There is a fairly lengthy discussion of regional Top-Up on Liberal Conspiracy at the moment. Here is an edited version how I answered their concerns:

As another poster pointed out, different people here are extolling the virtues of AV or STV. However, I set out to create a system that would be acceptable to the establishment. Addional Member Systems are already used in both the Welsh and London Assemblies. RTU is really just an improved version of AMS. We know that AMS works and is acceptable – we just need a way of scaling it up to a national level.

AV, as Gordon Brown is proposing is a reform red herring. It’s just a slightly different system that gives the least worst candidate, rather than the most voted for candidate. Big deal. It doesn’t address the problem of lack of proportional representation. Plus, GB is only suggesting it because he thinks that most Lib Dem voters will put Labour as a second choice. I am sure that someone ran the expected numbers on this for 2005 and AV actually increased Labour’s disproportionate majority.

Joseph Edwards:
“3) you’re still essentially taking the power of who gets elected on a list out of people’s hands. They’re being selected by a handful of (marginal) constituencies rather than all voters that they’d represent.“

OK, I understand the point (just about), but the whole concept of regional Top-Up works on elected the most popular candidates in the region. Obviously this will mean that those people standing in what would have been marginals will be more likely to get elected… but that’s because more people are voting for them! It’s an improvement over lists created by central party officials, I am sure you will agree.

Also, RTU does away with the whole concept of marginals to some extent because the two-horse race problem isn’t so prevalent, meaning that people can vote for the person/party they want (knowing that their vote will count), rather than being forced into a choice of just two.

“4) the threat is very much there that you could discourage smaller parties from standing, because their votes could deny the second-placed contender a seat. It’s a lesser problem, admittedly, but a problem all the same.”

I really can’t see that ever happening. No smaller party is going to risk losing seats in order to help a second placed candidate from getting elected. The whole point of RTU is to allow the smaller parties to compete fairly.

GB:
“People aren’t stupid, they are quite capable of marking ballot papers in order of preference, so why the need to keep a system that allows people to mark the paper with a single X?”

I don’t think that anyone is suggesting that people are stupid, but some people do seem to struggle with different mechanisms. For the 2004 London elections:

“Some 385,952 votes were unable to be counted for the mayoral poll and a further 167,071 were ruled in breach of rules for the assembly election.”

In 2008, the same thing happened; there were 466,120 rejected ballot papers.

Keeping a single ‘X’ vote makes it as simple as possible.

Lorna Spenceley:
“Interesting that the web site set up by this ex Libertas candidate doesn’t say who is behind what he calls ‘this cross-party campaign’. Looks like a one-man band effort, and a fatally flawed one at that.”

Well, it is certainly me pushing it. By cross-party I simply mean that the supporters aren’t from a single party, and I am not promoting it from a partisan position.

Dontmindme:
“Hmmm Nick Griffin, top-up member for the North East. Sounds an absolutely wonderful idea. “

Firstly, Nick Griffin is already an MEP for the BNP. Secondly, the idea of choosing an electoral system to keep out a specific party that you don’t like, despite them having widespread public support is anti-democratic. If you can’t beat the BNP through debate…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/07/european-elections-manchester-liverpool

“I really must campaign for this fantastic idea, and overturn decades, nay centuries of tried, trusted and known pratices, which have kept this country politically stable. After all what does the past have to teach the geniuses who with blank peices of paper, unencumbered by actual consequences come up with such novelties.”

If you don’t believe in electoral reform, that’s fine. You are welcome to your endless future flipping between Labour and Tory governments and ever decreasing turnouts

MatGB
“It also doesn’t address any of the actual issues that FPTP causes, and doesn’t solve the real problem nor does it help create a more diverse and representative parliament, as a return to multi-member seats combined with the re-introduction of preferential voting would.”

Er… of course it does! Did you look at the London example? It gave both a Green and a UKIP MP, as well as reducing the number of Labour seats while significantly increasing the number of Lib Dems seats. It was pretty close to a pure proportional distribution.

Lee Griffin:
“After going to the website the whole thing feels like a personal promo for the guy rather than a serious attempt at positive reform.”

Given the large photo of me, that’s slightly hard to defend against! However, I used the photo because the web page was really dull without it. I tried using flags, maps etc, but they all looked poor. I have no problem putting my name out there; it shouldn’t detract from the idea itself though.

Dontmindme:
“FPTP works extremely well in fact. Consider what an election is for. It is to elect a local representative from a constituency to go to the Comons. The make up of the commons is then determined from the aggregate of the constituencies. In acheiving this aim it is flawless. Whoever get the most vote wins.

The aim of the constituency election is avowededly NOT to create a proportional parliament. Quite the opposite”

This looks very much like a personal analysis of what Parliament and elections are for, and most electoral reformers would disagree 100%. I believe that Parliament should represent the political beliefs of the country as closely as possible. National elections are there to make that happen, IMHO.