maff wrote:
Electoral reform: Why it's time for change
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=637189
By Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent
10 May 2005
The Government is facing calls for a wholesale review of the voting
system after the general election was condemned as a "travesty of
democracy". Politicians from all parties demanded that the
first-past-the-post system be scrapped after Labour formed a
Government
with the smallest share of the vote for more than 100 years.
Constitutional specialists said Tony Blair was in charge of an
"elected
dictatorship" after Labour was able to win a majority with only 36
per
cent of the vote. They say the Prime Minister is able to hold power
with the support of just a fifth of the British adult population, the
lowest figure since the Great Reform Act of 1832.
Every Commonwealth country with the Westminster Parliamentary system
has the same calls for electoral reform at just about every general
election. It happens regularly here in Canada.
In BC we have a provincial election next week, in which we also have
the very rare opportunity to vote on a referendum on electoral reform.
While I have some misgivings about the proposed system (single
transferable vote) I will be voting yes.
Dean
.
