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Changing the British Voting System? The Jenkins Commission Report
Professor John Warhurst
Politics and Public Administration Group
9 March 1999
Background
The Independent Commission on the Voting System, chaired by Lord Jenkins,
a Liberal Democrat peer, reported on 29 October 1998.(1) The five-member
commission, announced on 1 December 1997, was the product of a pact between
the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats prior to the 1997 British elections.
Its subject was the First Past The Post (FPTP) system by which the House
of Commons is elected.
Terms of Reference
The commission was charged by the Blair Government with recommending
the best alternative system or combination of systems to FPTP. The recommendation
would then compete against the existing system at a referendum. It was
asked to take into account four requirements drawn from the accepted strengths
and weaknesses of FPTP. These were:
- the requirement for a broad proportionality in representation
- the need for stable government
- the need to extend voter choice, and
- the desire to maintain a link between MPs and geographical constituencies.
The first and third of these requirements were seen as areas where FPTP
was weakest. The second and fourth were accepted as strengths of FPTP.
Assumptions
The commission made three assumptions which underlay its search for an
alternative. The first priority was fairness to the voters, by which it
meant that the wishes of the electorate should be represented as effectively
as possible. The second was that, in regard to the major political parties,
it did not wish either to reduce or increase their power. It respected
their role as necessary to the processes of modern democracy, while at
the same time consultation confirmed community wariness of the power of
party machines. Thirdly, the commission believed that MPs successfully
carried out two of their functions: representing their constituencies
and serving as the pool from which most ministers are drawn. But, it believed,
they were less successful in shaping and enacting legislation and in supporting
strong executive action while at the same time holding the executive accountable.
The Report
Volume 1 of the report considers a wide range of international comparisons,
including that of Australia which it describes as perhaps the system 'with
most resonance for the United Kingdom'.(2) Others it discusses include
the Republic of Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, India, the USA and Canada.
It also considers the strengths and weaknesses of a long list of voting
systems. It held a number of public hearings and delegations made visits
to other countries, including one to Australia in late May 1998. It received
a range of submissions from political parties, activist groups and academics,
which are reproduced in Volume 2.
Voting Systems Considered
- First Past the Post (FPTP)-the winning candidate has the most votes
after a single count
- Alternative Vote (AV)-known in Australia as preferential voting
- Supplementary Vote (SV)-only two preferences are allowed and only
the preferences in favour of the two leading candidates are distributed
- Second Ballot (SB)-a second ballot takes place later if the first
ballot does not produce an absolute majority for one candidate
- List Systems-proportional systems that translate a party's share of
the vote into an equivalent share of the seats
- Single Transferable Vote (STV)-proportional system with multi-member
constituencies, as used for the Australian Senate, and
- Mixed Systems-two vote systems in which voters cast votes on both
a single-member constituency and a proportional basis.
Weaknesses of FPTP
In evaluating alternatives the commission was cognisant of what it saw
as the weaknesses of the existing system. While recognising the strengths
of FPTP and the familiarity of voters with the existing system, it discussed
a long list of weaknesses, most of which would also be evident to some
extent in House of Representatives' elections in Australia, and illustrates
them by British evidence. They believe FPTP:
- exaggerates movements of votes so that it produces excessively large
majorities in the House of Commons for a winning party out of proportion
to their share of the popular vote
- is very ineffective at representing minor party support, particularly
when that support is geographically spread, as for the Liberal Democrats
rather than concentrated, as it is for the nationalist parties in Scotland
and Wales
- is geographically 'divisive' between the two leading parties, the
Labour Party and the Conservatives, each of which tends to dominate
whole sections of the country where their support is strongest to the
exclusion of the other
- forces the voter to choose between electing a constituency representative
and helping to elect the Government
- unduly focuses both the election debate and the party campaigns on
a small number of marginal constituencies; and
- is probably weaker than proportional systems at representing women
and ethnic minorities, though the evidence is not conclusive.
Seeking Alternatives
Each of the alternative voting systems demonstrably failed to meet one
or more of the requirements set down for the commission, and was not recommended.
The AV used in Australia for House of Representatives elections, and
its close relations, SV and SB, do not deliver increased proportionality.
In some circumstances, such as the 1997 election, the commission calculated
that AV would have produced less proportionality, and would have been
grossly unfair to the Conservative Party. AV also fails to address geographical
divisiveness. While it clearly increases voter choice, this alone was
not enough to sway the commission.
This led the commission to consider proportional systems. STV, a form
of which is used in Senate elections in Australia, was given very serious
consideration.(3) Eventually STV was discarded because it was seen as
too big a departure from the traditional British electoral system, and
because of a range of other perceived weaknesses. These included the complexity
of both casting and counting votes, and the likelihood that, especially
in less populated areas where there would be fewer representatives spread
over a large areas, it would threaten the direct relationship between
MP and constituent.
The commission was thus left with one or other of the mixed systems as
the only way to meet its admittedly contradictory requirements.
Recommendations
The report recommends a two-vote mixed system which it calls Alternative
Vote Plus. Under the new system:
- the first vote would elect the majority of MPs (80 to 85 per cent)
on an individual constituency basis by the AV method
- the remaining MPs would be elected proportionally on a top up basis
to redress the weaknesses of FPTP. Electors would cast a second vote
for open rather than closed lists of candidates. That is, voters could
vote for either an individual candidate or, as in Germany, for a party
list. The top up MPs would represent a small number of areas so as to
maintain their constituency links. (For instance, in England the committee
recommends 65 country or city-wide areas)
- the top up members should be allocated after the first votes were
counted. To make representation more proportional the allocation of
these members would take into account the number of constituency seats
gained by each party in each area. To be eligible for top up members,
parties would have to stand candidates in at least half of the constituencies
within the top up areas
- there would be no threshold to prevent the representation of very
small parties. Given the 'local' top up method proposed it would be
unlikely that a party with less than about ten per cent of the vote
would gain representation, so a threshold is unnecessary.
The report sees the benefit of the proposed system as maintaining the
strengths of FPTP-the MP constituency relationship and stable rather than
coalition government-while addressing the two main weaknesses:
- lack of proportionality, and
- geographical divisiveness.
Future Developments
Any change to the electoral system will not be introduced until the election
after next. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, responded favourably to the
report and has undertaken to consider it in this parliament in keeping
with the Labour Party's Manifesto commitment to call the referendum. However,
Labour is not united on this issue. The Conservative Party, in its submission
to the commission, opposed any change, and will do so again in the parliament
and during the referendum campaign. The commission recognises that there
is no groundswell for electoral reform. Given all this it would be wise
to be cautious about the prospect of reform ever eventuating.
Source:
The Guardian, 29 October 1998, 30 October 1998 (8-page special).
The Economist, 31 October 1998.
Endnotes
- Report of the Independent Commission on the Voting System, vols. 1
& 2, The Stationery Office, London, 1998. http://www.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm40/4090/4090.htm,
9 December 1998.
- ibid., vol. 1, chapter 4, p. 4.
- ibid., Chapter 6.
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