – with the new House of Commons quickly resembling the Dutch House of Representatives where 14 parties currently hold at least 2% of seats. Such high levels of multi-partyism are typically seen as undesirable as it makes government formation and stability more difficult. But the Dutch party system is only able to exist because the Dutch voting system has the lowest barrier to entry in western Europe. Due to its single nationwide constituency and 0.67% threshold, it is relatively easy to win a seat.

But no parties or serious campaign groups are proposing anything near this for the UK. The most commonly advocated for voting systems in Britain are the Single Transferable Vote (STV) – the first preference of the Electoral Reform Society – or some form of Additional Member System (AMS) – the voting systems used to elect the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments and the London Assembly. Neither STV nor AMS are particularly conducive to creating highly multi-party parliaments as parties need support in the high single-figures in at least some part of the country to win seats.

Under these voting systems we would expect the emergence of a party system more reminiscent of that seen in New Zealand, Germany or Austria. Over the last 20 years, these countries – which all have nationwide thresholds of 4 or 5% – have typically seen parliaments of between four and six parties and two-party coalition governments. The New Zealand case study is of particular note given its transition from First Past the Post to PR 25 years ago. Since then, the Labour and National parties have retained their major party status, while a few smaller but sizeable liberal, green and national populist parties have won seats at most elections. Such a party system is likely a strong contender for what might happen if Britain follows New Zealand’s path.

Similar party systems under PR have also been seen closer to home. Devolved elections in Scotland and Wales have never demonstrated anything resembling high levels of multi-partyism – the peak being the 2003 Scottish Parliament election which produced six parties with more than 2% of seats. The norm, however, has been for five significant parties in Scotland and four in Wales, with governing arrangements typically including just two parties. These low levels of fragmentation have been enabled by both the Scottish and Welsh variants of AMS having effective thresholds of over 5% in each region.

A House of Commons elected under the proportional systems that are currently proposed would most likely develop a moderately multi-party system with the Conservatives and Labour remaining as the largest, Prime Ministerial parties for the foreseeable future. They would be joined by larger, fairer blocs of a few parties such as the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and maybe one or two others, alongside the small, existing contingent of nationalist and Northern Irish MPs. Governments would typically be formed between two parties and, while other micro parties may gain the odd seat or two, this would likely be as much of a novelty as it is under First Past the Post. In all, it would be a more plural, more representative, more responsive party system, but one rooted in something familiar.

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This month has seen a renewed interest in proportional representation internationally. Willie Sullivan backed up the case for a fairer voting system in Canada, drawing on his experience in Scotland. “If you want a system of government that is better able to deal with divisions, you need a system that is based on consensus and representation of different views. Not just a black or white, wrong or right, we’re up-you’re down type of politics,” he told Canadian news outlets.

In New Zealand, ERS election research was cited as highlighting the true dangers of winner-takes-all – in contrast to PR. The election showed the value and power of equal votes.

ERS’ blogs were also picked up by the Guernsey press as they held a FPTP-on-overdrive election.

In the UK, the ERS were the only ones to draw the link over unfair distribution of Towns Fund spending, where millions were recently handed largely to marginal seats.

And we explained Labour’s newly-adopted STV voting system, as members pick the new National Executive Committee.

Voter ID back on the agenda

As the government confirms it plans to push ahead with mandatory voter ID, we put the issue back in the spotlight, as featured in the I newspaper.

We also brought together a coalition of organisations to explain the issue in this in-depth Byline investigation.

We’ll be following the conversation around voter suppression in the US with interest, with a large number of states having strict and often partisan ID policies in place this election.

Private member’s club

Darren Hughes spoke to GQ (sadly not about fashion trends) on the need for an overhaul of the second chamber. “You can understand why so many people feel ignored,” he said. “This pressure is going to come to the surface. Why not tackle it proactively and positively rather than deal with disaster and acrimony when people are fed up?”

Support for Lords reform came from all places, with Lord Jack McConnell saying he was ashamed of being part of the chamber, amid growing calls for it to be reformed. Several pieces such as this quoted our Survation poll which found just 12 percent of those polled back the Lords in its current state. In contrast, 43 percent say it must be reformed, while 28 percent say it should be scrapped altogether.

