Voting Reform
Proportional Representation • Three-Day Voting • OCR Counting
Proxy Vote Confirmation • Fraud = Prosecution • Your Vote, Your Voice
The Problem
British democracy is broken at the point of delivery. The electoral system — First Past the Post — produces governments that the majority did not vote for. The voting process gives you one day, a Thursday, to travel to a polling station and mark a cross with a pencil. The counting process is done by hand, by tired count staff, at 3am, in a sports hall. And the proxy voting system allows community ‘leaders’ to collect hundreds of proxy forms and cast votes on behalf of people who may never know how their vote was used.
The Conservative Party won government in 2019 with 43.6% of the vote and 100% of the power. Labour won government in 2024 with 33.7% of the vote and 63% of the seats. Two thirds of the country voted against the government. The government governs as though the other two thirds do not exist. That is not democracy. That is an artefact of a medieval counting system never designed for a multi-party country.
BUILD will reform how votes are cast, how they are counted, and how they translate into seats. The vote you cast will count. The proxy someone casts for you will be confirmed. And the result will reflect what the country actually voted for.
Your vote. Your voice. Even when someone else carries it to the ballot box. BUILD will make sure it arrives as you intended.
Pillar 1: Proportional Representation
1.1 — Every Vote Counts
First Past the Post is replaced with a proportional representation system. The specific model — whether Mixed Member Proportional (as used in Germany and New Zealand), Single Transferable Vote (as used in Ireland), or a regional list system — will be determined by a citizens’ assembly convened within the first year of government. The principle is non-negotiable: the proportion of seats a party holds in Parliament must reflect the proportion of votes it received from the public.
Under FPTP, a party that wins 30% of the national vote can win 60% of the seats because of how those votes are distributed. A party that wins 15% of the national vote can win 1% of the seats. Millions of votes translate into nothing. Voters in safe seats — where the outcome is predetermined — know their vote will not change the result. They stop voting. Turnout falls. The democracy hollows out.
Under PR, every vote contributes to the result. A party that wins 15% of the vote wins approximately 15% of the seats. No vote is wasted. No constituency is safe. Every election is competitive everywhere. The voter in a ‘safe Labour seat’ and the voter in a ‘safe Conservative seat’ both matter, because both votes count toward the national result.
1.2 — Local Representation Preserved
BUILD’s preferred model preserves local constituency representation. Voters still have a named MP who represents their area. The proportional element is added on top of the constituency results — either through top-up seats (MMP model) or through multi-member constituencies (STV model). The voter knows who their local representative is. They can also see that the national result reflects the national vote. Both principles are served.
Pillar 2: Three-Day Voting
2.1 — Friday to Sunday
Elections currently take place on a single day — a Thursday. Polling stations open from 7am to 10pm. If you work a 12-hour shift, have childcare responsibilities, live in a rural area with limited transport, or are simply unable to get to the polling station on that specific Thursday, you do not vote. One day. One chance. Miss it and your democratic voice is silent for five years.
BUILD extends voting to three days: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Polling stations open from 10am to 10pm each day. Thirty-six hours of voting across three days instead of fifteen hours on one day. A shift worker who cannot attend on Friday votes on Saturday. A parent who cannot attend on Saturday votes on Sunday. A disabled person who needs additional time has three days to arrange transport and assistance.
The three-day window dramatically increases accessibility. It eliminates the excuse of ‘I couldn’t get to the polling station.’ It increases turnout because it removes the barriers that prevent people from voting, rather than shaming people for not overcoming those barriers.
2.2 — Employer Obligation
Every employer must provide at least two hours of paid time off during the three-day voting window for employees to vote. This already exists in many countries. In the UK, there is currently no legal right to time off to vote. A person on a zero-hours contract who is scheduled for all three days has no guarantee they can reach a polling station. The employer obligation fixes this. Two hours. Paid. During working hours. No exceptions.
Pillar 3: OCR Counting
3.1 — Machine Counting, Human Verification
Votes are counted by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scanning systems. Every ballot paper is scanned. The OCR system reads the mark, records the vote, and tallies the result. The count is completed within hours of polls closing — not at 4am by exhausted counting assistants squinting at pencil marks under fluorescent lights.
Every OCR-counted ballot is stored as a digital image alongside the physical paper. A random sample of ballots (minimum 5%) is hand-verified against the OCR result. If the hand verification matches the OCR count within the margin of statistical confidence, the OCR result stands. If it does not, the constituency is hand-counted in full. The machine does the speed. The human does the verification. Both are needed. Neither is sufficient alone.
3.2 — Same-Night Results
With OCR counting and a three-day voting window, the final result can be declared on Sunday night. Polls close at 10pm Sunday. OCR scanning begins immediately. Results are declared within 2–4 hours for most constituencies. The new government is known before midnight. The current system — where some results are not declared until Friday afternoon because the count took all night and had to be recounted — is replaced by a fast, accurate, machine-assisted process with human oversight.
Pillar 4: Proxy Vote Reform
Tower Hamlets showed what happens when absent voting goes unchecked. In 2015 an election court voided the mayoral result after finding that campaigners had harvested postal votes, taking completed and even blank ballots from voters. It took a private petition and a month-long trial to prove it.
4.1 — Automated Confirmation
After a proxy votes on someone’s behalf, an automated email or text message is sent to the original voter within one hour. The message confirms: the constituency; the date; and how the proxy voted.
If the vote matches the voter’s instruction: fine. Democracy worked. The voter knows their voice was heard correctly.
