Would a change in the voting system enhance our democracy?

There are many changes that can be made to our voting system that could possibly enhance our democracy. For example, on Thursday 5th May 2011, a referendum was held to vote on the alternative voting system, as part of the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement drawn up after the 2010 general election and was a nationwide vote. The referendum concerned whether to replace the present "first-past-the-post" system with the "alternative vote" (AV) method. The proposal to introduce AV was rejected by the electorate.

On a turnout of 42.2 per cent, 68 per cent voted No and 32 per cent voted Yes. Ten of the 440 local counting areas recorded 'Yes' votes above 50 per cent; six in London, and those in Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh Central and Glasgow Kelvin in Scotland. The campaign was described in retrospect by political scientist Iain McLean as a "bad-tempered and ill-informed public debate"

Although this voting system was not put in place due to the majority vote being no, this change in the voting system would have enhanced our democracy more. The Alternative Vote (AV) is a preferential system where the voter ranks the candidates in order of preference. Each voter has one vote, but rather than an X, they put a '1' by their first choice a '2' by their second choice, and so on, until they no longer wish to express any further preferences or run out of candidates. Candidates are elected outright if they gain more than half the votes as first preferences. If not, the candidate who lost (the one with least first preferences) is eliminated and their votes move to the second preference marked on the ballot papers. This process continues until one candidate has half of the votes and is elected. This system would enhance our democracy because due to the way the candidates are elected straight away if they receive more than half the votes, compared to the first past the post voting system where constitutional MP’s have to be elected to win a seat in the House of Commons. This is evident due to UKIP winning more than a third of the UK votes but ending up with only 1 seat overall.