National spotlight

ERS Cymru re-launched their manifesto for Wales’ Senedd elections next May, with a full page spread in the Western Mail backing STV, greater diversity, and more resources for the Welsh Parliament.

October also saw ERS Cymru back calls for a return to virtual proceedings in the Senedd – a call that was heeded as Wales headed in to its ‘fire break’ lockdown.

In Scotland, Willie Sulilvan shined a light on corporate lobbying amid fears over legal loopholes.

Campaign rules

We kept pushing the crucial policies from the Democracy in the Dark report throughout October, as the Electoral Commission published new figures on spending which we pre-empted in our findings.

The ERS also spearheaded a letter in the FT marking the launch of the Centenary Action Group’s new report. We want to see greater transparency over candidate diversity.

And we kept working behind the scenes on vital consultations such as the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s review of the role of the Electoral Commission. UCL’s Constitution Unit drew on our evidence in this piece – well worth a read.

The pandemic has continued to highlight the dangers of hyper-centralised Westminster politics. ERS policies would go a long way to handing power back to voters across the UK. Over the next couple of months we’ll be reflecting on the US’ winner-takes-all system, exploring the need for virtual Parliament proceedings, sounding the alarm on voter ID, and continuing to push for PR both in Westminster and at a local level. Make sure you’re signed up for ERS updates so you can hear it first.

You can help get the case for reform in front of millions by supporting the work of the ERS media team – with membership of the ERS.

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The New Zealand Labour party are celebrating a landslide win, with 49 percent of the vote and enough MPs to form a single-party government on their own. This is the first time since New Zealand upgraded their electoral system to Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) – also known as the Additional Member System (AMS) in the UK – that one party has gained enough MPs to form a government on its own, but it’s a timely reminder that proportional systems don’t automatically lead to coalitions – proportional representation just supplies the parliament people vote for.

Despite achieving a majority of the vote New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern chose to sign a formal ‘cooperation’ agreement with the Green party, showing how embedded the culture of cooperation and working together endemic in proportional systems has become in New Zealand’s politics.

New Zealand isn’t the only parliament that use a form of proportional representation to have a single-party government recently. The SNP formed a government on their own in Scotland in 2011 and were only a few seats away in 2016.

No system is perfectly proportional – New Zealand has a threshold of 5% to stop tiny parties winning seats, so while New Zealand Labour nearly got a majority of the vote overall (49%), they got a majority of the votes that elected people to parliament (53% ) (These are the preliminary results, so may slightly change).

To put the proportionality of the voting system in context, with MMP the New Zealand Labour Party won 53% of the seats on 49% of the vote in 2020, while with First Past the Post the UK Labour Party won 55.1% of the seats on 35.2% of the vote in 2005. More recently the Conservatives 2019 election result where they secured 43.6% saw that translated into over 55% of the seats due to the warping effects of First Past the Post.

Across the twentieth century countries with proportional systems have had single-party governments when voters want them to. In 1957, Germany was governed by a single parliamentary group and in Ireland Fianna Fáil governed on their own with a majority in 1938, 1944, 1957, 1965 and 1977. Similarly, Malta, a country that uses Single Transferable Vote to elect its house of representatives, has not had a coalition since the 1950’s.

Unlike First Past the Post which has a bias against smaller parties whose supporters are not geographically concentrated in specific constituencies, proportional voting systems simply reflect how people vote. If people want a single-party majority, they get one; if no party is popular enough to rule alone then they have to find coalition partners.

The idea that proportional systems are designed to stop majorities is rooted in the normalisation of First Past the Post in the UK. A system where you need an advanced degree in statistics to build a Multilevel Regression and Post-Stratification model if you want to know how many seats a party on 45% in the polls will get is labelled as simple, while one where the answer is ‘about 45%’ is ‘confusing and complicated’.

Unlike First Past the Post, proportional voting systems don’t change the results of elections, warping the parliaments out of recognition from how people voted. They simply try their best to reflect how the nation votes – if you want a single party government under a proportional system you need to get out there and actually convince people to vote for you – rather than relying on the system doing the hard work for you.