If the vote does not match: the voter flags it within 24 hours through a secure online portal or phone line. The vote is quarantined. The proxy is investigated. The voter’s intended vote is recorded separately and counted in place of the proxy vote.
4.2 — The Secrecy Objection
The objection: ‘But the ballot is secret.’ The ballot IS secret — from the public. It is not secret from the voter. The voter has an absolute right to know how their own proxy was used. That is not breaking secrecy. That is confirming agency. The confirmation goes to the voter’s registered email or phone number, not to the proxy, not to any third party. The proxy never sees the confirmation.
The coercion objection: ‘Someone could force a voter to show the confirmation.’ The same risk exists with postal votes already. A person who coerces another person into revealing their vote or proxy confirmation is committing an offence under existing electoral law. The confirmation does not create a new risk. It creates a new protection.
4.3 — Proxy Fraud = Criminal Prosecution
A proxy who deliberately casts a vote contrary to the voter’s stated instruction is committing an offence. Not a regulatory matter. Not a fine. Not a warning. A criminal offence. Prosecution. Conviction. Custodial sentence for organised proxy fraud (collecting and misusing multiple proxy votes).
Voting on someone else’s behalf and choosing differently is stealing their democratic voice. It is more serious than most forms of fraud because it corrupts the mechanism by which the country governs itself. The sentencing reflects that. A community ‘leader’ who collects 200 proxy forms and votes them all for the same candidate — regardless of the voters’ instructions — is not engaged in community organising. They are engaged in electoral fraud. They are prosecuted accordingly.
4.4 — Proxy Limits
No individual may act as proxy for more than two voters in total (currently the limit is two UK-resident voters, or four if some live overseas). The confirmation system makes it possible to detect patterns: if one person is acting as proxy for dozens of voters, the system flags it automatically. The Electoral Commission investigates. If the proxies are legitimate (a care home worker voting for residents who have each individually appointed them), the investigation confirms it. If they are not (a political operative harvesting proxy forms), the investigation exposes it.
Pillar 5: Postal Vote Security
Postal voting is reformed alongside proxy voting. Currently, postal ballot packs are sent to the voter’s registered address. In cases of organised fraud, the ballot pack is intercepted, completed by someone other than the voter, and returned. The voter never sees it.
BUILD will introduce a verification step for postal votes: the voter must provide a unique verification code (sent separately by text or email to their registered contact details) alongside the completed ballot. The ballot is only counted if the verification code matches. A ballot returned without the correct code is quarantined and the voter is contacted to confirm whether they submitted it.
This does not prevent legitimate postal voting. The voter receives the ballot pack, receives the code separately, completes the ballot, writes the code on the return envelope, and posts it. One extra step. One extra number. One massively reduced opportunity for interception and fraud.
Pillar 6: None of the Above
6.1 — A Counted Rejection, Not a Spoiled Ballot
Every ballot paper includes a formal ‘None of the Above’ option. This is not a spoiled ballot. It is not a protest scrawl across the paper. It is a counted, legitimate, democratic choice that says: I came to vote. I looked at the candidates. None of them are good enough. Try again.
Currently, a voter who rejects all candidates has three options: stay home (recorded as apathy and used to justify low turnout), spoil the ballot (lumped in with mistakes as ‘rejected’ and ignored), or vote for the least objectionable candidate (recorded as support and used to claim a mandate). None of these register what the voter actually thinks. The None of the Above option does. It is counted. It is published. And if it wins, it has consequences.
6.2 — If NOTA Wins, the Election Is Re-Run
If None of the Above receives more votes than any individual candidate in a constituency, the result is void. A fresh election is called within 28 days. The original candidates are barred from standing in the re-run. New candidates must be selected. The electorate has spoken: none of you were good enough. The parties must find someone who is.
This is the ultimate accountability mechanism. A safe seat is no longer safe if the candidate is useless. A party cannot parachute in a candidate from the London office, ignore the constituency, run a lazy campaign, and win on the party’s national brand alone. If the voters reject the candidate personally — even in a safe seat — the candidate is gone and the party must find someone the constituency actually wants.
6.3 — The Signal
Even when NOTA does not win, the NOTA count is published alongside every result. A candidate who wins with 35% of the vote in a constituency where NOTA received 25% knows that a quarter of the voters who turned up actively rejected every option. That is not a mandate. That is a warning. The NOTA count is a permanent, public measure of dissatisfaction that no party can ignore or explain away as ‘low turnout.’ The voters turned up. They voted. They said no. That number follows the winner into office.
The Democracy BUILD Will Deliver
Every vote counts. Proportional representation translates the national vote into seats that reflect it. No more governments elected by a third of the country governing as though they represent all of it.
Three days to vote. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Ten in the morning to ten at night. Thirty-six hours instead of fifteen. Two hours paid time off from every employer. No more ‘I couldn’t get to the polling station.’
OCR counting with human verification. Results on Sunday night, not Friday morning. Fast, accurate, transparent.
Proxy votes confirmed to the voter within one hour. If your proxy voted differently from your instruction, you flag it. The vote is quarantined. The proxy is investigated. If guilty: prosecution. Your vote is your voice. Nobody steals it.
Postal votes verified with a unique code sent separately. One extra step. One massively reduced fraud risk.
Your vote. Your voice. Even when someone else carries it to the ballot box. BUILD will make sure it arrives as you intended. And the result will reflect what the country actually voted for.
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BUILD UK
builduk.club
August 2026
Download this charter as a document (.docx) — the paper as written. What follows is the same text, readable.