Presentation to the ERRE Committee on Electoral Reform

My presentation is entitled “PPR123: Perfect Proportional Representation”, the ideal electoral system for the digital age.

Briefly, PPR123 is as easy as one, two, three. Voters have the same riding system. On the ballot, the voters choose their top three candidates, one, two, three. The votes are processed according to Alternative Vote, the same system Australia has used for almost a century. It does not need computers to do that. The difference comes in Parliament, because no first-place vote is ever thrown away. Every first-place vote is held in trust by an elected representative of the party of the voter's first-place vote, and cast with every vote in Parliament, thereby giving you perfect proportional representation.

I note that Professor Russell, in his address to you, said that in his opinion the first principle should be enhancing the capacity of elections to produce a House of Commons that represents the political preferences of the people. With PPR123, we carry the votes of the citizens—the honest, uncoerced, first-place vote—into Parliament with every vote in Parliament.

Now, many experts have told you that there's no perfect voting system, and I'm calling this perfect proportional representation rather conspicuously to draw attention to it and ask you to judge whether this achieves that or not. What I can say is that all existing voting systems have many well-known and serious defects, and by now, this committee must be very well aware of them. The only logical conclusion should be to look for a better alternative.