Open Writing

Mankind seems to be addicted to democracy. Certain bits of Mankind even hold this truth to be self-evident, that Democracy is the only way to govern, never mind merely the “best”. Yet, the argument over which is the “best” has been raging for millennia. For example, Plato argued in favour of “The Republic” and, nearly two and a half thousand years down the line, his arguments still give me pause for thought.

However, I’d better not get sidetracked before I’ve even started. No matter how interesting it might be, I’m not here to argue the toss over what’s the best form of government. No, I’m here to throw up my hands in despair at the awful mess we’re managing to make of such an apparently simple idea as “rule by the will of the majority” (I’ll resist the temptation to add “regardless of whether the majority are barking up the wrong tree, or just plain ‘barking’”).

Over the years, I looked on at what was happening in the UK with what would have been amusement, were it not for the seriousness of the matter in hand. Why? Because just about every, purportedly democratic election resulted in a “rule by the will of the minority”. Eh? Yes, exactly – in the UK, and plenty of other places for that matter, Democracy regularly stabs herself in the back.

On the occasion of one particular General Election I even went so far as to do a few sums. I worked out ratios of (percentage of seats won) to (percentage of votes received), and came up with these figures:

Labour 1.56,
Conservatives 0.95,
Others 0.45,
LibDems 0.43

To be fair, these numbers should all be 1, or at least close enough to be holding hands with 1. What conclusion should we draw? Well, it's hardly what we should call “fair”, is it?

Of course, pure and undiluted Democracy, as enshrined in the “First Past the Post” (FPP) system, is inherently unfair – except, that is, for those who voted for the winner. Rule by the will of the majority was never going to be attractive to the hapless members of minorities, even quite major minorities. So, justifiably dissatisfied with their lot, the Hapless came up with the idea that representation should be proportional, and PR (Proportional Representation) was duly trumpeted by PR (Public Relations) as the one and only truly “democratic” form of Democracy. Of course, as long as the majorities rule, the minorities will have a tough time pushing PR, precisely because they are under-represented.

Nevertheless, there are some “enlightened” governments who have tried to introduce PR. I say “tried” because, although PR is so simple in principle, Mankind insists on making a right proper hash of it. It wasn’t until after I became a resident of New Zealand, and – quite coincidentally – came across Eve-Marie Wilson’s eye-opening Open Writing article about the NZ electoral system, “When A Democracy Is Not A Democracy”, that I realised just how exceedingly ingenious Mankind can be. Exceedingly ingenious, that is, at making a right proper hash of things.

Now for the really daft bit. A goodly number of years – about fifteen, I seem to recall – prior to doing the above sums, I had sat myself down and thought long and hard about this prickly problem. My approach was straightforward and obvious enough: apply ordinary “scientific method”. This approach seemed so obvious, yet, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain, nobody had ever thought of trying it before. Should I find that surprising? Probably not. What did elevate my eyebrows, though, was the outcome of my deliberations.

Although my long and hard thinking was an exercise in rigorous argument, what follows isn’t, not by any stretch of the imagination. By just talking you through the approach and discussing the ideas, I am hoping to capture your interest, or at least to avoid boring the pants off you – you see, I’m well aware that, for lots of folk, compared to psephology diazepam is a stimulant. Right, so let’s see how my reasoning panned out. First of all, what are we aiming for?

OBJECTIVE: “To devise a practicable democratic voting system”.

To avoid any confusion, let’s pin down what I mean by that crucial term:

DEFINITION: “democratic” = “parties are represented in proportion to the votes that they have received”.

I also use the following term, simply as a generality to avoid using terms like the UK’s “Parliament”:

DEFINITION: “assembly” = “the forum in which elected representatives meet to propose, discuss and vote on motions”.

My immediate thought was that the solution seems “self-evident” – if a party polls, say, 40% of the votes, it gets 40% of the seats, and so on. After a moment’s reflection I kicked myself, realising that this is not the solution, but merely another way of stating the objective. So, proceeding to the next step, what is there about the way we do things now that’s putting the mockers on PR? The principal obstacles appear to be:

(a) We LIKE the idea of backing a horse in a straight race.
(b) We NEED a constituency system so that people each have their "own" representative to deal with local problems.
(c) We DON'T LIKE the idea of voting forms that are longer and more convoluted than income tax returns.

