A CAMPAIGN group has walked through South Lakeland on their march for voting reform.

Make Votes Matter set off on Monday on its latest mission to change the electoral system with councillor for Grasmere and Ambleside Will Clark starting the Grasmere leg.

The national cross-party campaign aims to change the current First Past the Post system to Proportional Representation.

Over the next four days, the group is walking to Preston after being inspired by the Suffragist campaigners of 1913 who marched from Carlisle to London to demand votes for women.

READ MORE: Councillor adds his voice to campaign for voting reform

Anne Margaret Smith, one of the walk organisers, said: "The problem with first past the post is that a party can get into Government with a very small minority of votes cast.

"Our current Government got in with 43.6 per cent of the vote, which means around 60 per cent didn't vote for the Government and voted for somebody else."

"This is not a party political campaign - it is about everybody's votes counting and everybody's voices being heard and everybody feeling that their voice is represented in Parliament and many of us feel that we're not."

What is proportional representation?

Proportional representation is an electoral system in which the distribution of seats corresponds closely with the proportion of the total votes cast for each party. For example, if a party gained 40 per cent of the total votes, a perfectly proportional system would allow them to gain 40 per cent of the seats.

Anne Margaret Smith added: "We’re actually one of the few developed democracies around the world that still hasn’t adopted PR.

"It’s time we caught up – countries with PR have greater income equality, better standards of living and better environmental policies – those are things we absolutely need in 2022.

“Changing our voting system would be the biggest improvement to our democracy since women won the vote a century ago.”

The group said that they have received 'really positive' responses along the way with people throwing their support behind the campaign and signing the petition.

Anne said: "People want a change, people can see that our first past the post system is not working."