Method of Working
One of the first decisions was to pursue our work in an open manner inviting representations from the public. The reason behind this was twofold. We wanted to capture the widest possible range of views and opinions on the important issue under our scrutiny - to involve the public as well as those with a direct interest in electoral reform. And second, although broadly familiar with the issues, we needed quickly to build our knowledge and understanding of voting systems through ready access to information, individuals and institutions with an interest in electoral matters.
2. In considering how to conduct our analysis of the various alternative systems we decided that it was essential not only to test possible alternatives against the criteria set down in our terms of reference, but also to test them against the existing system - in effect using FPTP as the benchmark. This approach enabled us systematically to test possible alternatives not only against the weaknesses of FPTP but, as importantly, also against its considerable strengths. We believe that this improved significantly the prospects of the Commission recommending an alternative that is genuinely and demonstrably the best alternative to the existing system.
3. We decided against inviting written evidence directly from any particular individuals or organisations in favour of an open invitation to the public. We also decided against holding formal oral evidence- taking sessions which would have been incompatible with a report this autumn. Instead, we took ourselves to the main centres of population throughout the country and held 'hearings' for anyone who wished to come. These are described in more detail below.
Written Evidence
4. Written submissions to the Commission were invited through a series of advertisements in the national and regional press in the week beginning 2nd February 1998. These included, in no particular order, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, The Mail, The Express, The Sun, The Western Mail, The Scotsman, The (Glasgow) Herald, The Belfast Telegraph, The Irish News and The Belfast Newsletter. These advertisements provided details of the Commission's membership, terms of reference, and postal and e-mail addresses. At the time of publication we had received in the more than 1,500 written submissions, from members of the public, academics, political parties, Members of Parliament and various lobby groups.
Regional Meetings
5. The Commission held the following series of nine public meetings at national and regional capitals across the UK between March and July 1998:
Cardiff, 10 March
Belfast, 12 March
Edinburgh, 24 March
Leeds, 6 April
Manchester, 21 April
Birmingham, 28 April
Plymouth, 29 April
Newcastle, 5 May
London, Church House, Westminster,1 July
6. A wide range of individuals and groups received either personal invitations to or general notification of the meetings. These included, in most instances, local MPs, local government representatives, various community and interest groups, local business and trade union representatives and academics. Notification to the wider public was by means of advertisements in local newspapers and a poster campaign in local libraries, schools, citizen's advice bureaux and other public buildings. In addition members of the Commission gave interviews to the press and local media in the days preceding the meetings. Turnout at the meetings varied ranging from 10 in Belfast to 125 in Manchester and Birmingham and around 300 in London. A total of about 1,000 people attended. Around 300 contributed to the discussion.
7. We believe that the public meetings contributed significantly to our work They confirmed the existence of a rich vein of strongly held and confidently expressed views on electoral reform and related matters, which we found usefully informative. We would not, however, claim that the views expressed during these meetings were broadly representative of the British public as a whole. Those who contributed were in the main actively involved with electoral reform or local politics and, more often than not, supporting a particular system, including some keen advocates of the FPTP status quo.
8. However, a number of important themes did emerge from these meetings which have featured in our thinking and our subsequent recommendations. These include a widely expressed desire for a more consensual and less confrontational democracy, a strong opposition to increasing the power of political parties in the electoral process, and a powerful surge of support for a well planned and funded civic education campaign in the run up to the referendum.
Further Testing Public Opinion
9. The regional meetings enabled us to explore the views of particular groups within the community, but were not, as we have explained above, an adequate test of public opinion generally. We therefore invited NOP to undertake a number of focus groups on our behalf to test public views on a range of issues relating to electoral systems. NOP's report is published in Volume 2 of this report.
10. We are grateful to Charter 88 for inviting us to attend meetings with groups representing the young and ethnic minorities. These meeting took place on 20 April and 11 May respectively. Members of the Commission attended a number of other meetings to which they were invited.
