OPINION: Why I am going to spoil my ballot paper

This is our chance to determine who governs our country and who represents our local area in Parliament.

But delve just a smidgen into how our voting system works and it is abundantly clear that is the case for only a handful of the population. Sadly, I’m not one of them.

In the past two general elections I have cast my vote in the South Staffordshire constituency.

In 2010, Conservative candidate Gavin Williamson won with 16,590 more votes than his nearest rival. Five years later he extended his majority to 20,371.

This time around the bookies make him 1/200 favourite to retain his seat in the House of Commons.

Under the existing First Past The Post (FPTP) voting system, a vote for anyone other than the winning candidate is utterly worthless.

Come June 9, regardless, Gavin Williamson will again be South Staffordshire's sole representative in the UK’s legislature.

Even if I were to vote Tory, my vote would still count for very little. Regardless of the size of his majority, Mr Williamson will have no lesser or greater say than other elected MPs from across the country, including any who might win by just ten, twenty or thirty votes.

Under FPTP, the only votes which count to any real degree are those in marginal constituencies where candidates win by a much smaller number and where the seat frequently swings from one party to another.

There are a few in our region - Wolverhampton South West was decided by less than 1,000 votes in both 2010 and 2015.

Walsall North has also been hotly contested, with Labour’s David Winnick holding on to his post by less than 2,000 votes on each occasion.

But ultimately these constituencies are few and far between.

Since 2015 I have moved home and will now be casting my vote in the constituency of Birmingham Ladywood where Shabana Mahmood’s 2015 majority eclipsed that of even Mr Williamson.

Once again this election will not be my chance to have my say. Whatever I do on polling day will make no difference whatsoever to the political makeup of the UK.

That is why on Thursday my intention is to spoil my ballot paper and why we desperately need at least some element of Proportional Representation (PR).

On previous occasions I took the idealistic view that I should vote with my heart despite the inevitable outcome and at least the record books would show how many votes defeated candidates attracted.

I am now a little bit older and a whole lot more cynical. I understand now that in the FPTP system, second place counts for nothing - as does third, fourth, fifth and sixth.

By spoiling my ballot paper I can send a clear message that yes, I am politically engaged, but I refuse to vote ‘properly’ until it counts for something.

PR has obvious benefits in that it creates a legislature which better represents the spread of opinion across the entire country.

Seats in parliament would be allocated so that they are in proportion to the votes cast.

Had it been in place in 2015 for example, the Tories would have won 92 fewer seats and UKIP would have won 82 seats instead of just one.

But there would be other dramatic changes for the better.

A relative of mine who still lives in South Staffordshire has been frustrated by the lack of election material he has received from any party other than the Tories.

And in Birmingham Ladywood I have had nothing through my door other than from the dominant Labour party.

The reason why of course is that under the current system it makes no sense for parties to fork out money and effort where they have no chance of overturning huge majorities.

But if the system was changed to PR, parties would be forced to fight for every last vote.

At a local level that would mean a much higher standard of electioneering for all.

I am not naive enough to think PR holds all the answers. Hung parliaments would likely become the norm and it would be a shame to do away with constituencies altogether.

But such problems could be easily overcome with a new cooperative approach to politics and a second chamber of constituency representatives replacing the archaic House of Lords.

Rather than waste my vote on Thursday I will spoil my paper in a bid to show whoever forms the next Government that I want PR introduced as soon as possible.

The total number of spoilt papers are counted and publicised when the full results are known. In 2015 there were 102,639.

Unfortunately this total includes people who, by accident, fill out their paper incorrectly and so a vote cannot be counted.

Ideally there would be a way to clearly mark the fact I do not want to vote for any of the available candidates and that what I want is PR.

But in the absence of a 'comment section' all I can do is spoil my paper and hope that over time enough people follow suit that retaining the FPTP system becomes untenable.