23 March 2008

Delegated Vote

This is an interesting idea about reforming democracy. I quite like the greater proportionality it introduces. Here's the article introducing it. Democracy from first principles: The Delegated Vote � OurKingdom: "In many corporations shareholders hold a different number of votes depending on the number of shares they own. My proposal (the Delegated Vote or DV), works under similar principles. Instead of an MP’s vote in parliament having a value of one, its value would be equal to the number of votes they received in the last election. If, in a constituency of 1000, the vote split 700/300 the constituency would return two representatives, with voting powers of 700 and 300 respectively."
I guess my problem is that it seem to make it even more obvious that 'my delegate' may not represent me on particular issues. I don't like the idea that 'my' vote gets aggregated into a block vote which may then be used for things I disapprove of. So unless there is also a way to help a parliamentary delegate (which is what an MP would become) to touch base with her voters on particular issues, it may be that people like me become rather more wary of using our votes lest the delegate misuses their block vote. On the other hand, that wariness could translate to a more robust hustings and a greater sense of accountability and use of MP's surgeries etc.

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"Spend and tax" not "tax and spend"

 I got a response from my MP which got me kind of mad. You'll see why as I reproduce it here. Apologies for the strange changes in types...