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March 24, 2008
What the minister said
Re-posting this, as it is very relevant. Michael Wills spoke at the MVC-Progress public meeting on electoral reform earlier this month. The Independent included this write-up the following day:
Last night, Michael Wills, the minister responsible for constitutional reform, raised the prospect of the Brown Government changing the voting system for Westminster elections as he praised the merits of the Australian alternative vote (AV) system. He told a seminar by the Progress think-tank that the Government was open-minded about electoral reform and wanted it to form part of Mr Brown's national debate on constitutional change. Mr Wills said AV could become relevant if the goal of reform was to allay fears about a government being elected on a low turnout. Under the system, voters rank candidates in order of preference, the bottom candidate drops out and second preferences are redistributed until one person wins more than 50 per cent of the votes.
He promised that any change would not be introduced for party political advantage and, even if it were, voters were sophisticated enough to get the result they wanted. Voting reform would not be introduced in time for the next general election. But it could form part of an agreement between Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the event of a hung parliament.
Posted by malcolmclark on March 24, 2008
Comments
What are the MVC's views on the government proposals?
Posted by: Brian Eastwood at March 24, 2008 07:41 PM
The government should go back to the Jenkins report on proportional representation and implement it.
Posted by: John Lipetz at April 4, 2008 07:04 PM
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