Speakers tbc
Tue 28 Nov 2017, 11:00 - 12:00
IF 4.31/4.33

If you have a question about this talk, please contact: Gareth Beedham (gbeedham)

A proportional electoral system with single member constituencies

 

(work with Aisling Mac Ardle)

 

Due to the first past the post (FPTP) electoral system, general election results in the United Kingdom are disproportionate to the level of national support held by political parties. In contrast, proportional electoral systems, such as single transferable vote (STV) and party list systems, provide proportional results but require more complex voting. With the goals of (i) producing election results that reflect all votes cast by the electorate, (ii) having single member constituencies and (iii) maintaining a simple voting process, as in FPTP, we have developed a novel electoral system, the Concentrated Vote (CV). CV moves votes between constituencies from candidates with low vote shares to candidates from the same party with a higher vote share. We apply CV to the results of UK general elections from 1979 to 2017, showing that CV improves proportionality over FPTP. Voter acceptance of CV might depend on the geographical unit to which it is applied.