I appreciate your thoughts on electoral reform, though I'd like to address some misconceptions about PR systems and explain why RCV alone doesn't solve our fundamental electoral problems.

First, it's important to clarify that RCV (what you're referring to) is typically implemented as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) for single-member districts. IRV is still a winner-take-all system that fails to ensure proportional representation. While it eliminates the spoiler effect, it still discards many votes and produces results where seat percentages don't match vote percentages.

Read more: A Simple Guide to Electoral Systems

You raise concerns about regional representation and accountability under PR:

1. Regional representation: Many PR systems, particularly Single Transferable Vote (STV), maintain strong regional representation through multi-member districts. Representatives still have geographic constituencies, but districts elect multiple MPs proportional to votes cast. This actually improves regional representation as more diverse viewpoints within each region are represented.

2. Party loyalty vs. local concerns: Under our current FPTP system, party discipline is already extremely tight. PR systems like STV actually give voters more power to choose between candidates of the same party, potentially reducing party control. In Ireland's STV system, for example, representatives actively compete with party colleagues for voter preference, increasing accountability to constituents.

3. Accountability: Your question "who do voters complain to?" has a simple answer under PR: they have multiple representatives from their district. This creates more avenues for constituent services, not fewer. In fact, having multiple representatives per district means voters are more likely to have at least one MP who shares their political values.

4. Improved democracy: PR objectively improves democratic representation. Under our current system, millions of perfectly valid ballots have zero effect on representation. In rural areas like Hastings-Lennox and Addington, over 51% of voters had their votes completely discarded in the last election. That's not a "minor dysfunction" - it's a fundamental democratic deficit.

If combining ranked ballots with geographic representation appeals to you, I'd strongly recommend looking into STV, which accomplishes both while ensuring proportional representation. It gives voters the ability to rank candidates while ensuring that the overall makeup of Parliament reflects how people actually voted.

The core principle at stake is simple: in a democracy, we are deserving of and entitled to representation in government. Any system that systematically discards votes, as both FPTP and IRV do, undermines this principle. Only proportional representation ensures that vote percentages match seat percentages - the mathematical foundation of fair representation.