Direct Party and Representative Voting
A form of Proportional Representation for single member constituencies designed to replace the 'First past the post' plurality voting system in party based parliamentary democracies.
Direct Party and Representative Voting (DPR Voting) can be described as a modification to FPTP. The voter has one vote to choose an MP by plurality (the 'Representative' Vote) and, on the same ballot paper, one vote to choose the party to form the Government (the 'Party' vote).
The system is simple to understand, to vote, and to count. No changes to constituencies are needed. The system offers an uncomplicated form of proportional representation.
A special characteristic of DPR Voting is that every voter makes a difference to the election result.
When voting is completed, the 'Representative' votes are counted and the MP is elected in the same way as the existing plurality system. The ‘Party’ vote is totalled up firstly by constituency, and then nationwide to give a simple percentage for each party. This is used to determine the voting power each party has in the House of Commons. Each party's total voting power in the parliament is proportional to its nationwide share of the 'Party' vote, rather than the number of their MPs. Each MP is entrusted with an equal share of their party’s overall voting power, so they have, in most cases, a vote value either more or less than one, the value being expressed as a decimal.