THE emergence of another serious contender for parliamentary seats (Echo, Oct 11) brings a welcome broadening of choice, but one which our electoral system is undeniably inadequate to cope with. In many constituencies we will have little clue what the voters really wanted and even less hope that they got it.

Our problem is to rectify this in the few months remaining before the General Election and to do so in a way which respects the decision of the public in 2011 to reject the Alternative Vote preference voting system (albeit that this result was orchestrated by politicians who may now rue their success).

My suggestion, conveniently enough, is that we hold the 2015 and subsequent General Elections exactly as planned.

But first we create the option for each constituency where this produces no overall majority to hold an annual election in which the incumbent faces just one challenger.

Condorcet’s method, equivalent straight fights, may be a bit highfalutin for many people’s taste, but anyone capable of voting can get their head around an actual straight fight. It is the only purpose that First Past The Post is fit for.

We are left with the relatively minor question of which of the other candidates from the General Election gets to challenge the MP in each of the four inter-election years and potentially take over the seat. We could have them form a queue so they get an opportunity in the same order as they were placed by the General Election results.

More interestingly, we could adopt a stochastic or lottery method where each one’s probability of being that year’s contender depends upon their share of the vote.

Politicians are, of course, free to do nothing.

They may hope to beat us in a game of chicken, where we vote for them from fear of vote splitting. But they can hardly do that and claim to be believers in democracy.

John Riseley, Harrogate.