How *should* we be able to trigger an early election?

[andrewducker]

The UK has no mechanism for triggering a general election early that isn't dependent on the existing representatives choosing put themselves at risk.

If you were to institute a mechanism for triggering a general election that didn't involve representatives choosing to hold one, what would it be?

Mine would be to specify that if reputable polling institutions (either certified by the British Polling Council or the Electoral Council) found there was ¾ support for the question "There should be a general election" for a continuous period of one month then one should be held.

75% because it should only be only in very unusual circumstances where the government had gone very wrong, and continuous for a month to make sure that a couple of statistical anomalies didn't throw things off.

You?

Comments

[jack]

Good question. I really don't know. It needs to be high enough not to trigger endless elections with the same result. But low enough that when people are sufficiently motivated it's realistically achievable without needing almost everyone in the country to take active action. I don't know what threshold would work, or if there is any threshold that would work. Possibly other countries have models we could follow.