Majority of public say voting system is unfair |

Wednesday 28th April 2010 | 13:30

Majority of public say voting system is unfair

Voters believe we need to seriously think about changing the 'unfair' electoral system

A majority of the public believe that the current voting system is unfair, and that it is now time to start thinking seriously about alternatives, according to new PoliticsHome research.

57% of voters said that the current system of voting in the current system is either ‘very unfair’ or ‘generally unfair’, compared to 39% who think it is fair.

In addition, 54% agree with the statement that ‘we need to start seriously thinking about alternatives’ to the current first past the post system. A much smaller proportion (34%) think that ‘we are better off sticking with it’.

These results are likely to fuel speculation about the possibility of electoral reform taking place after the election.

Proportionality more important than producing clear winner

In a further indication that voters are dissatisfied with the current electoral system, voters believe that it is more important for an electoral system to reflect the proportion of votes cast nationwide than to produce a clear winner.

51% of people said that it was important for a system of voting to ‘produce a result that reflects the proportion of votes won by each party in the country as a whole’ – larger than the proportion who think it is important for an electoral system to ‘tend to produce a clear winner’.

Only about a third of voters (34%) think that it is important that a voting system ‘stops the government being a coalition of different parties’.

The most important aspect for a voting system to have was that it ‘makes an MP directly responsible to the voters in a particular area of the country’ (68%), followed by being ‘easily understandable’ (55%).

PoliticsHome interviewed 1,021 voters by email between 27-28 April 2010. Results are weighted by age, gender and political party identification to reflect the population of Great Britain.

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