Report to the People
14th January 2008
Voters’
Voices Come First
A
charge often levelled at politicians is that we’re out of touch.
I,
of course, am blessed with friends, family, colleagues and constituents who do a
very good job of keeping my feet firmly on the ground.
But not all politicians are so lucky and they do end up spending more
time on their own pet priorities, rather than the public’s concerns.
It
was in this detachment that the seeds of May’s elections debacle were sown.
As the independent expert drafted in to pick over the wreckage, Ron
Gould, famously reported, voters were treated as an “afterthought” when the
election arrangements were drawn up.
This,
I argued in Parliament when MSPs debated Mr Gould’s report on Thursday, must
never happen again. An electoral
system’s job is to help as many voters as possible exercise their democratic
right. And every time one of its
loopholes is exploited to gain one candidate one extra vote, the legitimate
recipient is unfairly denied that vote and, more importantly, the elector loses
their vote altogether.
Holyrood’s
Local Government Committee, the Scotland Office and others have now begun
examining how we can repair the system. And,
at the heart of these discussions, must be voters’ best interests.
Politicians
must let this important work continue and resist the temptation to go for some
quick political fix. The electoral
system is not the sole property of MSPs, MPs or councillors. It belongs to those who use it to elect, not those who are
elected.
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