This house believes that proportional representation should replace Plurality systems

I shall address my opponent's rebuttals whilst reinforcing my own arguments:My opponent gives an example of how PR can only be applied to a Congressional or Parliamentary system, and not a Presidential election. This could have been a very good, strong argument, if it weren't for the fact that there is no justification for the statement. The Geography of PoliticsFurther, my opponent seems to claim that the problem for the Lib Dems is their geography. However, the real problem is that they come second in a lot of constituencies. The Lib Dem party consistently come second, and there is consistently someone gets elected on a minority of votes. In Bromley and Chislehurst, Camborne and Redruth, Cambridge and Bournemouth East[1], the Lib Dems consistently come second. And this is something that happens in hundreds of consituencies. Probably the worst story is that of Lib Dem representative Julia Goldsworthy. In Camborne and Redruth, she gained15,903 votes, but came second to Conservative representative George Eustice, who gained 15,969 votes. This means that almost 16,000 voters for the Lib Dem party are not represented. Add in Labour's unrepresented 7,000 and UKIP's 2,100 and you have around 25,000 voters not being fairly represented, contrasting the 15,000 who are: a blatantly unrepresentative, undemocratic system. If STV was in place, a version of PR, then multi-member consituencies would come to exist, and drastically reduce the number of wasted votes in Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Act 2011.[2] This could be used in conjunction with PR to make the seats balanced. However, the only way for a constituency border system to be so imbalanced as my opponent suggests is if the setting of the borders was intentionally unfair, and therefore both voting systems would be equally superficial.Further, PR would solve the problem of the Lib Dems coming second by giving them seats as per the number of votes they get, even if they come second, to let them be fairly represented. To allow the voter to be represented by someone they voted for.Finally, in regards to these hypotheticals about geography, borders are constantly adjusted to keep the population of a constituency roughly similar to other areas. For example, the borders of constituencies in Britain were changed last year to accomodate for any changes[5]. Moreover, the largest constituency is 110,000 (second largest 90,000) and the smallest 55,000[3], so the geographical advantage is a moot point. Only 9 out of the 650 constituencies are outside the range of 60,000 to 90,000 seats. However, in this situation, STV would still be better! As it is multi-constituency, each seat is worth the same number of votes. So in the third constituency, the seat shall only be worth two or three seats (if that), while the largest worth a hundred seats, meaning more representation to take into account that it is a larger constituency. Plurality systems would actually make it worse as it would mean that you're vote's value depends on your constituency. This is another problem with plurality votes, as you're geography seriously affects your vote's value. If you live in a place such as Witney, where over 60% of the votes consistently go to Conservative, also known as a 'safe' seat, then your vote has no value there: you cannot get your party or politician in to represent you. However, if you are in Camborne and Redruth, where the votes are really close, your vote is valuable beyond belief: your vote can actually affect who gets a seat in Parliament, and therefore how the country is run. This geographical discrimination disappears under STV, because each constituency holds seats dependant on the number of votes there are. This is known as Gerrymandering. These diagrams represent how gerrymandering works: the diagram on the left represents 4 ungerrymandered constituencies, each with 50% of the voters Red and 50% Blue. The one on the right represents 4 gerrymandered constituencies. This leads to the blue winning 3 seats, and red winning 1, so the blue voters win, even though they got the shared number of votes. in fact, there could be no blues in the bottom-left constituency, and blue would still win, while red would lose. This is incredibly easy in plurality, but in PR, which holds multiple MP constituencies, the reds would be represented fairer, making the system much fairer. This is a turn on the geographical aspect.So, to conclude on that point, the PR promotes democracy substantially more than plurality systems.Before moving to new arguments, I want to point out arguments conceded:STV allows the vote value of each seat to become more balanced, and the plurality system unfairly unbalances them.STV allows one to vote for a candidate inside one's party, and is therefore preferable in a Parliamentary system.STV allows other parties and ideas to access the political stage with more ease, and allows other parties to form.STV makes tactical voting unnecessaryPlurality promotes political apathy and atrophyWith this in mind, I await my opponent's rebuttal.1 -http://en.wikipedia.org...(UK_Parliament_constituency)http://en.wikipedia.org...(UK_Parliament_constituency)http://en.wikipedia.org...(UK_Parliament_constituency)http://en.wikipedia.org...(UK_Parliament_constituency)2 - Douglas Amy,Behind the Ballot Box: A Citizen's Guide to Voting Systems.3 - http://en.wikipedia.org...4 - http://en.wikipedia.org...