electoral systems Flashcards
1
Q
FPTP
A
- 2017 GE voting turnout went up 2% to 69%
- showing that the general public understand the system and it is becoming increasingly attractive to vote
-creates strong party Govs, Cameron in 2015 general election, Blair in 97, 01,05
- Katie Ghose argues “leaves millions disenfranchised and forces millions more to feel they have to vote for a lesser evil”
- shows with a system where so many votes are wasted , many feel their votes are unvalued and therefore will be pressured to voting for the main two parties or put off voting altogether
-ethnic minorities making up 13% of pop, vote considerably in favour of labour at 73% but seeing as distributed amongst cities, votes hardly counted
2
Q
AMS
A
in 2003, Greens and SNP won 13 out of the 56 regional seats in second ballot, regarded as rainbow parliament, very popular
-shows a system that encourages coalitions and more views in parliament would be well received
- helps women get elected, in ‘99, 37% of total Scottish parliament membership were women, double the amount at the commons at the time
- shows far more democratic and promotes equality than FPTP (conc)
3
Q
STV
A
- would see results like conservatives securing 282 (43.4%) seats instead of 318 (48.9%). The party’s vote share was 42.4%.
- shows that there would be major changes to the proportion of seats that each party win, this way of voting, would be using a far more democratic and PR electoral system
- however turnout at 2016 local council elections 46.5% compared with 55.6% at the parliament elections under AMS
- shows STV too complicated and puts off voters
- shows that AMS retains the large turnout and is less complicated for voters to understand (conc)
4
Q
conc
A
- AMS best, remains simplicity of FPTP but doesnt put off voters with complexity
- avoids risk of extremist parties coming to power with the ‘threshold’ that prevents parties with less than 5% of the vote being included in parliament
- no votes are wasted, takes whole countries viewpoints into account