Seeking the Views of Academic Political Scientists
11. The relevant academic world responded with enthusiasm to the Commission's call for written submissions. All of these submissions informed our thinking and were immensely helpful in guiding us through the miscellany of systems and hybrid system under our scrutiny. In addition we invited David Butler to chair a group of eminent psephologists in an attempt to provide agreed answers to a number of technical questions about the qualities of certain systems. We are particularly grateful to David Butler and his colleagues for their efforts on our behalf. To have a produced a consensus report on technical issues (not recommendations) where academics traditionally disagree is an impressive achievement. The report is published in Volume 2 of this report.
Obtaining the Views of Members of Parliament
12. The Commission invited all Members of Parliament to attend an open meeting in the Grand Committee Room of the House of Commons on Tuesday 30 June. Well over 100 MPs attended what proved to be a lively and informative meeting. Some Members of the Commission also attended a meeting of the All Party Group on Electoral Reform. It was, of course, open to any MP to submit written evidence to the Commission.
Examining Electoral Systems Overseas
13. We felt strongly that in order confidently to recommend an alternative to the existing electoral system, we needed to see and understand at first hand the practical impact and limitations of various electoral systems in comparable countries overseas. To this end the Commission undertook fact-finding visits to the Republic of Ireland on 20-21 May 1998 and Germany on 15-16 June 1998. Three members of the Commission travelled to New Zealand and Australia between 25 May and 4 June 1998. In the course of these visits we had access to a wide range of senior politicians (retired and active), academics, officials and political journalists. A full list of our interlocutors is at Annex F.
14. How well these countries fare under their respective systems and what we have been able to learn from them is addressed in Chapter Four of this report. Apart from New Zealand where the recent transition to MMP has raised public and media interest in electoral systems and their impact on the culture and effectiveness of government, the electoral systems were simply not in dispute. The Additional Member System has become a well established and fully accepted feature of the German democratic process. There is no serious pressure for the change from the public or politicians. Equally in Australia, the electoral systems, AV for the House of Representatives and STV for the Senate, on the whole work well and are widely supported. Similarly in Ireland STV has been operation since the 1920s and is still widely popular with the public if less certainly with the majority of politicians.
15. But three main conclusions emerged from these visits:
- The first and possibly the most important was that electoral systems can operate in very different ways in different countries. Considerable caution is needed when reading across international experience. The fact that certain countries share democratic principles, ancestry, language or culture is not sufficient to guarantee that a system will operate in the same way in each of them.
- The second was the importance of building in a review process not only to monitor the impact of any new system, but to have on-going responsibility for oversight of elections and electoral matters generally. These functions are carried out by independent electoral commissions in Australia and New Zealand.
- Third the need for a well-planned and publicly-funded civic education programme in the run up to the referendum.
Access to Submissions received by the Commission
16. The Commission wishes the evidence it has received in the course of its work to be available for scrutiny. Items of key evidence received by the Commission are being published in Volume 2 of this report which is available as a CD-Rom and on the Internet. The website number is http://www.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm40/4090/4090.htm. We have arranged for copies of this evidence also to be placed in the House of Commons and House of Lords Libraries. Public access will also be available through the Public Record Office soon after the date of publication.
Sources of data
17. The projections of outcomes for elections under the system recommended by the Commission, which are at paragraphs 155 and 157 and Annex B of this report, are based upon analyses conducted on behalf of the Commission by Professor Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics and Dr Helen Margetts of Birkbeck College. It should be noted that these projections superimposed voting patterns from both 1992 and 1997 onto the scheme proposed by the Commission and consequently projections for both elections assume a House of Commons of 659 Members. The figures relating to outcomes under AV, contained in paragraph 82 and 83, derive from projections made by Professor John Curtice and from Professor Dunleavy and Dr Margetts' work published in the volume 'Making Votes Count'. We are also grateful to Professor Dunleavy for the map at Annex C of this report and to Professor Ron Johnston of the University of Bristol for his kind permission to reproduce the graph demonstrating the changing pattern of bias.
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