Please forward this to anyone, especially ERS members, who you think would like to see it.

ERS Survey

If you are a member of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), you should have received - or will very soon receive - a survey questionnaire from the Society related to the Government's deliberations on electoral reform. It is mainly to ask members their views on what to do if the Single Transferable Vote (STV) is not attainable at present. Even though electoral reform was not mentioned in the recent Queen's Speech, discussions are still continuing and it is vital for the Society to decide whether to support the Additional Vote (AV) or the Additional Vote Plus (AV+) if, but only if, STV is not attainable just now. Sadly, those two systems seem to be the only ones the Government is considering as possible replacements for FPTP, which some Cabinet Ministers have admitted should be scrapped. (See Jack Straw under "Food for Thought" in the column on the left.)

I hope you will respond to the survey whatever your views are. The Society's Council cannot reflect members' views unless members say what they are.

AV or AV+

As you must know, the Society's prime aim is STV for all public elections because, unlike most PR systems, it increases voters' choice and power and that is not changing. It is the only system that would specifically give voters direct power to deal with MPs who have abused their expenses claims or been irresponsible. The question is not whether to abandon STV but, if it is not an option now, whether to support another system if that system looks attainable sooner than STV.

Of course you must make your own decision whether to prefer AV to AV+ or vice versa in the absence of STV, but AV is far more likely than AV+ to lead to STV. The preferential voting in AV is one of the two crucial ingredients of STV and was recognized as such last year when ERS members overwhelmingly supported a motion (proposed by Peter Morley and seconded by Mary Southcott) to introduce preferential voting in all public elections. See also Lewis Baston under "Food for Thought" on the left.

Although the perceived advantage of AV+ over AV is that it would give some proportionality, I think it is an overrated and deceptive effect for the following reasons:
It is critical for a truly democratic voting system to reflect people's views, which STV does but AV+ does not; AV+ is promoted to give parties more proportional results and, because of its design, more power as well. That also means less power for voters to choose between candidates of the same party - the only way for voters to deal with the expenses scandal.
AV+ would create two types of MP as there are, controversially, in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly.
If the country ever changed to a party proportional system like AV+ for electing MPs, the general public and most reformers outside the ERS would think the job was finished. There would be no mood for more change, so AV+ would be a dead end.
AV+ would be harder than either AV or STV to introduce because it would require the complete change of all constituency boundaries. This would be a lengthy process with the parties all lobbying for boundaries to enhance their own political prospects. I am not seduced by the argument that AV+ would lead to a balanced parliament with pressure to progress to STV. Switching later from AV+ to STV would require more boundary changes again and the prospect of this would make STV even more unlikely.
By contrast, switching to AV (choice voting in single-member constituencies) now would be simple. No constituency boundary changes would be needed; voters would simply vote, "1,2,3" etc instead of "X". Most reformers would want to complete reform by progressing later to proportionality and the easiest way to do that would be by changing to STV (choice voting in multi-member constituencies). The voting method ("1,2,3" etc) would remain the same and neighbouring single-member constituencies would simply be grouped together to form a smaller number of multi-member constituencies. (See Lewis Baston again on the left.)

NB - AV is not intrinsically less proportional than FPTP and can sometimes be more proportional: Lewis Baston (ERS Research Director) in "A Better Alternative".

* The so-called "open list" element of AV+ has minimal effect on the choice of individual candidates according to European experience.
* A referendum on AV would be more winnable than one on AV+ because -
o it would preserve single member constituencies (so beloved by the Conservative Party and many Labour MPs) for the time being whereas AV+ would introduce multi-member regions;
o it would be easier than AV+ to explain;
o Conservatives would attack AV+ as partisan, having been proposed by a Commission established by Labour with Lib Dem support;
o Conservatives would also attack AV+ for producing two types of MPs, unlike AV.

So please vote in Question 1 for (A) "The Alternative Vote"
and give your FIRST preferences in Questions 2 and 4 for the Society to -
(A) "add its weight to a campaign for a referendum on AV" and
(A) "campaign for AV" respectively

I stress that the Society will follow one or other of the courses of action proposed in the survey only if Council judges that STV is not currently attainable.

Citizens' assembly

Question 7 of the survey asks whether a referendum on establishing a citizens' assembly would be preferable to one on a voting system chosen by the Government. There are two reasons why I would prefer a citizens' assembly and hope you would too:

* It is fundamentally wrong for the elected to choose the method of their own election or to offer voters a restricted choice of methods.
* I have such faith in the superiority of STV over all other systems that I have confidence that an assembly of randomly selected citizens, who receive evidence on all voting systems and are advised professionally and neutrally, must recommend STV.

So, in Question 7, please vote for -
(B) "A referendum on whether a citizens' assembly should be established to determine the question for a future referendum".

Your views

I would like to know your views on the ERS survey and this newsletter. Do please use the link near the top of this newsletter to tell me your views on its contents or on any other aspect of STV.

More STV news
I draw your attention to www.stvAction.org.uk which contains much material relevant to STV not to be found on any other site. I hope you find it interesting and useful.

New reader?

If you do not usually receive this newsletter and would like copies in future, please use the link below to let me know.