Electoral Systems

What is First Past the Post?

• Used in UK General Elections

• Voters cast one vote to their preferred candidate, and the one with the largest number of votes wins, no certain majority needed

Advantages of FPTP

• Clear choice and a strong government is formed

• Strong representation in the UK with small constituencies having an MP to represent their interests

• Simple and easy to use

Disadvantages of FPTP

• Not proportional representation, votes do not translate into seats

• Can lead to limited choices for voters because many seats are safe seats where the MP has a secure majority

• People voting for less popular parties may feel their votes are wasted

• Often results with a government being elected with a minority of votes, so can feel unrepresentative

What is Single Transferable Vote?

• Used by the Northern Ireland Assembly

• Divides a country into multi-member constituencies

• Voters number their choice of candidate in order of preference

• Candidates require as certain quota to be elected, which is calculated by the Droop formula

• If no candidate reaches the quota on the first round of voting then the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated and the second preference of voters supporting them receive the eliminated votes

Advantages of STV

• Large choice for voters

• Encourages positive campaigning

• Votes and seats are highly proportional to one another

Disadvantages of STV

• Link between members and voters can be weak as there are so many representing the same constituents

• More complicated that FPTP and takes longer to reach a final result

• Donkey voting can occur where people just vote in the order on the ballot

What is Additional Member System

• Used for Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament and the Greater London Assembly Elections

• Voters have two votes, one vote for their constituency representative using FPTP and a second vote for a ‘party list’ in order to elect an ‘additional’ representative

• The party list uses multi-member regional constituencies and a party’s list of candidates is published before the election

• After the constituency representatives has been counted, additional members are added proportionally based on the proportion of voting support for each party

Advantages of AMS

• Strong link between the MP elected by FPTP and their constituents who directly vote for them

• Has a proportional element to it through proportionally assigning seas to party’s based on the number of votes for each party

• AMS gives voters more choice

Disadvantages of AMS

• Smaller parties are less well represented under AMS than an entirely proportional system

• Party list candidates have less legitimacy than members elected by FPTP

• Lacks democratic transparency because the party decides who’s on the party list and ranks the order of candidates

What is Supplementary Vote?

• Was used for London Mayoral elections and to elect Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales

• A voter has a first and second preference vote with a candidates elected if they win more than 50% of the first preference votes

• In no candidate gains 50% of the first choice vote then all candidates are eliminated apart from the top two who will have second preference votes allocated to decide the winner

Advantages of SV

• Simple voting system

• Stops candidates winning through having a small support level

• Encourages positive campaigning

Disadvantages of SV

• Votes can be wasted because voters only choose two candidates meaning that many votes can be excluded from the final vote count

• It’s not proportional to the wishes of a region

• The winning candidate does not require an absolute majority (over 50%), they just need the most votes after the second round