| New voting systems more representative | | Print | |
| Thursday, 05 August 2010 10:57 | |||
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“First past the post” elections have been the method of selecting ministers from single member districts, but it has resulted in lopsided margins of victory in recent elections, despite narrow margins of victory, according to Kate Sullivan, the TCI’s Constitutional and Electoral Reform Adviser. The system means that the number of people receiving the most votes win the available seats, no matter the margin. “Some of the failings of the system are typical of the first past the post system, and not exclusive to the TCI — the most obvious of these is the magnification of margins that sees one party being able to dominate the composition of the assembly despite a small majority in terms of overall votes cast,” she said in her initial recommendations for election reform. The problem is magnified in smaller voting populations, such as the Turks and Caicos Islands. Sullivan suggested two alternative systems to make the representation more closely represent the percentage of votes cast. One is called list proportional, which effectively elects the same proportion of candidates as votes cast. If people cast 60 percent of their votes for one party, 60 percent of that party’s candidates would fill the available seats. However, during her consultations, many people wanted at least one representative per island. So Sullivan recommended a mixed member proportional system. That would let people choose six island members, one from each island, and nine territory-wide members apportioned by “a ‘compensating’ mathematical formula which distributes these territory seats so as to ensure that the overall assembly has a proportional outcome.” “Neither of these system requires the drawing of electoral districts, so the current provisions for a district boundary system would no longer be required,” she said.
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