Electoral systems Flashcards
FPTP positives
- Each constituency elects a single MP who represents the entire constituency - Jeremy Hunt every friday holds a surgery in SW Surrey
- Simple system, easily understandable - 68% keep in
- Has historically produced an outright winner - haven’t had a coalition since 2010
- Tends to be a strong, more diverse government that can pass laws relatively easily - More diverse house – post 2019 HOC seen as most diverse in history – 34% MPs were women (220) and 10% from ethnic minorities and Tony Blair passed 2.5K laws a year - huge majority of 178 in 1997
FPTP negatives
- Favours larger parties and hinders smaller parties and reinforces two party system
- SNP - 5% vote
UKIP 2015 - 13% vote
UKIP - 1 seat
SNP - 56 seats - favours larger parties
- Winner’s bonus and distorted voting values - biggest party tends to get a boost to the amount of seats that it wins in comparison to the share of the vote -
- Conserv in 2015 - 37% vote, 50.8% seats - winner bonus
- Gives an advantage to parties with concentrated support, minority vote wins - Brexit Party polled over 640,000 votes nationally, 2% of the total vote, which would’ve led to 13 seats in a directly proportional system, instead they got 0.
- Reinforces two party system - Preserved the 2-party system – Lab and Con reserved 568 of the 650 seats – 87% of all seats in the HOC with a 76% share of the vote
can lead to serious electoral anomalies and accusations that the system is undemocratic – DISTORTED voting values – Lib Dems received one seat for every 336,038 votes secured, whilst Conservatives received a seat for every 38,264 votes
How FPTP works
- Country is split into 650 constituencies with each having 1MP representing it
- One candidate per party stands up for election - candidate with a plurality wins
- Largest party in the HOC is the one with the most candidates of that party voted in - tends to then form a gov
- Usually used for general elections
SV positives
- Winning candidate can claim an overall majority, more democratic legitimacy - - Sadiq Khan can claim 56.8% of the London electorate, a significantly more impressive share than the 36.1% won by David Cameron in 2015.
- Relatively simple- encourages politicians to still broadly campaign and seek consensus to win as many 1st and 2nd preference votes as possible
- Voters have the opportunity to express a preference for more than one party, lessens the need for tactical voting - - Many green party voters can vote the first round safely and their second choice labour wont be harmed - upholds liberal democracy
SV negatives
- Winning candidate can be chosen as a second choice candidate - does not ensure that the winning candidate has 50% of the vote
- Probably entrench and promote the 2 party system - votes are still wasted - Labour and Conservative always likely to be top 2 for London Mayor - May 2021 mayoral election got 75.3% of the vote - still a majoritarian system
- Third parties will still be excluded from winning seats than from FPTP - still not proportional - if you vote green 1st preference and lib dems 2nd preference votes still wasted
How SV works
- Generally used for London mayoral elections - NOT PR
- Electors vote for their first choice candidate and their second preference
- If no candidate receives over 50% of the vote in the first round all but the top 2 are removed
- 2nd preference votes are used to redistribute votes for the remaining candidates
AMS positives
- Produces a broadly proportional outcome and so is fair to all parties - stops winner’s bonus and 1 party domination - denies a majority
2011 SP election which used the AMS, the SNP got 45% of the vote and gained 53% of the seats which is quite proportional.
