Proportional Past the Post - The Best Voting System You've Never Heard Of (Until Now)

This is a modified transcript from this video

It's 2024. The government is stable, popular, and not divided in any way. Confidence in leadership is high. There's no two-party system, and voters can be sure that Britain is governed by the people, for the people (/s).

There may be a few that like the status quo, but some of us, quite a lot of us, don't, and believe that fixing the mess we’re in requires radical change to the way we elect our politicians. And I think I’ve got the solution, but it’s going to need to go back in time to 1987.

Politics nerds and/or people old enough to remember will probably have seen this video of a middle-aged John Cleese talking about why we need PR, a.k.a. proportional representation. The clearest and arguably most damning argument he used was this diagram, showing the then third place party, SDP-Liberal Alliance, with 26% of the popular votes and 3.5% of the seats—dramatic zoom included. But that was a long time ago. 37 years later, how do our recent elections compare?

To quantify my observations, I'm going to use what’s called the DB score (deviation from proportionality). Basically, with this calculation—it’s not as scary as it looks—you can measure how well the number of votes a party gets nationally reflects the number of seats they get in the Commons. Zero means that Parliament perfectly represents every single voter, and 100 is dictatorship. So, obviously, the goal is to get the number as low as possible. No representative system can get to zero, but a number of about 5 to 8 would be considered a good outcome.

Here are the PR systems used by the devolved governments, and here is the system we use in national elections: first-past-the-post. As you can see, it’s not great. Also, don’t be fooled by 2017—it was a mathematical outlier that only happened because the election was a close two-horse race, and there was no third party to split the vote and thus increase the score. Nothing to do with first-past-the-post being any good. And the fact that in 2015 the DB score was 24, almost a quarter of the way to a dictatorship, with other elections not very much better either, clearly shows that first-past-the-post always was and will always remain a broken system to run elections.

But going back to the previous graph, what if I told you there was a system that did this: 1.3 in 2010, 2.9 in 2015, 1.9 in 2017, and 2.3 in 2019. It outperforms first-past-the-post, all other PR systems, and the target of five for these systems to hit. It also eliminates tactical voting, is easy to understand, and keeps your local MP. Would you like to hear more?

You'd like to hear more? Well, fasten your seat belts—unfasten them, then fasten them again, but a bit tighter this time. My name is Gabriel Haynes, introducing to you my invention: Proportional Past the Post, Triple P for short.

So, how does it work? It's very simple. Similar to the ballots in Wales or New Zealand, when you go to the polls, you get two votes. One vote, the candidate vote, is a cross in the box for your favorite candidate to represent your local area, and the other, the party vote, decides the maximum number of seats each party can win in Parliament. Once all areas of the UK have counted their votes, using this formula, quotas are allocated to each party as the maximum number of seats they can win in Parliament.

For example, if Labour won 13.6 million votes out of a potential 30 million, this would give the party 294.50 seats. To avoid seat shortages when allocating MPs to constituencies, ordered from highest to lowest, and then working our way down the list, seats are allocated to parties based on which of their candidates won the largest share of candidate votes in their constituencies. Any candidates in seats that have already been allocated, or in parties that have already reached their quota, get skipped. This continues until each candidate has been allocated or rejected a seat. If all candidates in a constituency represent parties that have already filled their quotas, then the seat goes to the plurality winner.

And that's it. Ranked by vote share, allocate seats to the highest performing candidates until each party gets proportional representation and all seats have been filled. If you understand most or all of that, then we can definitely say the system is simple.

But what other problems does it solve? Well, let's start with tactical voting. In the fortnight before the last election, nearly a third of voters said to a poll they planned to use their vote tactically to prevent a party they disliked from winning their seat. This is likely out of fear of the spoiler effect—two main parties of one political leaning splitting the vote, thus letting the party opposite in policy win the seat, even though they had a minority of support overall. In Triple P, because the party vote isn’t bound by region and victories favor strong relative performance over winning plurality, there is no spoiler effect, which would greatly reduce voter disenfranchisement and elect MPs that are liked the most, as opposed to hated the least.

