ELECTIONS AND REFERENDUMS KEY POINTS

Question 1

Functions of Elections

Answer 1

• Provide representation
• Help form governments
• Enables participation of voters and education
• Provide governments with legitimacy
• Promote accountability of government.

Please note in all future UK elections a full ID will be required to vote in elections, certain ID cards like bus passes for students in FT education will NOT be accepted. It is estimated 1 million voters could be lost as a result of these changes.

Question 2

Positive features of UK elections.

Answer 2

• Gives people a say (a choice)
• Representative
• Democracy
• Elections are free and fair
• FPTP is effective
• Educates public
• Not just general elections but local, EU, mayoral, etc.
• Corruption is rare

Question 3

Negative features of UK elections.

Answer 3

Two party system =
- No choice
- Problem of safe/marginal seats (all votes not equal)
- Better funded parties do best.

FPTP =
- Is unfair especially on smaller parties, low turnout, so most governments in power by less than 30% of population
- elective dictatorship.

Question 4

Safe and marginal seats.

Answer 4

A safe seat is a constituency where one party almost always wins e.g. Liverpool Walton for Labour (Labour won 8.5% of vote in 2019).

A marginal seat regularly changes hands e.g. Watford (alternates between labour and the Conservatives) or Richmond Park (alternates between Conservative and Lib Dem)

Question 5

Arguments in Favour of FPTP (also known as majoritarian representation)

Answer 5

a) Easy to understand, simple and quick (no horse trading)

b) Usually delivers strong, stable government (but not in 2010)

c) Strong link between voters and constituency MP

d) Keeps out extremist parties

(e) clear accountability – if government is poor it’s voted out)

(f) AV rejected in referendum – PR is unpopular

Question 6

Disadvantages of FPTP

Answer 6

a) Most MPs do not have an absolute majority (of support) in their constituency, and governments don’t normally have this either (no government since 1931 has had over 50% of the vote),

b) Results are not proportional. Small parties generally do badly,

c) Large number of wasted votes, problem of safe seats – only voters in marginal seats are important.

d) Encourages tactical voting which is undemocratic. All votes should be equal.

Question 7

Supplementary Vote

Answer 7

• Used for London Mayor and other Mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners
• Voter has 1st/2nd choice.
• If no-one gets 50% votes, all but top two candidates drop out and 2nd choice votes are redistributed until one of the remaining candidate’s get 50% of vote.
• In 2021 London Labour’s Sadiq Khan achieved 55.2% of the vote against Conservative Sean Bailey’s 44.8% after two rounds of voting.
• However, in 2021 I Greater Manchester, there was no second round as Labour’s Andy Burnham obtained 67.3% of first round votes against Conservative Laura Evan’s 19.6% of first round votes.
• Please note as of 2025/6 England’s directly elected mayors and PCC’s in England and Wales will be elected by FPTP and not SV.

Question 8

Supplementary Vote - PROS

Answer 8

• Simple
• Fairer than FPTP
• Penalises extreme parties
• Less tactical voting
• Winning candidate can claim to have an overall majority of support.

Question 9

Supplementary Vote - CONS

Answer 9

• Compromise candidate tends to win after 2nd choices counted
• Not very proportional.

Question 10

Against Referendums:

Answer 10

• Politicians should decide,
• Low turnout reduces legitimacy,
• Media makes issues emotional,
• Can become an opinion poll on popularity of government
• Too much power to wealthy groups who can distort the debate.,
• Voters may not understand the complexity of the issue (eg Brexit?)
• Can represent the ‘tyranny of the majority’,
• Some issues cannot have a simple yes/no answer (eg 2011 on AV).

Question 11

AMS

Answer 11

• Scottish Parliament
• Welsh Assembly
• Greater London Assembly.
• Voters get two votes
• One for constituency candidate (by FPTP) and the second for a party (using the party list system).
• Party list is used to ‘top up’ the constituency results and achieve fairness and proportionality.

Question 12

AMS - PROS

Answer 12

• Good compromise between FPTP and PR
• Smaller parties win seats
• Gives voters 2 votes so more choices
• Preserves constituency link

Question 13

AMS - CONS

Answer 13

• Creates two types of MP (one more legitimate than other)
• Less democratic because party chooses who goes on the list
• Can result in a minority or coalition government
• Having 2 votes can confuse voters.

