Evidence Bank Flashcards
Example of AMS allowing more parties
No majorities in Scotland until 2011 and rise of Scottish nationalism
Example of FPTP giving mandate to get things done
Blair constitutional reform
Johnson to deliver Brexit
Examples of FPTP diminishing smaller parties’ seat number
Lib Dems won 11.6% of vote but only got 11 (1.6%) of seats in 2019
UKIP received 3.9 million votes in 2015 but only got one seat, would have been over 80 under PR
Example of FPTP giving winner’s bonus
In 2015 conservatives got 37% of vote but 51% of seats
In 2005 despite Labour only getting 3% more votes than Tories and losing 48 seats and only getting 35% of popular vote, got almost 55% of seats and 25% more than Tories
In 2019…
Examples of value of FPTP constituency link (2)
Labour MP Stephen Timms, who represents East Ham in London, held the record for the greatest number of surgeries in 2011. He did so in spite of being stabbed by an Islamic extremist at a surgery the previous year, insisting that it was important for him to continue to be accessible. Saw 2,300 constituents
Zac Goldsmith resigned as an MP over party’s support for Heathrow expansion in 2016
Examples of AMS being corrective to FPTP
- For example, in Scotland the Conservative Party won no seats in the 1997 Westminster election under FPTP, but the list enabled it to win a total of 18 seats in the first Scottish parliament elections in 1999.
Scottish parl 2021
Snp
47.7% of vote
49.6% of seats
Why does AMS partially correct FPTP?
The top-up component introduces a proportional element, acting as a corrective to the FPTP part of the system. A calculation is made using the d’Hondt formula to determine how many members a party should be allocated from the lists.
Examples of AMS still delivering disproportional results (2)
Conservatives got 8 more seats of Scot Parl than labour for only 0.3% more of vote in 2015
57 out of 59 regional seats with only 50% of vote for snp in 2015?
Examples of incorrectly completely votes under PR system
146,000 ballots incorrectly completed in Scotland in 2007.
Example of keeping extremists out
BNP got 563,743 votes but no seats in 2010.
Examples of coalitions taking long to form gov (2)
The May 2010 general election was an exception, when negotiations between the prospective parties of government did not produce a result for 5 days. This would be the norm under a proportional system. The outcome of a general election would be determined by bargaining between the party leaders, which can take time.
After the 2010 general election in Belgium, which uses a proportional system, it took almost 18 months to form a government.
Result of AV referendum
68% against
Speed of FPTP
Early in morning after polling day
What percentage of seats were safe in 2010?
In 2010, 59% estimated as safe seats by electoral reform society
Examples of safe seats (2)
The safest seat in the 2017 general election was Liverpool Walton, where Labour received 86% of the vote, giving them a 77% majority over the second-placed Conservatives (at 9%).
Christchurch is a safe Conservative seat; in 2017 the party gathered 69.6% of the vote there, giving it a near-50% majority over Labour.[28]
Examples of safe seats being lost
in 2015, the Labour Party lost many formerly safe seats in Scotland, including Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, which had previously been held by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and Paisley and Renfrewshire South, the seat of shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander. In both cases, swings of over 25% to the SNP were recorded.
In the 2019 general election, Labour lost many formerly safe seats that were part of its ‘Red Wall’ in northern England. These defeats represented about 20% of the party’s overall 2017 vote in such seats. Such as Leigh and Don Valley held since 1922.
How many wasted votes in 2019 GE?
Over 22.6 million votes (70.8%) did not contribute to electing an MP. In seven constituencies, over 90 percent of the votes went to waste in this way.
Example of seat being won without majority
The smallest of these being in South Down where the winning MP gained just 32 percent of the vote share – this means that over two-thirds of voters in South Down voted for another candidate.
Seats won without majority in 2019 GE
Overall, 229 of the 650 MPs were elected on less than 50 percent of the constituency vote – in other words, 35 percent of all MPs lack majority support.
How much tactical voting in 2019?
Electoral Reform Society:
Between August and November 2019 (the start of the official campaign) between 22 and 24 percent of voters said they would choose ‘the best-positioned party/candidate to keep out another party/candidate that I dislike’. Our final poll before the election found nearly a third of voters saying they would vote tactically in this way (30%).17
Neglect of safe seats
Before the election, the ERS predicted the outcome in 316 seats, half of all seats in Great Britain. These predictions had a 100 percent success rate.27 The certainty of safe seats can breed complacency among parties and lead to voters being taken for granted, with safe seats ignored during election campaigns while seats that may change hands are lavished with attention.
BMG polling for the ERS revealed that those living in seats classed as marginal received far more election literature than those seats classed as safe for one party or another.28 Just one in four people (25%) in safe seats reported receiving four or more election leaflets or other pieces of communication through their door compared to almost half (46%) of those in potential swing seats. Nearly three times as many people in swing seats (14%) reported receiving 10 or more leaflets or other pieces of communication, compared to just five percent of those in safe seats.
Example of proportionality under STV
Sinn Fein in 2022 NI Assembly Elections got 30% seats with 29 percent of vote while DUP got 28 percent of seats with 21% of vote
In 2017 DUP got 31% of seats with 28.1 % of vote and Sinn Fein got 27.9% and also 31%, just one more seat.
Choice under STV
more choice is offered by STV, where a preferential voting system allows voters to differentiate not only between political parties but also between candidates from the same party.
Also fewer wasted votes