Open letter to Members of UK Parliament: You won your election on June 7th 2001 through an electoral system which gives the seat to the candidate with more votes than any other candidate. In the case of a tie, the candidates pull straws. Obviously this gives you a vested interest in retaining First Past The Post for your constituency ;-) but I also know you would consider electoral reform in the United Kingdom as a whole. I have analysed the voting results of the General Election and implemented an Election Lottery where each vote serves as a lottery ticket with the preferred candidate's name on it. Thus serving MPs are the most likely candidates in their constituency to be returned by the election as they have attracted the most votes. However the votes cast for other candidates provides these also with a chance of becoming the MP for the constituency in which they stand. I attach election_lottery.zip containing an Excel spreadsheet with candidates for each constituency randomly selected according to their share of the vote. When you open this spreadsheet a unique selection of candidates will present itself to the right of the vote counts. When the spreadsheet values are recalculated a fresh batch of random selections are made. But there are exemplified further to the right in columns 5 possible parliaments of 659 MPs that could have resulted from an Election Lottery had it been held this General Election, based on the actual votes counted. This is followed by another five columns mentioning only the party of the successful candidate, to demonstrate the small variability of the seats assigned to each party. I think you'd agree that with the motivation for tactical voting removed, people would have voted slightly differently, voting not for their preferred candidate with a chance of winning, but simply their preferred candidate. I don't venture into such speculation in my analysis, but this vote shift would likely favour candidates for minor parties and independent candidates. Already however, through an Election Lottery 40% of the vote for Labour would provide Labour with 40% of the seats. First Past The Post actually provides Labour with 60% of the seats from 40% of the vote. Before Labour MPs move to silence this research, I would however point out that First Past The Post gave the Conservatives a similar unfair advantage during the 18 years of Tory rule ;-) The gentlemanly decision is to agree henceforth to always share seats between Labour and Conservative in strict proportion to the votes cast for each party. This would moderate parliament, discouraging the elective dictatorships both Tory and Labour we have seen since 1979 to the present day. An Election Lottery achieves this Proportional Representation, while tying the selection of every candidate firmly to the electorates in his or her constituency, thus avoiding any charges of cronyism. I would like each of you to become a Member of a World Parliament. I believe this would reduce the corporate pressures on you, because MWPs could together in solidarity set worldwide minimum health and safety standards and minimum levels of corporation tax. The World Trade Organisation http://www.wto.org, unlike you appointed not elected, sets only maximum standards of health and safety and corporation tax. 60,000 MWPs would each be close enough to their constituents (~100,000 each) to be unbribable and uncooptable by corporations, unlike a smaller elite committee, whose ranks would soon fill with corporate executives. Clearly this would require Internet teleconferencing technology to allow each of you to participate in a World Parliament from your constituency or the Palace of Westminster. I have been developing such a forum on the website of "World" political party, http://eudaimonic.com, which looks at issues such as the global wealth distribution (wealth2001.gif attached). The spreadsheet analysis attached is also available online at http://eudaimonic.com/election_lottery.zip. I would like to read your opinions and would appreciate if you could forward this e-mail to the losing candidates in your constituency or others and to other MPs. Kind regards, "World" political party http://eudaimonic.com world@eudaimonic.com http://www.electoralcommission.gov.uk/reports/sum_gb_237.htm