Premier Jennifer Smith's determination to push through changes to the election system has had one worthy benefit and that it is that it has made people from a wide variety of political backgrounds think hard about how we go about electing our legislators.

That's a good thing, as demonstrated by the submissions now being made public.

The United Bermuda Party's proposals, reported in The Royal Gazette yesterday, argue in many ways for retaining the existing set-up within a single seat system instead of the dual seat system Bermuda now has. But that does not mean that their proposals are not innovative, nor that some serious thought has not gone into their proposals.

Among the innovations is the idea of an independent Speaker and an odd number of MPs being elected. This would avoid the problem of a tied House of Assembly in which no party could form a majority because of the need now to elect a Speaker from the existing parties. Instead, the Speaker would be an independent agreed on by both parties. This would have the added advantage of ending suspicions that the nominally independent Speaker is favouring his or her former party, or is overcompensating to prove his or her fairness.

It is hard to disagree with the proposals that the size of the house remain roughly the same. If Bermuda is going to maintain a Cabinet of up to 13 members, this will ensure that the governing party has a sizeable back bench and should ensure that there is a sizeable Opposition.

Having a larger number of seats should also ensure that disproportionate majorities are not created in a General Election. As has been pointed out, many Caribbean countries with small legislatures have ended up with wild swings in the number of seats between elections which guarantee neither fair representation nor good government. To be sure, from a political standpoint it may be in the interests of the UBP, at least as it is currently constituted, to have more seats rather than less.

But that does not mean that it is wrong. Electoral fortunes wax and wane, and it is in no one's interests to have any party go from feast to famine from one election cycle to the next. The UBP also proposes that where possible, constituencies continue to fit in with parish boundaries. Provided that the Boundaries Commission have the right to waive this guideline, this makes sense.

An area like Tucker's Town, which is adjacent to Hamilton and Smith's Parishes but is part of St. George's should clearly be in a mainland constituency. But elsewhere, it makes sense for MPs to represent geographical areas which are tied together by history, local government structures like parish councils and neighbourhood ties. Arbitrary constituency boundaries will result in MPs representing districts that may have no common interests, thus eliminating the importance of the local representative.

The proposals seem to capture the best of both worlds, they remove the inequities in the existing system while retaining the broad representation and community links that are the best aspects of the current dual seat system.