Poll finds growing support for electoral reform
By politics.co.uk staff
Support for electoral reform appears to be on the rise with 78% of voters backing a replacement of first-past-the-post with a more accurate system.
But the ComRes poll for the Independent threw up a seemingly contradictory finding, revealing that voters remained suspicious of hung parliaments and the closed-door negotiations which go with them.
Seventy-eight per cent of respondents said they wanted first-past-the-post replaced with a system which reflects more accurately the proportion of votes cast for each party”.
But 72% said they preferred an outright win rather than the “political horsetrading” which followed the 2010 election.
Electoral reform activists will be concerned that the use of the phrase “horsetrading” prejudiced the respondents, but the poll goes some way to show the confusion that still exists about the repercussions of voting reform.
The poll put the Tories down one on 37%, Labour down one on 33% and the Lib Dems down one on 21%.
