I was chatting with Sarah the other day about the upcoming local elections, and she was lamenting how her vote felt utterly wasted on her usual party. She knows their candidate hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of winning in her ward, but she votes for them anyway out of loyalty. It got me thinking about how absurd our current system is, particularly this bloc voting nonsense in local councils. It leads to safe seats and seats where the winner might only get 30% of the vote, leaving the vast majority of people feeling unrepresented.
This is why I'm proposing a move to a Proportional Representation system, specifically the Single Transferable Vote (STV), for all local and national elections. STV allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. If your first choice doesn't win, your vote transfers to your second choice, and so on.
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But what happens when the local council needs to make a tough decision, say about building a new bypass that will upset some people but benefit many more? Does STV make it harder for a representative to stand by that difficult choice if their popularity relies on a long list of preferences rather than a clear mandate from a specific area? It feels like it could soften accountability.