There are a large number of oft-repeated tropes about electoral systems and the impact of any change away from the Simple Majority system we use for Westminster. Most of them are either lies, fallacies or half-truths. I’ve written about electoral systems a lot over the last year, but I can’t cover anything. Fortunately, Paul Davies is paid to write about electoral systems, and he’s pretty good at it as well. He’s written a series of articles over the last week debunking the main myths, and they’re definately well worth a read.

A lot of these myths are based on examples from systems that no sane people are advocating for the various UK governments, and thus should be still-born. Unfortunately, they’re not, and it seems that there will always be people that think that shouting ‘look at Israel’, ‘look at Italy’ or ‘PR gave us Hitler’ are valid arguments against electoral reform.

Those myths in full:

  1. Proportional representation means we’d end up with the same daft system as Israel/Italy/Weimar Germany.
  2. Proportional representation systems are too complicated
  3. Proportional representation, especially in multi-member constituencies, severs the sacred link between representatives and their electorates
  4. Proportional representation means policy is hidden in smoky backroom deals, not out in the open in a single party’s manifesto
  5. Proportional representation means that the small parties call the shots
  6. Proportional representation helps extremist parties get into power

Like Paul, and indeed MVC and the ERS, I favour STV; I believe it strengthens the constituency link and makes parliament both more representative and more democratic. Ultimately, no more safe seats and “A-list” candidates.

The articles, indeed the whole Make my Vote Count blog, are well worth a read; I’ll possible write up a proper summary of them as a static page on here at some point.

In the meantime, brief admin note; I’m a bit busy at the moment, but over the next few weeks, I hope to be bringing in some new contributors and opening the site up a bit more. I always wanted more writers, and there are some good ones, from across the political spectrum, that could add a lot to the site and should have a larger audience for some of their writing. In the meantime, lots to do, so little time, and it’s nearly 1am again. Getting hit by loads of trackback spam, which annoys; when I’ve got a bit more time/inclination to think, I promise to write something that isn’t about voting systems. Honest…