With the 2005 Westminster election campaigns now in full swing, our out-dated First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system is once again showing itself to be a poor method of electing a government.  The Single Transferrable Vote (STV) system is generally considered to be the best way of voting: the Scottish parliament recently voted to introduce STV for all Scottish local elections, and they are proposing to introduce it for Scottish Parliament elections soon.  But here in England we still have a system that just doesn't meet the needs of 21st century democracy.  So what's the problem with FPTP and why is STV so much better?

FPTP simply gives victory to the candidate with the  most votes.  Well that sounds ok, and it is ok as long as only two candidates are standing in the election.  But of course there are always more than two candidates, and once that happens the FTPT voting system will not often give victory to the candidate that most people would like.  And the more candidates that stand in an election, the more likely it is that the result will not reflect the wishes of the voters.

To explain why, let's consider a simple example.  Suppose there are three candidates standing in an election.  Suppose that two candidates have similar policies with just a few minor differences.  Suppose also that under FPTP the vote goes as follows:

        Adam Stone (centre party): 25%
        Susan Chandler (centre party): 35%
        Mark Richards (right party): 40%

Under FPTP, Mark Richards wins the election for the right party, even though only 40% of people voted for him.  The majority of people, 60%, wanted one of the two centre party candidates to be elected.  If we were stuck with FPTP, the only way to find out who the voters really want to be elected would be to eliminate the candidate with the smallest vote (Adam Stone) and run another election with just Susan Chandler and Mark Richards standing.  In that election, let's suppose that all the people who voted originally for Adam Stone now switch their vote for their second choice candidate, Susan Chandler, since her poliices are very similar to those of Adam Stone.  The result of the second vote would then be:

        Susan Chandler (centre party): 60%
        Mark Richards (right party): 40%

So now we have a fair election between just two people, and the result is that Susan Chandler is elected because she had the support of more than half of the voters.  But it's not practical to hold multiple elections.  And of course if there were 6 candidates standing there would have to be 5 separate elections, eliminating one candidate each time.  The ideal solution is to get all the information from voters about their second and third choices at a single visit.  That is what STV achieves.

With STV, instead of putting a single vote on the voting paper next to one candidate, voters number all the candidates they like in order of preference.  All the first choice votes are added up, then if no one candidate has more than 50% of the votes, all the votes from the weakest candidate are transferred to their second preference candidates.  The process is repeated until one candidate has more than 50% of the vote.  That candidate is then elected.