1/2 a vote

Consider this hypothetical situation – the winning candidate from LFC party gets 50% of the votes polled. The next best candidate polls 40% of the votes. And this situation is predominant in the whole country. And also the LFC party has a majority in the parliament.

So now the situation at hand is one where though the ruling party represents says 50 million people, it legislates for the whole of 100 million. Now in our democracy, the winning party has the right to frame laws. That in my opinion cannot be disputed. But what is unfair is
the lack of bargaining power of the opposition, which is a minority in the parliament, even though it has got the backing of 40 million people. 

Consider the concept of a ‘half vote’:

A ‘half vote MP’ is an MP who gets the value of only half a vote in the parliament i.e. his vote will count as 0.5 votes instead of 1 vote. Now who is a ‘half vote MP’? An MP who cannot get x% of votes more than his nearest rival. How much the x% should be is written at the end. But how does this work? To better understand the concept, I’ll show how it works in an example. Assume that the strength of the parliament is 500 seats. 

Case 1:  ‘Full vote MP’s’ – 300; ‘Half vote MP’s’ – 200

Strength of the ruling party – 270; (out of which 100 are half vote MP’s)

Opposition (assuming those not in ruling party as opposition) – 230; (out of which 100 are half vote MP’s)

Now in case of voting on a bill the total votes would be 300+(200/2)=400. (200/2 is to account for all the half votes)

The ruling party would get  170+(100/2)=220 votes

Opposition would get  130+(100/2)=180 votes

Here the majority of ruling party is unchanged at 50 votes. 

Case 2: ‘Full vote MP’s’ – 300; ‘Half vote MP’s’ – 200

Strength of the ruling party – 270; (out of which 150 are half vote MP’s)

Opposition strength – 230; (out of which 50 are half vote MP’s)

Now while voting on a bill the total votes would be 300+(200/2)=400. (the same as above)

The ruling party would get  120+(150/2)=205 votes

Opposition would get  180+(50/2)=205 votes

As is evident, the opposition combined in this scenario has more than enough muscle to bargain. 

Case 3: In this case (though highly unlikely) the ruling party gets almost all the ‘half vote power MP’s’. Then the so-called opposition would actually be in a majority in the house. Insane though it might seem, when we consider the actual number of people’s votes, the opposition might’ve polled more than the ruling party. So this system actually upholds the “majority rules” principle rather than being a farce

Now the question of who should be a ‘half vote MP’ is very crucial as it determines the dynamics of the votes share in the parliament.

a)      Too many ‘half vote MP’s’ + if most of them are in ruling party, then the so-called opposition will have majority.

This will occur if the x% is very high, say 50%. Only a few political heavy weights and stalwarts can manage such a margin of victory over his nearest rival.

b)      Too few half vote MP’s and there’s no point in the whole exercise as it won’t have any significant impact on the vote shares in the parliament.

This will happen when the x is very low, say 3% or 5%. Virtually most of the MP’s can beat this margin.

So in order to have an impact and yet avoid bizarre situations, we might study the results of the last couple of decade’s election results (especially those after coalitions came into prominence) and settle upon the x%.

My belief is that this system can be a part of the electoral reforms so that most those whose vote can get a genuine bargaining power (through their representatives of course). But I can’t shake off the feeling that there are loop holes in this. If anyone can think of such sticking points please do comment.