Harborough District Councillor proposes to lobby government over ‘archaic’ voting system

A Green councillor is urging Harborough District Council to lobby government to end its ‘archaic’ voting system.

A motion, put forward by Cllr Darren Woodiwiss, to write to the government about ending the ‘First Past the Post’ (FPTP) voting method, will be discussed in an upcoming council meeting.

In the motion, seconded by Liberal Democrat councillor Buddy Anderson, Cllr Woodiwiss calls the method ‘archaic’ and says it does not reflect communities as well as a Proportional Representation (PR) system would.

The FPTP is the current method by which voters must vote for a single candidate put forward by each of the parties in their constituency. The party with the most candidates voted in forms the central government. However, although the party may have won the most seats, it may not necessarily match their popularity with the wider UK public, which many people believe to be unfair and which gives rise to ‘tactical voting’.

In the motion, Cllr Woodiwiss writes: “First Past the Post (FPTP) originated when land-owning aristocrats dominated parliament and voting was restricted to property-owning men. In Europe, only the UK and authoritarian Belarus still use archaic single-round FPTP for general elections.”

Cllr Woodiwiss is urging the district council to write to the Government and the leader of the Labour party calling for a change in ‘our outdated electoral laws’ and to enable the use of PR in all UK elections.

The motion will be discussed in a full council meeting on Monday February 26.