reform of the voting system

There are 659 MPs who are members of the House of Commons. In order to have a majority and form a workable Government, a political party needs 330 MPs. Currently, the composition of the Commons is:

Social Democratic & Labour Party 3

Ulster Democratic Unionist Party 5

(Stands as "Speaker seeking re-election") 1

In practice, you can see that because there are quite a few smaller parties, it would be possible to form a strong government with fewer than 330 MPs; however, such a government would also be vulnerable if all the opposing MPs voted against it.

MPs each represent a constituency, a local area, such as Loughborough, Charnwood, Hertlepool, North Norfolk, Leicester South. Roughly speaking, the same number of people live in each constituency. At the 2001 General Election, the Isle of Wight had the largest number of electors - over 104,000. The smallest number of electors - some 21,900 - was to be found in the Western

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Voters may have more of a choice of candidates using PR and it is possible that those candidates may be of better quality and represent their constituents in a more professional manner. The possibility of single-party 'elective dictatorship' is greatly diminished. FPTP may lead people into not voting for what they might see as a wasted cause. So the distribution of seats related to the number of votes could be seen to be in favour of the two big parties.

Fewer votes are 'wasted', therefore greater participation may be encouraged.

The Single Transferable Vote

An introduction

The Single Transferable Vote (STV) is a form of preferential voting in multi-member constituencies. Votes are cast by putting a '1' in the column next to the voter's preferred candidate, a '2' beside their second favourite candidate and so on until they no longer wish to express a preference.

These are only a couple of the alternatives and you should look at the web sites listed in the footnotes in order to view more options and the arguments involved. The constituency of Ross, Skye and Inverness West was the largest by area at 918,319 hectares. In most cases the turnout (those who vote) is around 60%. The party with the most MPs across the whole country forms the Government. For example, Stephen Dorrell in Charnwood had a majority of over 7,000 votes. This system is used in the regional assembles in Scotland and Wales and for the mayoral election in London.

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