3-member STV for general elections

[Floppy]

Let's have 3-member STV so that we have truly proportional representation. 3 members is still a small enough number that people can know their representatives, I think.

[PaulJRobinson]

👍

[digitalWestie]

👍

[frankieroberto]

👎 the 'localness' of MPs is overplayed, given that that's such a small part of their role. Consequently, I'd like to see much larger constituencies, or even abolishing constituencies altogether. Otherwise, elections still remain biased towards parties/candidates with concentrated support in one area, rather than having the same or higher levels of support that's spread out nationally.

[tmtmtmtm]

What does "General election boundaries should be redrawn" actually mean here? Is the idea to maintain the same number of MPs — i.e. there would now be just over 200 constituencies?

[Floppy]

@frankieroberto 3-member STV should go a long way towards that - constituencies would be larger, and would be elected proportionally within that. Would this not be a step in the direction that you want?

@tmtmtmtm Yes, basically, constituencies would be merged. I have a plan for a better boundary proposal separately forming in my head.

[tmtmtmtm]

How would this interact with the Scottish/Welsh/Northern Irish Parliaments/Assemblies? I don't know much about the others, but in Northern Ireland the constituencies for the Assembly are defined as being the same as those for Westminster, and altering that could be fraught with peril.

[Floppy]

I suppose that as an initial implementation you could merge 3 constituencies for the westminster votes, but leave them the same for the others. However, we do propose STV for all elections, so that would affect devolved assembly votes as well, though we don't mention multi-member for areas other than westminster.

[philipjohn]

👍

[tmtmtmtm]

I'd like to see the rationale for this spelled out more explicitly. At the minute it seems rather arbitrary as to why this would be the best approach, or at least it builds on a lot of unstated assumptions. Avoiding that is a good idea generally, but it's even more important in this area, in light of the failed AV referendum.

[Floppy]

@frankieroberto could we get you to remove your block on this and give it a 👍?

I understand your proposal, but I do think that this is a step in that direction. Therefore, could we merge it in and then ask you to propose your ideal system in another PR?

If I understand your idea, that change would basically mean changing the number of members per constituency (up to ~650, if you had full PR). This proposal is a major change from single-member to multi-member constituencies, so I'm pretty sure it's inherently part of what you want.

@tmtmtmtm the rationale for this is that it gives you a decent level of proper PR. Moving to STV is already in there, this improves proportionality by moving to a minimal multi-member system. Perhaps we want to go further, as @frankieroberto suggests, but I think we all know that FPTP is a tremendously disempowering system for voters. I believe that multi-member STV is the preferred system of the Electoral Reform Society, though I've not been able to track down an explicit reference for that on their site.

[Floppy]

@frankieroberto any comments on this? We'd love to get your block removed so we can merge it. It's definitely a step in the direction you want, and we'd love to have another proposal from you for your ideal system. Can we move on?

[Floppy]

Going to close this, rephrase, and reopen.

[Floppy]

See #306 for the new version. It says "at least 3" members, so it would in theory allow a fully proportional system.

[Floppy]

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