BURNLEY MP Gordon Birtwistle has called on his constituents to vote for a change on how they elect their local representatives.

A referendum will take on May 5 on whether to move form the current ‘First Past the Post’ system to the ‘Alternative Vote’ system, which allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference.

It means every MP will have to secure the support of at least half of their constituents.

Mr Birtwistle said: “Our electoral system is broken.

“MPs have seats for life and millions of votes are ignored.

"Most of the country has an MP that they didn’t vote for.

“AV will end the travesty of MPs getting elected with less than a third of the vote backing them.

“Under AV, MPs will have to work harder to get elected.

“They will need to reach out beyond their core support because they need 50 per cent of the vote.

“AV will make our system fairer.”