DR IAN JOHNSTON

It is clear that the Scottish election system - in particular the Holyrood system - is broken. There are several levels of problem. The unacceptably high number of spoiled ballot papers in the recent election shows that a large number of voters do not know how to vote. That might be sorted by better instructions or separate ballot papers, but leaves the second problem untouched: hardly anyone knows how the system works.

How many voters understand how list MSPs are chosen? I have a doctorate in applied mathematics, an academic career in engineering ... and not a clue about how that second cross affected the result.

This leads to a dangerous situation: when the electorate cannot understand how elections work they cannot, by definition, be expected to vote in a way which will give representative results. Apart from his lack of an overall majority, Mr Salmond has at the moment no mandate to negotiate independence (and the opposition leaders have no mandate for the union) as it is impossible to tell what the electorate really wanted. There are various solutions. We could redesign ballot papers or change the voting system - perhaps to first-past-the-post, which has the merit of simplicity. No fiddling of this sort will, however, deal with the worst problem, which is that to make an informed choice, voters need a good idea of the effect of their votes - and that means that the behaviour of other voters needs to be taken into consideration.

To solve that problem requires a radically different way of casting votes. I propose that in the interests of democracy and accountability, we should move to closed-loop voting.

At the moment all voting systems in use are open loop. That means that the electors are expected to know the effect of their votes in advance. It's like trying to run a bath to the right temperature by choosing the positions of the taps - possible, but much harder than checking the temperature and making adjustments. That process of checking the outputs and changing the inputs is feedback, and it allows a system to be controlled accurately even when its precise behaviour is unknown. I propose that feedback control is used in elections.

It would work like this. On the first day of the election, everybody who wants to vote does so. At the close of polls a result is produced and announced in the usual way. Now for the feedback loop. After that day, everyone who voted may change their vote as often as they like. As they do, the results are updated in real time - allowing them to decide whether to change (again) or let their votes stand. Once things have reached a steady state (no change in the outcome for twenty four hours), the election would be over.

This method will work with any electoral system. It would be straightforward to implement. Votes could be cast in person - electronic tallying machines are in widespread use - or online, by phone or by text message. Even under the most complicated voting system, producing real-time results would be straightforward.

The advantages would be enormous. Electors would no longer have to second-guess decisions of others, tactical voting would be effective, wasted votes reduced, dubious marginal results largely eliminated and every elected member - direct or list - would be subject to electoral approval.

Let's give the electorate control.

  • Dr Ian Johnston is a staff tutor in technology with the Open University in Scotland.
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