Coalition Governments are more likely under the AMS. This is arguably better since parties have to cooperate and compromise and so decisions reflect a wider range of views. During these times parties had to work together to make laws for the country…e.g. the Labour/Lib Dem coalition of 1999-2003 ensured that Scottish students do not have to pay to go to university or college
Under the AMS, less votes will be “wasted”. This is because seats are awarded proportionally rather than a “winner takes all” scenario as is the case with FPTP .For example, in the Glasgow region in 2011, 3 Labour, 2 SNP, 1 Conservative and 1 Green MP were elected.Under FPTP, only Labour and maybe the SNP would have gained representation in Glasgow and thousands of votes cast for other parties like the Greens would have counted for nothing
AMS negatives
Coalition or minority governments are more likely which is arguably a negative because there can be too much time wasted on discussing and compromise instead of getting the job done
The minority SNP government of 2007-11 had difficulty passing laws because they did not have a majority of seats had to rely on the support of MPs from other parties to win votes in Parliament. They failed for example to pass a law on Alcohol Minimum Pricing in 2010 because opposition MSPs (mostly Labour) voted against it
Because there are 8 MSPs that citizens can potentially approach this might lead to confusion as to who to approach. Also, having to vote twice in an election causes confusion and in previous elections in 1999 and 2003, thousands of ballot paper were incorrectly filled in meaning that votes were not counted. 100,000 ballot papers were wasted in 2007 – perhaps partly down to the confusing nature of the AMS
heightens the chances of extremist parties such as the BNP (british national) gaining representation in Parliament.
The BNP have put forward regional candidates for the most recent Scottish elections. In 2011, the BNP gained 2,500 votes in the Glasgow region. Although this was not enough to gain an MP they have a much better chance of gaining an MP this way than under a FPTP system where only one party can win the seat for a consituency
How AMS works
Country divided into geographical constituencies and regions
- Voters have 2 votes - 1 for local constituency that used FPTP and one for regional representative
- Regional representative elected on a closed party list system - they vote for the party, not the individual
- Constit results are topped up using the regional result to be more proportional
- Used in Scottish Parliamentary elections, Greater London Assembly, Welsh Assembly
STV positives
- Produces a broadly proportional outcome - 28.1% first preference votes won DUP got 28 seats, Sinn Fein got 27.9% first preference votes and won 27 seats
- Wide choice - 2nd taken into consideration when counting
Vote for different candidates from different parties - can show a preference for 2 candidates in the same party as well as other parties - Helps small parties be elected and minority representation - 2017 NI Assembly election results small parties like Alliance got 8 seats and SDLP got 12 seats
STV negatives
- Complex - people unclear from many different choices
- Can take time for a complicated voting count - 2017 assembly poll when all 90 seats were allocated within 19 hours of ballot boxes being opened.
Extremist candidates elected -
- Lines of accountability are not clear - 6 candidates
- Unlikely to have a strong and stable government - bad coalitions with ams examples - difficult to pass laws
- The latest instability comes after a three-year Assembly collapse following the resignation of former Sinn Fein deputy first minister Martin McGuinness in 2017.
Giving evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Ms Long said it was frustrating and disappointing that 25 years after the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement Stormont was “increasingly unstable”.
How STV works
Each voter ranks the list of candidates in order of preference
Any candidate that has exceeded the quota is elected
If not, count continues
If candidate gets more than the quota, surplus votes given to others according to preferences
Fewest votes is eliminated
Uses the quota - V divided by S + 1 to get an outright winner
Primarily used in Northern Irish Assembly
What is a majoritarian system
They tend to ‘over-represent’ the larger parties and produce an outcome which delivers a majority for a single party
What is proportional representation
Any electoral system that tends to produce a proportional outcome - the seat in the representative body are awarded in an election broadly in proportion to votes cast from each party
40% of the vote, 40% of the seats
Advantages of PR
is fairer than its counterpart as it completely represents the votes that each political party receives in an election. Meaning that the elected body will more likely represent more within society than first past the post - in the 2019 election Boris Johnson would be denied a majority -
ERS (Electoral Reform Society) said that
Conservatives won 77 fewer seats
Labour would’ve won 10 more seats
Green Party would have added another 11 MPs to their 2019 total of one
coalitions that are usually formed between political parties in a PR system are very good for a democracy. It’s the thought that it gives the opportunity for a group representing a minority group to voice their opinion within the government. Therefore, making the government much more representative of the range of opinions within the country - use AMS example
small parties represented - ams and stv