Question 14

STV

Answer 14

• Northern Ireland Assembly
• Northern Ireland MEPs.
• Voters rank candidates in numerical order with successful candidates getting a certain quota of votes in multi-member constituencies (the way the quota is calculated is known as the Droop Formula).

Question 15

STV - PROS

Answer 15

• Very proportional
• Works well in N. Ireland
• Helps smaller parties
• Leads to coalitions (good or bad?)
• Voters get a wide choice of candidate( 6 representatives per constituency)
• Can choose to vote for candidates from different parties
• Every vote is of equal value.

Question 16

STV - CONS

Answer 16

• Complex
• Takes a long time
• Hard to understand
• Less proportional than List system
• Can help candidates with extremist views to be elected
• More likely to result in minority/coalition government.

Question 17

Majority and coalition governments

Answer 17

. When no party gets an overall majority they may form a minority govt. Common in Scotland and Wales. 2017 Cons supported by DUP. Tend to be weak and unstable. A coalition is when 2 or more parties join together e.g. Cons and Lib Dems 2010-15. Both parties share out Govt depts., and agree policies. In 2021 in Scotland the SNP are in a full coalition with the Scottish Greens (and strongly agree on issues such as holding a second referendum on independence) as they failed to secure an outright majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament from the 2021 Scottish Parliamentary Elections. NB The SNP does have 64 MSP’s out of 129 MSP’s one short of an overall majority. In Wales, Welsh Labour have an agreement on ‘key issues’ (such as increasing the size of the Welsh Parliament from 60 to 96) with Plaid Cymru as Welsh Labour also failed to achieve an outright majority of the seats in the Welsh Parliament. NB Labour does have 30 of the 60 seats in the Welsh Parliament one short of an overall majority

Question 18

Key Facts from 2019 General Election

Answer 18

a)
- Conservatives won 365 seats in Parliament.
- They won 56% of the seats with just 43.6% of the vote.

b)
- Lib Dems got 11.5% of the vote but only 1.7% of seats (11 MPs), the Brexit Party got over 600,000 votes but no seats.

c)
- SNP got 4% of total vote but 7.4% of the seats.

d)
- The Electoral Reform Society estimates that one fifth of voters voted tactically in 2019.

e)
- 75% of voters voted for the big 2 parties

f)
- Over half of MPs were elected without an absolute majority (over 50%) in their constituencies.
- Over 100 were elected with less than 40% of the vote.

Question 19

Why are referendums held in UK?

Answer 19

• Government is divided on an issue so let people decide, e.g. 1975 Europe, and Brexit 2016,
• Any important constitutional change must go to a referendum, e.g. ‘97 Scottish Parliament,
• Need to get the consent of community to give legitimacy to an important change, e.g. ‘98 N. Ireland.

Question 20

Referendums in UK:

Answer 20

3 National ones
- 1975 EC membership continue? Yes.
- 2011 AV? No.
- 2016 Brexit? Yes.

Other referendums include:
a) 1997 voters said yes in Scotland and Wales to have an elected assembly
b) 1998 Good Friday Agreement approved by voters in N. Ireland
c) 1998 Londoners voted yes for London Mayor
d) 2014 Scottish Independence (no).

Question 21

Arguments For Referendums:

Answer 21

• Democratic (pure democracy)
• More information available (internet) so voters are better informed,
• Less confidence in politicians these days,
• Encourages participation,
• Can mend rifts in society eg 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Question 22

Three electoral systems compared:

Answer 22

SYSTEM / PARTY SYSTEM / GOVERNMENT FORMATION / VOTER CHOICE / FAIRNESS / PROPORTIONALITY

1) FPTP / Tends to two parties / Strong government with a majority normally / Little choice / Votes are of unequal value with many wasted / Very disproportionate result

2) AMS / Multi-party / Difficult for one party to gain a majority / Voters have two votes / There are fewer wasted votes / Outcome is very proportional

3) STV / Multi-party / A majority government is very unlikely / Voters have many choices / Extremely fair to voters and candidate / Very proportional outcomes