The rocky progress of electoral reform in the UK Iain McLean Workshop on Electoral Methods KTH, May 2011

Outline of paper Don’t let the lawyers do the math Districting and apportionment in the UK – The historic situation – The 1944 districting regime – Apportionment in districting and in EP/other elections – The academics’ coup of 2003 – Ste-Laguë for districts, d’Hondt for parties Academic wins and losses

Don’t let the lawyers do the math UK tradition is non-numerate Apportionment/districting until recently a game for politicians/lawyers only Neither US (Jefferson/Hamilton/Webster)......nor European (d’Hondt, Ste-Laguë) algorithms known Non-lawyer academics have got involved recently, with mixed results

Districting and apportionment in UK House of Commons: single-member districts – Non-partisan but slow districting – Implicit apportionment issue: assign integer n to each county Northern Ireland: use STV to protect minorities Scotland, Wales, EP: mixed-member or list systems, implies dual apportionment (to districts, and to parties)

The 1944 districting regime for the H of C Politically bargained Guarantees minima for Scotland, Wales, but England “not to suffer” Equal-districts rule: – Low priority – Expressed as V/S: implies harmonic mean apportionment Rules formally contradictory From a contradiction anything follows

New electoral systems; new (or newly understood) problems EP elected 1979: from 1999 must use list PR Scotland, Wales: parliaments since 1999; use MMP (i.e., Germany/NZ system) Elected Lords???

Apportionment and the EP 1998: “dH fairer than S-L” Forced politicians to admit error But dH used for party apportionment No explicit method for district apportionment They probably used Hamilton but did not know it Same for Scotland, Wales, since 1999

The academics’ coup Regulator (Electoral Commission) needed to change n of EP seats Would have stumbled on non-monotonicity if had continued to use Hamilton Consults on 4 methods, none valid Academic consortium: only S-L (Webster) meets criteria EC discarded all methods and adopts S-L.

Table 1 Results of the 2009 election to the European Parliament: Great Britain PartyVotes % Actual seats (dH) Seats under S-L Actual % of seats % of seats under S-L Cons UKIP Labour Lib Dem Green BNP SNP Plaid Cymru Others Total Deviation from proportionality (Loosemore-Hanby) Source: adapted from McLean and Johnston 2009.

Academic wins and losses Won on: – Equal districts – Non-contradictory rules – S-L recognised as unique unbiased system Lost on: – Isle of Wight – Lords reform (perfect electoral system that will never be used)