Demo calls for voting reform

Adam Hewitt • Published 14 May 2010 13:00 0 Comments

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by Adam Hewitt and Valentina Jovanovski

CAMPAIGNERS voted with their feet for electoral reform at a colourful demo.

A mix of party political campaigners, pressure groups, civic society representatives and frustrated voters gathered outside Reading Civic Centre in Dusseldorf Way on Tuesday.

Adam Perry, 44, from East Reading, said: "I'm a floating voter and I think electoral reform is vital. Some form of proportional representation means everyone's vote would count. Too many people just see their vote thrown away because they live in a safe seat."

Tom Heydeman, 72, who sat as a Lib Dem councillor 30 years ago, said: "It's a lottery at the moment, you can't vote for the party you want because you have to work out how to vote against the party you don't want."

He said the Alternative Vote system (AV), which keeps single-member constituencies but allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference, was a "good first step" towards reform even though it is not proportional. A referendum on AV was one outcome of the talks that formed the new Government at Westminster.

About 40 people gathered for the protest, including Michelle Atkins who said: "I've always thought our electoral system was unbalanced. Now, there's more hope that we could do something."

PR supporter Mustafa Chaudhary - speaking the day before the Tory/Lib Dem deal was announced - said a hung parliament was a "once in a lifetime opportunity to get the system changed", adding: "We're sick of just only having red and blue".

He added: "If they don't respond to PR now, they will be totally out of step with the public. We go on about democracy in other countries, why can't we support it here?"

Newly-elected Green Party councillor Rob White urged the Lib Dem negotiators not to "sell out" to the Tories by abandoning proportional representation, but campaigner Peter Burt, who helped organise the rally, said the event was not party-political and protesters would back whichever coalition could reform the voting system.

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