What an oversight, Rechtub and Gypsy:

First, the next politician in line may since have died, left politics or even joined a different party.

Second, what about preferences?

If you want to do it properly, then you must reconstruct all ballot papers, eliminating the resigning-candidate first, then reuse the original ballot papers as if it was a fresh election.

Taking the next candidate without due care for preferences usually produces the most unintended outcome for the electorate, especially if they, as I do, place the two big parties in the last two places.

Then what if an MP dies or needs to resign due to health problems through no fault of their own? Shall the same procedure be applied, freely granting the big prize to their rival party? That would surely encourage political poisoning (polonium comes to mind...).

If it were up to me, as an MP who no longer believes his/her party-line, I wouldn't bother to resign or join a different party - I would simply vote always as I believe on all issues (or if it's something I don't have a strong opinion on, according to what I believe my electorate wants).

Yuyutsu "First, the next politician in line may since have died, left politics or even joined a different party."

What they wrote is correct but just slightly different words.
Here it is simplified
The person who got the next highest number of votes on the day in that electorate.

Sadly, another example of how utterly corrupt the system has become, and how distant from the concept of a representative democracy.

I'm with Philip S on this. Only more so.

>>...the people elected them to office on the information they provided to the people before the vote, so if they change after being elected that is close to theft by deception. They stole the vote by purporting to represent a different ideal to the one they changed to.<<

I would extend this to include all policy.

The only system that would be remotely fair to the voter would be that a candidate declares, ahead of the election, what he or she stands for. Once elected, they will be disqualified from voting against that platform. If they feel sufficiently compromised or hamstrung by their pre-election promise, they should immediately resign, and forfeit any further pay or pension entitlements as of that day. A by-election held as a result of such a decision would also disqualify that person from receiving any campaign funding unless they are re-elected - i.e. their constituents endorse the platform change.

Only such a radical reassessment of what we, poor saps, can expect from the vote that we sheepishly cast, can break the cycle of dishonesty and corruption that typifies today's political environment.

Incidentally, under the above rules, changing Party will become irrelevant.

Why should there be a fixed MP in the first place then?
Or elections for that matter?

Let the electorate vote directly on every issue.

This could be done on a per-electorate basis, or per-state or nationally - since that's not the point right now, let's assume a per-electorate model:

Since it is impractical for 99% of the electorate to follow the discussion in parliament and understand the details, most voters will give their proxy to an "MP". Voting on issues will take place over the internet/phone and every voter who hasn't assigned a proxy has one vote plus the number of proxies they received (if any). The simple-majority vote becomes the vote for the electorate. The person with the largest number of proxies is the temporary MP, who attends parliament, receives wages/pension, etc. If an MP is no longer trustworthy, electors can simply withdraw their proxy and perhaps give it to another who may replace the original MP in parliament.

Why not just draw yes or no out of a bucket.

<<Why not just draw yes or no out of a bucket>>

Because there are so many better uses for buckets.