Our current voting system, first-past-the- post, isn't fit for purpose anymore and is failing us.
It would add a second chamber to Congress, and create a first-past-the-post electoral system.
Mr Straw favours first-past-the-post, although he accepts the case for a referendum to give it legitimacy.
But the first-past-the-post voting system for MPs is a huge obstacle for any small party.
He said first-past-the-post delivered strong, single-party government, was easy to understand and had a "strong constituency link".
These contests, also held on May 6th but on traditional first-past-the-post rules, produced some grossly skewed results.
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South Korea uses a first-past-the-post system, and so the candidate with the most votes will become president.
Plaid had a dramatic victory in Islwyn and the Tories secured their only first-past-the-post victory in Monmouth.
Under first-past-the-post, the candidate who gets the most votes in their constituency is elected as the MP.
But had it not been for the peculiarities of the first-past-the-post voting system, it would have won more.
Secondly, the first-past-the-post system exaggerates the advantage of the winning party, particularly at the expense of third parties.
Every election year, voting by smaller districts or first-past-the-post is called for, and promptly squashed by professional politicians.
The home affairs spokesman also rejected the Alternative Vote (AV) system favoured by Mr Blair to replace first-past-the-post.
New Zealand dropped British-style first-past-the-post voting in 1996 and has seen only hung parliaments and coalition rule since.
At the last Holyrood election, the Scottish Lib Dems only managed to win first-past-the-post constituencies in Shetland and Orkney.
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Now, in addition to the 80 first-past-the-post assembly seats, 40 members will be elected on a separate party-list system.
This must surely hasten the end of first-past-the-post elections in local government and perhaps also in elections to Westminster.
Papua New Guinea and Fiji also use AV - but most democracies use versions of proportional representation or first-past-the-post.
Mr Putin also plans to abolish the first-past-the-post contests that currently fill half the seats in the parliament (Duma).
Italy's governing coalition, which won all 61 of the island's first-past-the-post seats in the 2001 election, certainly thinks so.
His reasoning is that Lesotho's current mess springs from its first-past-the-post voting arrangements.
In future, if the first-past-the-post electoral system is replaced by a more proportional system, such powers may become more important.
Until then, two parties, National and Labour, had had a stranglehold on politics in New Zealand in a first-past-the-post system.
Labour, with Lib Dem support, is committed to setting up an electoral commission to propose a single proportional alternative to first-past-the-post.
In short, stable majorities are harder to establish (a coalition even runs Britain, where the first-past-the-post system is designed for single-party government).
Both are hopeful of winning their first ever seats in the House of Commons, although the UK's first-past-the-post system works against them.
Nigel Farage, one of the UKIP candidates seeking parliamentary power, dismissed the suggestion they had no chance in a first-past-the-post General Election.
Party oligarchs manipulate the absurd first-past-the-post electoral system, which puts governments into power with more votes cast against them than for them.
The force was one of just three in England and Wales to use the traditional first-past-the-post method with just two candidates standing.
Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron supports retaining first-past-the-post while his Liberal Democrat deputy Nick Clegg is campaigning for a switch to AV.
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