As voting participation falls, David Green, founder of the Supervote Movement argues ‘the results don’t bear any resemblance to how people vote’.
When political disengagement is first discussed, attention often turns to political parties and their ability to gather support for their ideas. Yet beyond dissatisfaction with the political parties themselves, the structure of the voting system also plays a significant role in shaping engagement. The 2024 UK general election found the second lowest vote turnout since 1928, with only 59.9% of people voting. This draws the question as to why voting levels are experiencing such a low turn out.
But beyond the wide scope of the general election, patterns of disengagement are even more prominent at a local level. For example, in Redbridge, the 2022 election demonstrated first hand the issues with the voting system, with only 33.6% of residents voting, reflecting severe disengagement.
Alongside the low participation rate, the election demonstrated the distortion between votes and the seats awarded. Labour only secured 54.5% of votes, but ended up with 92.1% of seats, leaving the other parties severely underrepresented. This poses the simple question of if people feel as though their vote doesn’t matter, are they simply opting out?
The ideology that votes are wasted and outcomes are distorted has become a central drive for campaigns calling for a voting reform. An example is the Supervote campaign, a movement challenging the continued use of the first-past-the-post, with a particular focus on reforming local elections. Founded by David Green, Supervote argues that the voting system consistently distorts results, ultimately discouraging people from voting. I had the amazing opportunity to speak with David Green to provide an interview for the East London Times, to understand more about Supervote, and his opinion on the voting system.
David has been a member of the reform movement for many years, however grew frustrated by the focus on the reform to Westminster. He believes the system causes greater problems for local communities. ‘The voting system does far more damage at a local level, and this tends to be ignored,’ David explained. ‘This led me to fire up this project, with the promise to pay as much attention to what was going on locally, as nationally.’
The UK’s democratic standing raises further questions about how the political system is functioning. According to the Economist Democracy Index 2024, the United Kingdom ranks 17th globally, with a score of 8.34, behind countries such as Norway, Denmark and Taiwan. All three examples operate a voting system that moves beyond the first-past-the-post voting system. In my interview with David, he points to this table as evidence of neglect. ‘We haven’t kept our democracy in good repair’ he argues, ‘our voting system wastes a huge amount of votes, and produces a distorted result with the remainder’. Furthermore, David suggests that the UK’s continued reliance on an outdated voting system is leaving it behind modernised democracies in other countries, adding ‘ we must change to a system of proportional representation’.
In addition, during the interview, David Green outlined the long term aims of the Supervote movement. ‘What I am doing at the moment, no one else is doing, and whilst this is much to my regret, I want to make a change’ David explained. For now, his focus is on contacting as many people as he can within the London Borough, emphasising the long term goal of Supervote to evoke change and reform. ‘I will continue with this until someone realises something needs to be done’.
A key argument posed by the Supervote campaign is the rejection of the First-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system. Supervote argues that the system is undemocratic, old-fashioned and inefficient. Alternatively, Supervote supports the Single Transferable Vote (STV), a proportional representation system. David argues that the STV system gives voters and parties accurate representation within the local community. During the interview, I asked David what the shift to a Single Transferable Vote system would mean for the average voter, David argued that it would fundamentally change how people engage with elections. ‘STV allows more voices, more ideas and a settled solution’ explained David. ‘STV opens the door to a new set of politics, which will increase participation’.
The combination of the low voter turnout, distorted outcomes and the Supervote campaign suggests that declining participation is not simply a product of political parties, but a response to the voting system in place. As campaigns such as Supervote argue, the reform of the UK’s voting system, specifically for local elections, would ensure that votes are reflected accurately within the outcomes, in turn increasing participation.
