For a few years now I’ve thought that we need to change the way we vote. Sure, we have a democratically-elected government, but I’d argue that we don’t actually live in a democracy.
Too many people are ill-informed, vote on their opinions of individuals (party leaders), or just vote for the same party because that’s what they’ve always done. I may be wrong, but at a guess the large majority of the population completely ignore party policies. I don’t blame them, keeping up is often difficult and time-consuming.
My idea for reform is:
Vote not for parties, but for policies.
Similar to Vote Compass, ask people their opinion on 15-20 issues - from the whole spectrum of major down to minor.
Each party then gains points based on how closely their policies match your opinion of that issue.
The total number of points available to the parties from each voter is equal for all voters.
More important issues (as graded by that individual voter) receive more points - eg. If someone feels passionately about immigration policy, stating so ensures that a greater proportion of their points are assigned to policies related to immigration than someone who is more interested in how taxation laws for small businesses may affect them.
The added benefit is that any campaigning done by the parties would be forced to be policy-driven, rather than personal smear campaigns like we see currently.
A pipe-dream, but interesting to consider nonetheless.
