I am only one of thousands of voters who elect my MP so my vote is not going to help hold ‘my’ representative to account. In the UK the average number of voters in each constituency is 68,175 [1] and some have majorities of tens of thousands. In the US House of Representatives the figure is more than ten times this number at 710,767 [2] with so many other voters how will my attempt to hold them to account actually matter?  [1] ‘Parliamentary constituencies’, parliament.uk  [2] Burnett, Kristin D., ‘Congressional Apportionment’, 2010 Census Briefs, November 2011