Sign our petition for a fair voting system in the UK

Two news stories stood out this week. As early voting opened in some US states, images of voters queuing all day to vote were greeted as signs of enthusiasm in America but confusion outside, while early voting in New Zealand was marked by the delightful ‘scent of democracy’ – the pleasantly lemon-scented hand sanitiser available for voters.

In the UK we don’t have early voting, with all in-person voting happening on a single Thursday. Even though polling stations in the UK are open from 7am to 10pm, it can still be hard for some people to get to the polls between work and family commitments. If you are getting your kids to school in the morning, working two jobs and caring for an elderly relative in the evening it can be hard to get to a polling station even if it is nearby.

How and when you can vote is itself a political issue. If you are comfortably retired or working a 9-5 job it is easy to pop to the polls on election day. If you are struggling to juggle multiple jobs, childcare or shift work then the more ways to vote the better.

Early Voting

Early voting doesn’t work the same everywhere and different places have very different attitudes towards it. Take the US state of Georgia and New Zealand. The two countries are going into very different elections but both places, on paper at least, offer voters the same chance to cast their ballot early.

But that is where the similarities end. Georgia and New Zealand go about organising their elections very differently – in the US the First Past the Post winner-takes-all mentality is given free rein, while in New Zealand power is distributed, so no party can bend the rules to their advantage.

Long waits to vote in Georgia

In Georgia, elections are overseen by the elected Secretary of State, currently a Republican. In fact, Georgia’s current Governor served as Georgia’s Secretary of State while he ran for Governor, meaning he effectively oversaw his own election.

The rules for elections are set by Georgia’s state legislature, the General Assembly, whose powers include the ability to draw Georgia’s electoral maps. Effectively the party that wins a majority gets to decide on the boundaries under which they’re elected, moving voters between constituencies to produce a result to their favour. While formally this happens every 10 years to coincide with the census, it can also happen during each two-year term of office. In 2015, Republican legislators changed district lines for House Districts 105 and 111 to protect two Republican representatives who had barely won re-election the year before – to ensure they got more votes at the next election.

As a result, the seats in Georgia are designed in such a way that it simply isn’t worth parties fighting over them, with around 43% of seats in the upcoming elections going uncontested with the incumbent party facing no opposition at all. At the last election, just 31 of the 180 state House districts featured both Republican and Democratic candidates.

Georgia is an example of winner-takes-all to its extreme. First Past the Post produces an assembly that doesn’t represent the spread of political opinion in the state, winners can redraw the boundaries to ensure they win again. They can also set voting rules that remove people likely to vote for their opponents and have them implemented by an elected member of their party.

Some have argued that the party in charge knows that the people who use early voting tend to vote for their opponents, so don’t provide enough early voting locations.

Distributing power in New Zealand

New Zealand, however, is different. It has used the proportional Mixed Member Proportional system (MMP) to elect its governments since 1996, which means that no party can gain a disproportional advantage and change the rules in their favour. An independent electoral commission organises their elections and ensures the voting rolls are up to date. They also support the work of the Representation Commission who reviews the electoral boundaries after every census and sets the new boundaries to be used in the following two general elections.

While in the UK, the government can threaten to scrap the Electoral Commission and has the power to do it, New Zealand’s system of proportional representation entrenches consensus and cooperation in their parliament. The New Zealand Labour Party would need the support of representatives of at least half the population to change the rules, while the Conservatives have the power to change anything they like on just 43% of the vote.

The best way of protecting our democracy is to only give as much power to parties as their popular support warrants. In the UK, we should be moving as far from Georgia’s winner-takes-all model as we can.

There has been talking recently about using preferential voting to solve the Brexit impasse – whether through MPs using it to find a form of Brexit that parliament can support or through a referendum.

When there are only two options to decide between, voting is simple. Whatever happens, the majority will support one of the options. But when there are more than two options, it’s possible that none of the options will be supported by a majority. If the goal is to find out what the majority of people want, this can cause problems.

While MPs are wrestling between different forms of Brexit, Australia had this problem in the 1910s while electing their MPs.

