U.K. Referendum Rejects Electoral Reform

The first-past-the-post system will continue to be used to send MPs to Westminster, just as in Canada.

Britain has responded with a resounding “No” to a referendum that sought to change the country's first-past-the-post voting system. Results announced Friday point to 69 per cent of Britons supporting the current system, which Canada uses as well, as opposed to a minority who cast ballots for the “Alternative Vote," or AV, system. Under AV, voters would have ranked candidates in their riding. If no one candidate received more than 50 per cent of votes, the lowest vote-getter would be dropped and the candidates ranked second on those ballots would get that share until someone eclipsed the majority mark. AV was heralded as a means of tempering partisanship at the local level, but was criticized for potentially making coalition and minority governments the norm.