The weakened link between winning pluralities and getting elected also greatly reduces the power of gerrymandering, to an extent not comparable with any other system that maintains a local MP. In all PR systems with single-member constituencies, proportionality requires the use of a party list, either open (where voters choose candidates and parties; the ballot looks like this, by the way) or closed (where ranking is determined by leadership loyalty over actual performance). Proportional Past the Post is the only system of its kind that requires neither. 100% of MPs are candidates that are voted in by, and are directly accountable to, their constituents, and there’s no need for complicated rank voting that Scotland's local elections prove voters don’t understand. One cross each on two pieces of paper is easier and quicker to tally up than preferential ballots.

In 1951, the Conservatives came second in the popular vote, yet not only won more seats than Labour, but an absolute majority. This is nonsense and would never happen again under Proportional Past the Post, as the quotas would prevent parties from greatly exceeding their popular support.

The next key benefit of Triple P is the separation of popularity of candidates from parties. As individual seats are won on candidate vote share as opposed to party support, prospective MPs must galvanize personal likability and not rely on the party to do the heavy lifting for them. Popular MPs in unpopular parties are less likely to lose their seat, and vice versa for popular parties. This simplifies post-election results by clearly separating which of the two issues, party or candidate, need more work. And for voters, they get candidates that are more liked and won’t take their constituency for granted.

Most common PR voting methods require voter thresholds or regional MPs, which all but eliminate the chance for independent MPs to get elected. In Proportional Past the Post, the last four elections returned an average of three independent MPs, with small parties like the Independent Group for Change and Health Concern also picking up seats as well. Alongside increased voter choice, improving the diversity and representation of otherwise under-reported local issues, because minor parties actually have a non-zero chance of getting elected. This would encourage progressively more and more candidates to stand in future elections, which would improve voter turnout over time through an increased likelihood of candidates standing that align with otherwise disenfranchised portions of the electorate.

Possibly the best and most unique benefit to Proportional Past the Post is the competition encouraged within parties for candidates to maximize votes in order to make the quota and get elected. Winning a seat would no longer mean, “How can I scrape a majority out of fear of the other side?” Rather, “How much support can I raise for me as an individual, and how competitive can I make the seat?” With a strong enough relative performance, anyone on the ballot has a viable pathway to get elected in any seat, so no sitting MP can get complacent if they want to keep their job.

And finally, potentially most importantly, the simplicity of Proportional Past the Post and the similarities and convention it has with the current system make it an ideal pitch to voters on the doorstep. We had a referendum on Alternative Vote in 2011; see if you can find someone outside of politics that even slightly understands it. And likewise, can you summarize STV in a sentence? I know I can’t, but I can do it with Triple P, and that’s what would win it for most voters given the choice of what alternative to use instead of first-past-the-post.

So, to summarise, support Proportional Past the Post and you’ll get arguably the most proportional election system for the UK: no spoiler effect or tactical voting, significantly reduced power of gerrymandering, 100% MP accountability with no complicated or corrupt party lists, a simple ballot that’s easy to understand, no wrong-winner elections, separation of candidate liability from parties, increased voter choice as smaller parties now have best odds of getting elected, the only system to encourage competition within parties, and the best system to explain to politically disengaged voters. When can it be done? I’d say pretty bloody good reasons to back Proportional Past the Post.

Share the video. Get as many people talking about this idea as possible. If politicians know it’s got popular support, then winning them over will be a lot easier. Write to your local MP. Once again, strength in numbers. If your vote depends on getting this idea through, then they will listen, but you have to get on their radar first. For any further questions or to arrange a chat with me in person or on video call, please contact the email on the screen now. And please let me know who you are and how you discovered this proposition. As of recording, this campaign has membership of one—no prizes for guessing who. So, building up grassroots support with your help is absolutely going to be needed going forward.

Proportional Past the Post. Let’s make our voices heard. Thank you for reading.