Rethinking How Decisions Are Made

By Monty Conway, Intern at Unlock Democracy. 

Dr Peter Emerson’s new report, Egalitarian Decision-Making, argues that the binary nature of voting in our democracy leads to flawed decision-making, and should be replaced with a system of ranking different options.

The problem 

Dr Emerson argues that too often, our democracy runs on a system where decisions are reduced to A or B, yes or no, us or them.

In Parliament, this takes the form of voting for or against amendments and legislation. Even when the debate is detailed, individual votes are reduced to a binary choice between Ayes or Noes.

Under this system, whoever wins a majority vote in the Commons gets everything, which creates an environment where parties only want to win or block the other side. Because the process only looks at a single choice rather than ranking different ideas, it ignores compromises that might actually have more support. 

Emerson warns the aggressive nature of majority voting shapes how politicians behave. If the only way to win is to out-poll the other side, there is no incentive to seek common ground. Politics becomes a battle between two opposing camps with no room for compromise.

Democracy is not supposed to be a competition between two sides where one wins and the other loses, leaving nothing in the middle to ever get a look-in. It is supposed to represent everyone.

As Emerson puts it in his report, democracy is not just for a majority, the rich, the poor, the Protestants, the Hutu, or the Serbs.  It is for everyone. 

Emerson argues that binary voting does not work effectively in international negotiations either. He refers to the World Trade Organisation’s 14th Ministerial Conference in Yaoundé in March 2026. The Conference collapsed under the weight of “binary logic” - a system that forces complex, global policy questions into a simple for or against. 

After years of preparation and weeks of negotiation, the conference broke up without any agreement on trade reform. Deep divisions between the EU and its allies on one side, and China and its supporting bloc on the other, made coming to an agreement difficult. Without a way to formally rank or blend options, a compromise was not possible. The result was a vast expenditure of diplomatic time, political capital and public money that produced, in the end, almost nothing. 

Examples like this lead Emerson to conclude it's time to think again about how our representatives vote on proposals. 

A solution? 

The solution put forward by Emerson is the 'Modified Borda Count'.  Not a new idea: the first use of the Borda Count dates back to the 15th century!

Rather than a voter making a single choice, they rank the options available to them. This includes a first preference, second preference, third, and so on. Each choice earns points: your first choice gets the most, your second a slightly less, and so on. The option with the broadest support across all voters wins.

Crucially, nobody votes against anything. You state what you prefer, and then the system does the rest. As Emerson puts it, under this system, voters do not vote for or against, but they vote with each other. 

Emerson believes this way of voting would change the entire logic of political competition. Under majority voting, a party only needs to fire up its own base. Under the 'Modified Borda Count', that strategy backfires. To win, you need not just first choices from your own supporters, but also second and third choices from people who back other proposals. That means reaching out to find common ground and treating the other side as people with legitimate views rather than enemies to be defeated. Politics, as Emerson writes, is the art of compromise, which ranked-voting enables.

What do you think?

Unlock Democracy believes our political system needs a serious shake-up. 

The public’s trust in politics is lower than ever, with recent polling finding that only 9% of the British public trust politicians to tell the truth, marking the lowest level of trust recorded since surveys began in 1983. 

The adversarial, winner-takes-all way that MPs and Peers vote in Parliament may be one of the many reasons behind this distrust.

Unlock Democracy believes that to rebuild trust in politics, we must introduce a fairer, more proportional voting system, reform the House of Lords, and kick big money out of politics.

But we are always open to bold new ideas on how to create a fairer democracy that puts power into the hands of the people.

We want to know what our members and supporters think. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments.

If you are interested in reading Dr Peter Emerson’s full report on “Egalitarian Decision-Making”, you can find it below.