At first glance, it would seem that the voting in a two-horse race for a single “job” is democratic. So it would seem, but no, it isn’t. The winner does indeed represent the “will of the majority”, but the result violates our definition because those who voted for the loser are not represented at all. Using our definition, even the simplest contest of all is anything but a “straight” race.

The real problem, though, is far knottier than that, because in most cases the races are much more complicated. As we all know only too well, introducing further horses makes it possible for the winner to poll less than an outright majority. The more horses you have, the more probable it becomes not only that you have DISproportional Representation, but also that even “the will of the majority” is kicked into touch – so what kind of “Democracy” is that? It’s the kind that we get by making a thorough job of our right proper hash. And it gets worse. If we think of this as smudging the race “vertically”, then tossing the constituency business into the pot compounds the problem, by smudging it “horizontally” as well.

To date, attempts to introduce PR have hinged on modifying the way voters place their bets. “Place their bets”? Shouldn’t I say, “cast their votes”? Strictly, yes, but I chose my words with a particular point in mind. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if men have raced, and placed wagers on the outcomes of races, for even longer than they’ve cast votes for tribal leaders.

Ask yourself this: why is FPP so overwhelmingly attractive to the majority of mankind? It isn’t just because of its inherent simplicity, but because it evokes the making of wagers and the thrill of the chase. Heck, even the term itself, “first past the post”, comes straight out of the racing vocabulary. I reckon that any system of PR that messes about with the electorate’s beloved FPP is in for a rough ride.

I think you’ll concur that, for most mere mortals, forms are something to be endured, and complicated forms are utterly anathema. Few folk take kindly to any voting form that is more involved than a betting slip. This is another of the main reasons why, in spite of everyone agreeing that, in itself, PR is a Jolly Good Thing, it is struggling to get over the starting line. Of course, other things put people off – for instance, nobody likes a system that is so opaque that you can’t really tell who’s winning or who’s won. Have a look at some of the popular (and I use THAT term reservedly!) PR methodologies, and you’ll see what I mean – or, rather, you will once your head has stopped swimming.

The question now seems to boil down to this: can we chuck out the bathwater but hang onto the baby? In other words, is it possible to introduce PR without sacrificing (1) FPP in general, (2) the principle of “one man, one vote” in particular, and (3) where it is needed, the system of constituency representation? On the face of it, the answer has to be “no”, because we’ve already concluded that changing the way people vote in elections is a “no go” area. Logically, the next question has to be, “So, what is there that we CAN change?”

This is the question that seems never to get asked. That’s a bit of a shame, because it’s an easy one to answer – mostly on account of there being only the ONE answer. If we have to leave the election process EXACTLY as it is, then we must change the way votes are cast in the governing assembly. The nub of the matter is to relinquish the "one man, one vote" principle, not for the electorate but for those who have been elected.

As things stand, each elected representative has exactly one vote regardless of how many people voted for him or indeed for his party. Hence, the principle I am proposing is thus: a representative’s vote will be weighted in relation to the electoral support of his party. That’s it, nothing more.

How would it work? In an election, the total votes cast for each party, expressed as a fraction of the total poll, determine the party's "group strength" in the governing assembly. You then share out that "group strength" equally between the party's elected representatives, so that each representative has an "individual strength" - a vote, but not a unit vote. The total of all the strengths of all the representatives would equal the number of representatives, and representation is in near-perfect proportion. Pop it all on a computer system, linked to (say) "Yea" and "Nay" swipe-card units in the chamber, and away you go. In passing, you may be interested to know that, at the time I was first thinking this through, computerised swipe-cards were at the cutting edge of technology.

It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? OK, so let’s be ruthlessly realistic, and survey the apparent shortcomings. Won’t it make “voting in the House” less transparent and harder to understand? Well, yes, it’ll certainly make life harder for political pundits but, as professed experts, that’s their problem to sort out.

Look at it like this: nobody has any difficulty understanding how a company shareholder’s voting power is proportional to the amount of his shareholdings. As this “power” is very similar to my “strength”, it follows that folk will have no more trouble getting to grips with the latter, will they? The details of the calculations needn’t concern the public, who will in any case see the outcome of a vote in the House just as they always did: so many “for” and so many “against”.

