One Man One Vote

[fly258]

Is there a political party that advocates One Man One Vote in a general election rather than counting the number of constituencies?

[tartanwiz]

As far as I know, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. They advocate proportional representation, which takes the percentage of votes cast rather than the 'first-past-the-post' system we have at present.

[bernardo]

Not so - the Lib Dems and the Green Party (and others) support STV which is based on quotas, not percentages. In any case, that doesn't answer fly258's question, because he/she was not asking about PR or STV or FPTP. The question was about OMOV. The answer to the question is, as far as I know, no. I am not aware of any of the 200-plus registered parties having a policy of disenfranchising women.

[darth vader]

took me a while to work your answer out bernardo :-) You'd have to get up earlier in the morning to catch you out! (You'd have to stay up all night!)

[darth vader]

would transsexuals be included?

[fly258]

OK smart arses.....Is there a political party that advocates One PERSON One Vote in a general election rather than counting the number of constituencies? ;)

[sylvday]

What you seem to be suggesting, fly, is that if the total percentage of votes cast nationally was, say, Labour 45%, Tory 40%, Lib Dem 15%; then the 659 seats in Parliament should be allocated pro rata with those percentages. That might appear to be a fair way of allocating seats, but there would then be the problem of (a) choosing individuals to occupy those seats (presumably the national parties would have to choose them); and (b) the bigger problem of establishing some sort of link between the electorate and MPs - ie the link now provided by MPs representing constituencies, so we each know who "our" MP is. Such an electoral system would probably result in an enormous increase in the power of party central offices, and even greater apathy amongst the electorate than there is today.

[fly258]

I am not suggesting anything. I only wanted to know if any party advocates the electorate voting for a party of their choice, the votes are then added up and the party with the most votes forms the government. This in its basic terms seems to be the most democratic system and its amazing how many people think that this is how it works.

[bernardo]

fly258 - I was not being a smart a*se - I was answer ing your question. The answer to your new question is that we already have "One Person One Vote". It would still be a OPOV system if we were to adopt STV or AV or SV or a list system or AMS, or if we were to keep FPTP. If you are talking about "if any party advocates the electorate voting for a party of their choice... rather than ... constituencies", then that would be a closed list system with a single nationwide region. In which case, no, I am not aware of any party advocating such a system. There are some parties which advocate PR but without being specific about which system they prefer (e.g. the SLP) but none of them would be likely to advocate a national list system.

[JohnPPotts]

I don't know of any British party that advocates such a system, however, it is the system used in Israel (for the Knesset, their Parliament), albeit with a minimum requirement before any seats are allotted (I think 5%).

[bernardo]

The national closed list system in Israel has a threshold of 2%, not 5%. It used to be 1% but was changed a few elections ago. In the Netherlands there is no artificial threshold.