Dear Editor,
After the elections last week, every commentator agrees that the time of Tory/Labour two-party politics is over.
This also means that the way we vote needs to change.
First Past the Post only makes sense if two parties are competing to secure over 50 per cent of the vote.
We have just seen politicians elected with a tiny fragment of the vote.
In one ward in Birmingham, the top six candidates secured between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the vote.
This means that the winning candidate was rejected by four out of every five voters.
Democracy?
With multi-party voting, and the growth of extreme parties on the right and the left, it also means that more and more people are likely to use 'tactical voting', being forced to guess which party is most likely to beat a party which they do not want to see running our government or our councils under any circumstances.
This means that when all the votes are counted, no one can say for sure how many voters have put their cross against the candidate they really want to elect.
This puts the validity of elections in doubt, especially when the result is close.
There were very few results last week where one candidate won over 50 per cent of the vote, as happened on Taunton Town Council, where the Liberal Democrats held the Pyrland ward at a by-election with 53 per cent.
This is all very well, but is there an answer?
No voting system is perfect but we are desperately in need of electoral reform.
Proportional representation offers the best option.
By putting candidates in an order of preference, voters can vote positively for their first choice of candidate, as well as vote against the candidate or party they think will do the most harm to our communities and our country.
Tactical voting will be unnecessary.
Alan Paul
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