Since Andy Burnham has won the Makerfield by-election, there must be a new election for the Mayor of Greater Manchester. In most cases, mayors may remain Members of Parliament, but this is not allowed if the mayoralty includes the role of Police and Crime Commissioner.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Labour has rushed through a change to the mayoral voting system, in the hope of making it easier to win this second election. Losing it would be a catastrophic blow for a new Prime Minister, assuming the existing one is out of office by then, especially if he were the man who had caused the vacancy.
In 2011, 13 million people voted ‘No’ to the Alternative Vote replacing First Past the Post (FPTP) for British elections, while a mere 6.1 million voted for the change. Support for the status quo was a little over two-thirds of the electorate, while only 32.1% wanted a new system. Turnout was relatively low at 42%, but respectable, especially when it was such a clear margin.
This referendum applied only to parliamentary elections, but its clear result ought surely to have some relevance to other elections. Certainly, it provided some justification for the last Conservative government instituting FPTP for mayors and police commissioner elections, where a proportional system had previously been used. Yet Labour has used its parliamentary majority to return to the Supplementary Vote system.
The Supplementary Vote system is not quite the same as the Alternative Vote, but it is similar. In the Alternative Vote, electors rank each party or candidate in turn and may use as many preferences as there are candidates, although the last preference would always be otiose. The votes are then reallocated as each candidate in turn is eliminated, starting with the person with the lowest number of votes, until only two candidates are left, at which point the one with the most votes is the winner.
