New tool for tactical votes in Tory-held seats aims to change voting system

Campaigners pushing for electoral reform have launched an online tool urging the public to “swap votes” with others to back candidates supporting proportional representation.

The Win As One site is attempting to stop the centre-left vote splitting between Labour, Greens and Lib Dems by encouraging tactical votes in Tory-held seats.

But it will funnel support towards candidates who back overhauling the way the UK voting system works, including scrapping the first past the post (FPTP) system and replacing it with “proportional representation”.

Neither Labour nor the Conservative Party have said they want to end FPTP, which tends to favour the larger parties.

But smaller parties have supported changing the system – to mirror the way votes are counted in many European countries – for some time.

Compass, the tactical voting campaign group pushing for the change, said they hope the tool will help to increase the number of MPs sitting in Parliament who back electoral reform.

A spokesperson told i the General Election “presents a real opportunity for a seismic realignment of British politics”.

“But to get there, we need to back candidates who support changing the system – otherwise we’ll remain trapped in the never-ending doom loop of first past the post, which frustrates the will of voters and denies them a meaningful choice,” they added.

The website is already set up helping people know who to vote for in their constituency if they want to oust the Tory candidate.

And it has identified more than 60 target seats, including Wycombe, the seat of Steve Baker’s constituency; Godalming & Ash, where Jeremy Hunt is MP; and North East Somerset, the seat of Jacob Rees-Mogg.

It has now pulled together 30 more constituencies where candidates have said they will support electoral reform.

The tool is asking voters whether they would be prepared to “swap” a vote in another constituency if it meant increasing the chances of a candidate winning who supports a move to proportional representation.

Voters in areas without a candidate supporting electoral reform with a realistic shot at winning are asked which party they would ideally vote for, and who they would be prepared to vote for in order to swap their vote.

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They are matched up with someone in a marginal seat where there is a candidate supporting proportional representation who could win, with the paired voter happy to swap parties.

“If you live in a marginal seat where a progressive candidate who backs changing the voting system could win, we’ll channel votes to that candidate from other parts of the country – and you’re free to vote for a champion of democratic reform,” the website states.

The technique means the overall vote count for parties would not change, but it increases the likelihood that a candidate backing electoral reform, likely to be in a smaller party, could win.

It comes as analysis of polling shows combined vote share of the two main parties has hit a historic low three weeks out from polling day.

The average of this week’s latest opinion polls from Norstat, YouGov and More in Common put the combined vote share of Labour and the Conservatives at 61.3 per cent, a new record low for this point in the election cycle, Compass said.

The previous lowest combined Labour and Conservative vote average three weeks ahead of polling day was 71 per cent in 2005 – nearly 10 points higher than today.

Compass says this exposes “deep discontent from voters at the binary choice placed before them”.

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