More seriously, my proposed PR assumes an “entry qualification”: to be able to represent those who voted for it, a party must win at least one FPP seat. However, this is not a stumbling-block but a prerequisite doubling as a necessary hurdle. Without that hurdle, every candidate who gets even a single vote would become a representative – and the elected assembly could end up resembling the electorate.

If the qualification is rigidly applied, then although there is still an approximation to PR, a substantial proportion of the electorate could well be left out in the cold. My suggested solution would reduce this potential unfairness whilst keeping that vital lid on the numbers of representatives.

You set a threshold, a number of votes below which a party “loses its deposit”, and above which the party is entitled to a “non-constituency” seat. This seat would be filled by the party’s most successful candidate (and most certainly NOT by a person of the party’s choosing!). The line has to be drawn somewhere; but just where is a practical, rather than theoretical decision.

One of the biggest beefs about PR is that it increases the likelihood of “hung” assemblies, where no single party has an overall majority. In such cases, of course, a government can be formed only if two or more parties enter into a coalition. This is regarded as a Bad Thing, for what appears to be a very curious reason.

Think about it. A party with an overall majority is a Good Thing. Generally, such a party will automatically form the government. Because of its overall majority, barring the extremely rare event of rebellion in the ranks, it gets all its own way. An individual in such a position is known as a tyrant. Hence, this party is a corporate tyrant. Therefore, Tyranny is a Good Thing. Since Tyranny is the opposite of Democracy, that makes Democracy a Bad Thing. By a process of “reductio ad absurdium”, we have deduced that a “hung” assembly is really a Good Thing.

Well, is it? Certainly we get that impression, because a “hung” assembly is riddled with bickering and sellings-out of valued principles. In fact, it’s not so much the “hung” assembly that’s a Bad Thing, as the attitudes of the parties involved. If instead we had a period of reasoned negotiation rather than bickering, and sensible compromise instead of sellings-out, there would be formed an alliance with built-in defences against any tyrannical tendency on the part of any party. Surely, that would be a Good Thing. If so, then anything that makes it more likely is also a Good Thing.

There are also a few incidental benefits, provided at little or no extra cost. Here are two examples:

There is an underhanded little practice, common in the UK, whereby the party in power pushes through changes to electoral boundaries (see “corporate tyrant” above). This, usually concealed under some (utterly transparent) banner of “rationalisation”, is aimed at increasing the party’s number of seats per vote. I’ll leave you to guess why on Earth they should want to do that! Under my system of PR, though, they could juggle the boundaries ‘til the cows came home, and they’d get precisely nowhere.

Looking at PR from the “reverse angle” so beloved of soccer commentators, it actually tells the elected just how popular they are. I would go a step further. At the moment, the vote is effectively a privilege of citizenship, a matter of personal choice. I would make it a DUTY, and failure to cast your vote without good reason would be a punishable offence. However, the sugar on the pill of compulsion would be that I’d also introduce on all voting forms a box labelled “None of the Above”. Then the elected – and everyone else – could see just how popular they REALLY are.

Of course, I know that it's not going to be quite as simple as this summary suggests. However, on and off over the years I've given it a lot of thought, and concluded that the complications are mainly practicalities. Necessarily setting aside all modesty, false or otherwise, I think that what I have here can still fairly be described as a novel approach, even after all this time. More to the point, it has the merit of offering a solution to the PR problem that is way, way simpler than the ones currently screwing up certain people’s voting systems. I can almost hear the murmurs of, “OK, so if your idea is that good, why have you been sitting on it for so long?”

Well, actually, I haven’t. I believe that the idea is too good to waste, and I am more than happy to talk this through with anybody. At various times I have tried, really I have, to bounce it off supposedly interested parties. For instance, I sent it to the Electoral Reform Society. All I got back were, basically, handouts trumpeting the standard, complicated stuff. For instance, I sent it to the press, who politely refused to be drawn into political controversy (?!). For instance, I sent it to a certain UK political party that had long complained about under-representation. They did not even afford me the courtesy of a brush-off, polite or otherwise. As the saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water . . .” I am still looking for a thirsty horse – does anybody know of one?

ã Paul Serotsky, c. 1986 - 2007

Eve-Marie Wilson’s article can be found at:
http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2007/11/when_a_democrac_1.php