Thread by @djstimms

Could we have a proportionally representative parliament…

*and* keep "one constituency, one MP"

*without* needing lots of "top-up" MPs to make up the numbers?

Yes! Introducing Best Fit Proportional Constituency Allocation (BFPCA). Here's how it works… 🧵

1. Divvy up seat numbers by national proportion of the vote
2. Start with smallest party, who win the seats where they got highest vote share. The local candidates gets elected
3. Then repeat the process for the next biggest party, until all seats allocated

Let's rerun 2019...

In GB, Johnson's Conservatives won 45%, so they get 283 seats. Labour (33%) get 209.

Lib Dems 76, SNP 26, Greens 18, Brexit Party 14, Plaid Cymru 4, which just leaves one seat for THE YORKSHIRE PARTY (0.1% of vote)

(excluding NI for brevity and simplicity, as no party overlap)

Let's start by giving the speaker, @LindsayHoyle_MP, his seat in Chorley. We're not animals.

(NB if we consider him the only candidate for "The Speaker Party", he does get enough votes to win the seat anyway)

Next, the @Yorkshire_Party. We need to find them one seat. Let's go where they did best: Normanton, Pontefract & Castleford. True, they only got 3.7% of *local* vote, but they got enough *national* vote to deserve a seat in parliament.

Local candidate Laura Walker duly elected!

Aside: there's no "list" system here. The ballot paper looks exactly the same, a list of parties and their local candidates, put one cross in a box.

If a seat is allocated to a party, it's their candidate in *that place* who gets the spot, keeping politics local

Next, it's @Plaid_Cymru, who bag four Welsh seats. Their top four vote shares are all in West Wales.

Then it's @brexitparty_uk, who got their highest vote shares in Yorkshire. These are mostly seats they came third in, but they are the the ones the BP has performed best in

The @TheGreenParty gain seats in Bristol and Sheffield and take out Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North, while @theSNP take a hit in the move from FTPF to a proportional system

But the @LibDems are the big winners, with 65 more seats than the paltry 11 they actually got in that election. 64 of those 65 are seats where they came second in 2019.

Out of the remaining seats, we give @UKLabour the 209 where they did best - slightly more than they got in the actual election…

… and the @Conservatives get the rest.

By now, you'll have noticed the... *ahem*... quirk in the system: in any constituency the candidate who got the most votes doesn't necessarily get elected...

BUT MOST OF THE TIME THEY ACTUALLY DO ...

In 2019, just over three quarters of constituencies would still have got their first choice. Almost all the rest get their second.

5% get their 3rd choice, and 1% get their 4th. And there's just one seat which gets its 5th choice... you guessed it, it's the Yorkshire Party

And 2019 was a landslide - in a closer election we'd expect more than 75% of constituencies to get their first choice…

So why is this a better system than First Past the Post? 🏇

When someone votes they could be doing one (or both) of two things:
1) Supporting a local candidate
2) Supporting a national party
FPTP is only designed for 1). If your fave party are small locally, tough - vote wasted

Most voters today, though, want to do 2), with a possible side order of 1) if they are more engaged. And that's what BFPCA gives them.

Your vote mainly supports your party nationally. But if your local candidate picks up more votes, they're more likely to win the seat

Party first, candidate second. And - unlike other PR systems - we get to keep local MPs: one person, accountable to and representative of a particular area.

While allowing new parties to get a foothold in local areas and bring fresh perspectives into parliament

And MPs actually have to work *harder* for their areas, as they need to maximise vote share, not just get more votes than the next party.
It strips out safe seat complacency.

I'm not aware of anyone proposing this before, but someone may have, so let me know before I patent it.

I've written about it in more detail here, with interactive maps! 🗺️

danieltimms.substack.com/p/the-new-elec…

People who might find this interesting... @electoralreform @Gilesyb @Samfr @Dylan_Difford @thomasforth @dc_lawrence @undertheraedar @jburnmurdoch @mundawepasi @Psythor