Closed petition Allow Proportional Representation at Local Elections

Closed on 14 January 2015

At the recent local government elections in London and other parts of the UK (May 2014) the current "first-past-the-post" electoral system served as a huge barrier to local democracy, with voters' genuine choices not reflected in the seats allocated in local councils.

Most of Europe uses variations of proportional representation in local elections, only Britain still clings to "first-past-the-post"; it is archaic and outdated. As the Joseph Rowntree Foundation concluded in a 2000 study, the system "may have the advantage of a relatively simple design but it does not always perform effectively against standard criteria used to assess the performance of electoral systems".

Some boroughs have opted to elect an independent Mayor, local governments should also be able to choose to use a fairer voting system.

We propose offering councils proportional representation (PR) at the next local elections, using the Additional Member System. Make everyone’s vote count.