British Voters and Their Criteria for Evaluating Electoral Systems

Abstract

The problem with measuring voter attitudes towards electoral systems is that few either know or care much about them. Earlier quantitative research on attitudes in Britain by Dunleavy and his colleagues shows that there are pockets of support for electoral reform; however, there are doubts over just how much the respondents truly understood the merits of the different systems they were being asked about. This article uses qualitative, focus group techniques to explore underlying British voter attitudes towards the issue of electoral reform with regard to four alternative systems. Once the basics of the different systems have been clarified, there is clear evidence of support for change, though little agreement over the preferred system. The research reveals a certain ambivalence over the importance attached to constituency representation.