The 5 Impossible Puzzles Bonus Season highlights different structural challenges with the way our electoral and political system is supposed to work.
The third puzzle is the Impossible Puzzle for Representatives.
If you are elected on the basis of a set of promises (your manifesto), then only some of the people in your constituency voted for that manifesto. How is it then possible to be fair, and even-handed, and to represent the needs of every one of your constituents? Even the ones who didn’t vote for you.
To be responsible to the people who voted for you, you should really deliver on what you said you would do, in your Manifesto. But to represent everyone in your constituency, you should also respond to the needs and wants of all of the other voters – including all the ones who wanted different things, and who voted against you.
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