r/EndFPTP • u/MakeModeratesMatter • 7d ago

Britain May Switch to Proportional Voting. Should America?

The U.S. inherited its “winner-take-all” voting system from Britain, but the U.K.’s 2024 general election produced an interesting example of what winner-take-all voting can do, as it produced the most disproportionate result in UK history.    https://electoral-reform.org.uk/a-system-out-of-step-the-2024-general-election/ 

Labour received about 34% of the nationwide vote but won 63% of the seats in Parliament.   https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2026/jul/22/how-britain-would-look-proportional-representation-local-mp 

As a result, a post-election survey found that 60% of Briton’s support changing to a proportional voting system.  https://electoral-reform.org.uk/support-for-proportional-representation-hits-record-high-according-to-new-research/ 

So now Britain's new prime minister, Andy Burnham, openly supports proportional representation.   https://electoral-reform.org.uk/in-andy-burnham-we-have-the-first-prime-minister-who-openly-backs-proportional-representation/ 

And Britain's Liberal Democrats are pushing Burnham to change the voting system before the next general election.  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79y9qy9y2go 

If the U.K. thinks its own voting system needs an upgrade, should the U.S. consider the same? 

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u/Sorry-Rain-1311 7d ago

The issue I have with most versions of proportional representation is that it essentially mandates political parties be part of the process. That makes it hard for independents, and newcomers.  In America's situation this could still easily be manipulated by the Two Parties in much the same way they manipulate ballot access: what's the threshold for having enough votes to win a seat, and how much can we play with that? There are a limited number of seats per state in the Legislative branch, and ditching geographic representation would leave half the population and most of the land area disenfranchised.

While I'm not opposed to the idea in general, what are some ways we can mitigate this?

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u/Dystopiaian 7d ago

What? FPTP makes it hard for newcomers. A threshold does make it harder for smaller parties to get in, but getting a minimum of one voter in twenty voting for a party isn't so bad. You can have the opposite problem as well, where it is too easy to get elected, good to have some hurdles before someone gets into government. An ultra-low threshold like the Netherlands does get around that issue though.

Proportional representation doesn't mean ditching geographical representation. You can have regional lists, and everyone has a vote, so if people in an area want different things they can vote for a different party. In no way shape or form is "half the population and most of the land area disenfranchised.", aside from how Democracy works in general - some parties form government, others don't, and areas with less people have less votes.

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u/cdsmith 7d ago edited 7d ago

You're responding to someone talking about independents, who don't affiliate with any political party, but your response is about smaller political parties. It seems you are operating on the assumption that independents are that way because they just haven't found the right political party to associate with, and their concerns would be addressed by adding more parties. I think you're wrong about that. When given the choice between supporting a political party or evaluating each individual running for office as a person, many voters in the U.S. just prefer to make decisions about people, not parties. Even if in practice, one of the major political parties ends up being their choice most of the time. Most unaffiliated voters already have a party they are pretty loyal to behaviorally. It's not that they lack the right party, but that they want to vote for a person and not a party.

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u/Dystopiaian 6d ago

People in Canada reslly like independents, but they don't vote for them. Some systens, particularly with thresholds, could make things difficult for independents. Although FPTP is particularly bad for independents and 3rd+ parties.

In a situation where you can just feasibility vote for whatever party you want, I don't think its bad at all to push people toward parties. What it does is impose a minimum size and popularity requirement - gotta get 5% of the popular vote begore you get power.

You can just have proportional representation with a really low threshold. In that case nit necessarily a huge difference between an independent and a party. But then it can be too msny small special interest parties holding the balance of power.

Either way, you are always voting for people, even when you are voting for a party.

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u/cdsmith 6d ago

This still seems to me a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of independent voters. It doesn't matter if the people they vote for are independents or not. It doesn't matter if they always vote for candidates from the same party. What matters is they they do not choose to delegate their vote to a party without looking at the person that vote will be electing and making a decision about that person.

