Voter power – is there such a thing?
Article published: Monday, May 3rd 2010
A website recently created to illustrate how insignificant a single vote is says that the average UK voter has 16.67 times more voting power than someone in Central Manchester. According to the Voter Power Index (VPI) the power of a vote in Central Manchester ranks at a staggering 605 out of the 650 constituencies, having the equivalent of 0.015 votes.
According to the VPI, there are two factors that show how much power a voter has. The first is how marginal the constituency you live in is (the more marginal, the more power) and the second is how many registered voters there are in your area (fewer voters = a more effective vote).
The site was conceived by Nic Marks of the New Economics Foundation, who had become disillusioned after voting in a constituency with a safe seat.
“I decided that if I looked at as many elections as possible I would be able to figure out what was the probability of a seat changing hands for different levels of marginality,” writes Marks, “By creating a probabilistic model I could then estimate this probability for every constituency and hence calculate (to three decimal places) the Voter Power Index.”
With the help of web designer Martin Petts, the pair set to work on creating an easy interactive website in which users can enter their postcode and receive statistics and charts demonstrating how (in)effective their vote will be. The results are often shocking, and for the VPI’s designers highlight the need for vital electoral reform in an undemocratic system. Using their models they calculated that the ‘efficiency’ of the current system runs at a mere 25 per cent.
No chance for smaller parties
The experience of Green Party candidate Gayle O’Donovan bears this out. She admitted that there was little hope of her winning in Manchester Central.
“We are highly unlikely to get a seat in this General Election for Manchester. There is, however, the possibility of a hung parliament, and this should be one of the best hopes we have for electoral reform and releasing ourselves from the choking hold of First Past The Post, and the best chance of getting left groups a voice in future elections.”
While many hold high hopes for electoral reform to a more representative system, and the Labour Party has promised to put the issue to referendum next year if re-elected, others believe there are inherent flaws which will not simply disappear with these changes in place.
Is reform enough?
Speaking to MULE, Manchester anti-election campaigner Edward Greene said, “The problem with electoral reform is that it acts as a red herring, even with a proportional voting system – like in parts of mainland Europe – the system is always going to be flawed under a liberal-democratic system. Power corrupts, so even if, say, the Green Party were voted in there’d still be the same cuts and problems we have with the current parties.”
With so little power in our own constituency is it really worth voting at all?
The VPI gives voter power in Withington 0.851, over 3 times more power than the average UK voter. A person’s influence over your elected representatives can be very different depending on where you live. However, in the 2005 general election over 40 per cent of votes in Manchester counted for nothing in the current First Past The Post system, and more than half of all voters in the country voted against their winning MP.
Joe Beech
More: Election, Manchester
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