In October 1918, a Labor candidate won a by-election on just over one-third of the vote, because conservative voters, who made up the two-thirds of the electorate, split their votes between the new Country Party and the Nationalist Party.

This meant that the majority of people were opposed to their new MP and would have preferred to be represented by a more conservative candidate.

Had Nationalist voters known that voting for the Nationalist Party candidate would have brought about a Labor MP, they would have voted for the conservative Country Party instead. What they needed was a way of expressing their second favourite choice.

The solution they came to was ‘preferential’ voting. Voters don’t just say who their favourite candidate is, but also their second favourite and so on, indicating as many preferences as they have. They simply write a number next to each candidate to indicate their preferences, rather than a cross next to just one option.

If more than half the voters have the same favourite candidate, that candidate wins. If no candidate gets the support of half the voters, the numbers provide instructions for what happens next.

At the count, poll workers look at the pile of ballot papers for the candidate who came last. These votes get moved to the piles belonging to each voter’s second favourite candidate. This process is repeated until one candidate has half of the votes and becomes the MP.

In America, they call this system Instant Run-Off voting as it is like holding a series of run-off elections – where each time, the person who came last in the previous round is excluded. But rather than coming back every weekend to vote again, voters indicate in one go who they would vote for if their favourite was excluded.

Around the world, this system is used in most of Australia’s elections and for the president of Ireland. But it has also been used in a number of referendums.

In 1977, Australia was looking for a new national anthem. With four options on the table, Australians could have ended up with a national anthem three-quarters of them didn’t really like. So, voters used preferential voting to decide. Each voter put God Save the Queen, Advance Australia Fair, The Song of Australia and Waltzing Matilda in order, with their favourite at number 1. Ultimately, Advance Australia Fair came out as the winner and became the national song.

Similarly, in 2015–16, New Zealand was looking for a new flag. Following a design competition, the public used preferential voting to decide between five designs in a 2015 referendum. The winning option then went to a one on one with the existing flag in 2016, and lost.

Another example is that of Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.). Here, in 2016, residents were asked to choose a new electoral system. Voters used preferential voting to decide between five options: Dual Member Proportional Representation, First Past The Post, First Past The Post Plus Leaders, Mixed Member Proportional Representation.

Much like the debate MPs are having around Brexit, there was one option for the status quo and multiple options for change.

At the first count the status quo, First Past the Post, was in the lead with 31% of the vote as reformers were split across four options. As the more obscure systems were excluded, votes collected around the winning Mixed Member Proportional system (supported by 52% of voters). Although no threshold had been set before the vote, the government decided that the turnout was too low and ignored the result. Another referendum on electoral reform is due to be held in P.E.I. this year.

Preferential votes have been used around the world where the government wants to put more power into the hands of voters. In each of these referendums, the government could have simply held a straight First Past the Post vote with multiple options. But this could have led to an option winning without the support of a majority of voters.

The government could also have picked a challenger song, flag or electoral system to go up against the status quo in a one on one. But how could the government know which was the best one to go up against the status quo?

When it comes to how we choose our representatives, our flags and anthems, it’s vital the winner has broad support among citizens and that voters have as much choice as possible.

Preferential voting allows for widespread support to be built around one option and ensures that the public has as much ownership of the result as possible.

As a Halloween treat, we thought we’d have a spooky stroll around the graveyard of First Past the Post. Around the world, voters in country after country, tired of it’s tricks, have chosen to bury First Past the Post.

Thankfully, this particular fiend from the past is staying in the ground. While voters in every country that uses First Past the Post are campaigning to get rid of it, there are no campaigns to bring it back from the dead. In fact, when there were referendums in Ireland and New Zealand, support for proportional representation had grown.

Let’s start our tour of the graveyard…

Australia 1918

Cause of Death: Vote Splitting

At the time of Federation in 1901, Australia used the First Past the Post voting system brought over from Britain. Thanks to Andrew Inglis Clark, an Australian Founding Father and supporter of Thomas Hare (Electoral Reform Society member and inventor of the Single Transferable Vote), Tasmania already had proportional representation.

However, First Past the Post was still used for the new federal parliament. In the 1910s, most elections in Australia were two-party contests between a Labor and Nationalist candidate.

