The Quest for Proportional Representation
Damilola Omotoso / Jan 5 / Voting Systems
Whenever it’s election time in the UK or US, the case for using proportional representation (PR) is always made. This system, in its simplest form, translates votes directly into seats; therefore if a party gained 67% of the vote, they would gain 67% of the seats.
Undoubtedly such a way of voting would optimise democracy through PR producing fairer representation than the current political system, which is first-past-the-post (FPTP) in both the UK and US.
What is FPTP?
FPTP is based on a winner takes all premise, and this can be either majoritarian or pluralistic. The former, used in the Philippines, requires the winner to have 50%+ of the vote (hence it being a majority), whilst the latter does not. Pluralistic electoral systems, like that in the UK and US, mean that the winning party simply needs to have more votes than the next. These electoral rules dictate which politicians will come into power and the constituencies that they will be responsible for. In these majority and plurality systems, a single party is typically elected into office; which should allow for clear and precise responsibility as this party has been authorised by the electorate to govern.
The problem with FPTP in its pluralistic form is that government can be (and more often than not is) elected when most of the populace has voted against them. This is the case for the vast majority of British governments as the National Government of 1931 was the last to gain more than 50% of the popular vote. Is this what democracy has come to mean in the 21st century? How can a political system claim to serve the interests of its people if more than 60% of the electorate are voting against the government? It appears that 'democracy' in this instance applies to the most uniform group, as it does not take into account the wishes of those whose views are fragmented. It is no wonder why turnout is so low and that members of the public feel so disenfranchised by the electoral process if what they want is so obviously disregarded.
Calls for Changing the Status Quo
Demands for electoral reform have been made since the late 1980s, as Labour proposed a referendum under the then leader, John Smith, and this was also featured in Tony Blair's 1997 manifesto. Electoral reform has also been driven by the Liberal Democrats, as they are underrepresented by FPTP, and pressure groups such as the Electoral Reform Society. In 2011, the UK's Coalition Government (Conservative and Liberal Democrat) held a referendum to change the electoral system from FPTP to Alternative Vote (AV), a system in which voters rank candidates in order of preference, and any candidate with 50%+ of first preference votes wins. This plebiscite resulted in 67.9% of people voting 'no' to changing how governments are formed, but AV is still used in the UK to elect the Police and Crime Commissioners.
The US Electoral College has also come under fire for the way in which it distorts votes and misrepresents the will of the people. In 2016, we saw Hillary Clinton lose the election to Donald Trump, despite her winning the popular vote. How can a person who gained 48.2% of the people's vote lose to someone who got 46.1%? The Electoral College is how. This system gives States a particular number of votes for presidential candidates, and this is dependent on population size, and the number of representatives and senators in Congress for each State. The people (who I have to reiterate elect officials to act on their behalf) have no say in how their representatives vote and so the representatives can vote for a candidate that their State did not. Such a system undermines what it means to be a representative democracy and once again fosters feelings of disengagement from politics as a whole.
What would PR Mean for You?
"What's the point in voting? My choice won't change anything".
If we're not guilty of saying the above statement, we've definitely heard someone say it. This speaks to the aforementioned disillusionment of the electoral process, as FPTP does not allocate seats directly in line with the number of votes that that party gets. Yet, there is another way.
PR may be the solution (or at least a better alternative in the meantime) to resolving issues of feeling unheard by the political establishment. PR is designed to produce fair representation and so wouldn't "waste" votes. Using this process to vote would allow for a multi-party system, which would enable legislative power to be shared between several political parties, as is the case in Italy and the Scandinavian countries. Robert McKenzie, in his book titled British Political Parties: The Distribution of Power Within the Conservative and Labour Parties, noted that power swings like a pendulum in British politics. As such, multiple parties in government would halt the current swing of leadership between the two major parties in the UK and US, which are Labour and the Conservatives, and the Democrats and Republicans respectively. Smaller parties would be better represented thus meaning more people would see their views reflected in the legislature. What is democracy if not rule by the people? The UK and US are representative democracies that are not truly representative democracies. Yes, as citizens we choose others to make decisions on our behalf, but the said others we vote for do not always look like or think like us.
PR would overcome the hurdles that FPTP stumbles at, as using AV would ensure that each constituency would elect an official that the majority of the people living there want to have as their representative. Thus reflecting what the electorate wants to a greater degree.
Issues with PR
Whilst PR would greatly reduce the representation problem that FPTP creates, it is not a system without its own set of issues. As PR allows for more parties to gain seats, coalitions governments are consequently more likely to ensue. This results from people having more viable options for legislative and subsequently executive candidates, and so politics becomes dependent on the art of negotiation and compromise. Not only is this difficult when the parties in government are so ideologically different, but it also blurs political accountability and constrains the individual parties. When there is more than one party in government, it is not always clear who is responsible for what policy and its delivery. Such was the case for the UK's 2010-2015 Coalition Government, which raised university tuition fees from £3290 to £9000, despite the Liberal Democrats wanting to freeze fees and the Conservatives wanting to charge more. Both parties' actions went against their manifestos and so neither the parties nor their supporters were happy with the outcome. Needless to say, a fractioned government having to cooperate with those whose views are so inherently dissimilar slows down the political process as there is much more back and forth than with a majority government.
PR has its problems, but no more so than the current system of FPTP. Also, its advantages seem to outweigh its disadvantages: people would have their views better reflected in political institutions, albeit at a slower rate. Political accountability would be murkier under PR and would mean that manifestos are not achieved in their entirety. Yet, this is already the case in politics, as governments do not fulfil 100% of their promises. Therefore, PR is surely better than PR as a broader opinion of the electorate would be reflected in government.