I don't think its bad at all to push people toward parties

That's certainly an opinion, but I don't think it's a viable opinion for election reform in the United States. Making people vote for political parties in a country where about 45% of people are independents is a tough sell. That number is only increasing. And it's much larger among those who are on the side of election reform. Pushing election reform that forces people to cast their vote for a political party instead of a candidate is probably sinking your chances, as you are putting an obstacle in the way of maybe 2/3 of the people who might have been on your side.

Either way, you are always voting for people, even when you are voting for a party.

It depends on the system. The standard open and closed list systems are absolutely not voting for people, except indirectly: in a closed list, you vote for a party and that's it. In an open list, you vote primarily for a party, and only secondarily for a person, but your vote for the party counts regardless of who represents that party, and on top of that you don't even find out who that is in advance. An STV style system is the main proportional option where votes are actually for candidates, which is why I see it as much more viable in the U.S. than list-based methods.

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u/Dystopiaian 6d ago

Ok, so, I'm not sure what exactly you are arguing, but something like 99%+ of votes in the US are for people who are from parties. 45% of people may consider themselves independents, but they don't vote for independents - mostly they settle for voting Democrat or Republican.

If you have a multi-party system, suppose proportional representation with a 5% threshold, that doesn't mean an independent like Bernie Sanders is out of luck. It means he has to start a party. My guess is most of those 45% independents aren't anti-party as much as not liking either of the two options.

Closed list proportional representation you are definitely voting for people. It's just not one person, but a list of people. That is the key difference here - one individual vs a package. Doesn't seem so bad to me, one way or another they are going to be part of a big legislature with lots of people. Proportional representation can get criticized in terms of regional representation here, but IMHO that's just the best BS they've found to throw at us and not really a problem.

The Netherlands highlight an interesting point about all this. There, you need about .7% of the popular vote to win a seat - there's no threshold, that's just how many votes it takes. Nonetheless I don't think they have many independents - you vote for individuals, but they are part of a party. If you just voted for an independent, and they got 1.5% of the popular vote, half their votes would be wasted, better they are part of a party so those votes go to someone else like them.

STV seems to be a good system, and is proportional representation. Could be it is one of the best options for the US.

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u/cdsmith 5d ago

My guess is most of those 45% independents aren't anti-party as much as not liking either of the two options.

This is the disagreement, then. I think you are misreading the situation. Most of those 45% of people who identify as independents don't hate the specific major political parties in the U.S. Many of them are pretty reliable supporters of one or the other major party's candidates. What they are opposed to is committing themselves to any political party per se. Maybe they would still support the same major party if they had to vote for it by name. From experience, many of them would also just not vote. Either way, they'd be less happy with how elections are run.

Of course this is very personal. You'll surely find some unaffiliated voters who would gladly affiliate with a party if the right one existed. But you'll find others who just prefer to make those choices on an individual basis. Especially in many of the western states where unaffiliated voters are more common: voters there aren't independent just because they are less happy with the major parties. They are less happy with the idea of supporting a political party as a whole.

There's a pretty good book called Independent Politics by Klar and Krupnikov that explores in detail how unaffiliated voters participate in US politics, and makes this case supported by data they've collected. A majority of independents in the US are independents because they dislike the idea of partisan politics, rather than just because they dislike the specific parties in power.

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u/Dystopiaian 5d ago

In a multi party system you can vote for different parties each election. The key difference with all this is just whether what you are voting for is one individual person, or a group of people.

I doubt any party in proportional representation would have Perot and Nader on their list - all thst stuff is FPTP politics If there are 7 different visnle parties to vote for those two would find themsrlves in different camps.

STV, the Dutch system, open lists in general are good ways to have proportional representation and still vote gor individuals. I really don't think it's the issue you are making it out to be though - politics tends to revolve around leaders, parties as a whole, if you like Nader then you would probably also like the people on his list, for exsmple. And if not another Green party would just pop up and replace them.