Problems arose when the rural conservative Country Party emerged. In October 1918, a Labor candidate won a by-election on just over one-third of the vote, when conservative voters, who made up the other two-thirds split their votes between the Country and Nationalist parties. While having an MP that doesn’t represent the preferences of a majority of their constituents is the norm for many of us today in the UK, at the time politicians recognised the problem.

It was decided to bring in preferential voting.  Voters could pick back-up choices, so if no candidate reached 50% of the vote, their vote could move to a candidate more likely to get elected.

Preferential voting allowed voters to decide who they wanted their MP to be, without worrying about splitting the vote.

While it started off as a way to prevent vote splitting on the right, with the growth of the Australian Greens, it now stops vote splitting on all sides.

Ireland 1922

Cause of Death: Lack of Scrutiny

The first place in Ireland to abandon First Past the Post was the town of Sligo. In August 1917, an inquiry had blamed Sligo Corporation’s poor financial situation on ‘the neglect of proper administrative procedures’.

Just as in today’s one-party state councils, First Past the Post was discouraging proper scrutiny, so a group of prominent citizens decided to form the cross-community Sligo Ratepayers Association (SRA) to campaign for reform.

The result was a House of Commons bill changing the electoral system of Sligo to the Single Transferable Vote. It was quickly followed by the adoption of PR at a national level.

Twice politicians tried to bring back First Past the Post, and twice voters defeated them.

South Africa 1994

Cause of Death: One Party State

In 1853, the Cape Colony, a precursor to the modern day South Africa, had a relatively liberal franchise for the time, with a property qualification being set at £25. In practice, this disqualified the vast majority of black residents and all women. As more black voters reached the £25 level, they raised it to £75 and brought in a literacy rule in 1892.

As a minority of the electorate, even the black South Africans who could vote had little chance of getting representation under First Past the Post.

As well as denying them representation, it was a wrong-winner election that brought in Apartheid in South Africa. The pro-apartheid Reformed National Party won the most seats in the 1948 election, despite winning fewer votes than their main opponents.

Apartheid ended in South Africa following a long series of negotiations between the ANC and the National Party to bring about a political solution to violence and instability in South Africa.

Simply bringing in a universal franchise and keeping First Past the Post would see the ANC win almost every seat in the parliament. As a negotiating position, the complete handover of power to the ANC was never going to be accepted by the National Party or their supporters.

The threat of a coup from the extreme right was ever present. In fact, negotiations were interrupted when 3,000 neo-nazis stormed the venue where elections were being planned.

Nelson Mandela insisted on Proportional Representation to drain support from the extremists by reassuring minorities that the new South Africa would not swap white dominance for black. He was opposed by extremists on all sides, from Afrikaner diehards who thought First Past the Post could be more easily gerrymandered, to militants who wanted to eliminate white representation entirely.

New Zealand 1996 

Cause of Death: Wrong Winners

Most elections in New Zealand were two horse races from the 1930s to the 1970s, with the Labour and National Parties fighting it out.

The birth of a new Social Credit party in the 1970s started showing the weakness of this system: they got 16% of the vote in 1978 and one seat, then 21% in 1981 and two seats. In the 1984 election, the New Zealand Party won 12% but no seats.

In 1978 and 1981, the Labour Party won more votes than the National Party, but the National Party won most seats and formed the government – making a nonsense of the idea that First Past the Post lets voters kick out the government.

When the public finally got the Labour government they wanted in 1984, Labour created a Royal Commission to investigate the electoral system. The commission recommended New Zealand adopt a German-style Mixed Member Proportional system (MMP, known as the Additional Member System in the UK).

But, many in the government quite liked the power that the artificial majorities of First Past the Post gave them. Sensing an opportunity, the National Party promised a referendum on electoral reform, leading to both parties offering a referendum in the 1990 election.

In 1992, the National Party held a non-binding referendum where 85% voted to change the system, and 70% picked MMP as the replacement. A second, binding referendum was held in 1993 which saw New Zealand vote to bury First Past the Post and adopt MMP.

In 2011, New Zealand held a follow-up referendum and found that support for the MMP system had grown.