Different electoral systems

What are the purposes of elections?

Selecting representatives

Legitimising power

Limiting the power of representatives

Developing political policy

Selection of political elite

Accountability

What is a plurality?

Having more votes than anyone else thus winning but not having an overall majority

It is likely that a two party system is favoured under these systems

What is majoritarian systems?

This system requires the winning candidate to gain 50% of the vote +1

It it likely that a two party system is favoured under this system

What is a proportional system?

This allocates seats in a manner which roughly reflects the % of votes gained by the party

Likely to produce multi-party systems and lead to coalition governments

No purely proportional system is used in the UK- instead they use a hybrid system

Give an example of plurality system?

Westminster elections and english council elections

Give examples of majoritarian systems?

Supplementary vote- used in London Mayor elections and police and crime elections

Alternative vote- proposed in 2011 referendums

Give examples of proportional systems?

Additional members system used in Welsh assembly and Scottish parliament elections as well as london assembly elections

Single transferable vote- used in Northern Ireland assembly elections

What are the fundamentals of the FPTP system?

The UK is currently divided in 650 geographical locations called constituencies roughly in equal size in terms of population 70,000 -100,000 . Each constituencies is represented by one seat in the house of commons. Each party will select a candidate for individual seats. The party with the most MPs has the right to form a government. A party needs 326 seats to form a gov on its own. If it fails then the largest party will have to form a coalition or minority government

Explain Supplementary votes history?

1998, Londoners voter to have an elected mayor. To do this it was decided that successful candidates had to have over 50% of the votes. In 2000 ken Levingston won as an independent, since then BJ and Sadiq Khan

Explain the fundamentals of the supplementary vote?

London treated as one constituency, voters are given ballot with all candidates and they put a X in each column based on their 1st preference and second preference

All first choice ballots are counted. If anyone gets above 50% they win. If no one wins all but two top candidates after 1st round of voting are eliminated. Then the 2nd preference votes for the eliminated candidates are counted and redistributed to the remaining candidate

What are the advantages of Supplementary vote?

Electoral outcomes, voter choice, simple system, majority result, strong governments

What are disadvantages of supplementary vote?

A false majority, two party dominance, wasted votes

Explain Additional members systems history?

Process of devolution in scotland and wales which began in the late 1990s saw both the welsh and Scottish systems for the devolved bodies adopt Additional members of system. This gives each voter each 2 independent votes to cast- one for a local rep and one for a regional

Explain the fundamentals of additional members systems??

Voters are given two ballot papers, on each one they vote they are electing an individual candidate, on the regional vote they are choosing a party, they do not need to vote for the same party on both ballots

Explain the regional vote of AMS?

This works more proportionally, Scotland is divided into 7 multi-constituency regions and wales is divided into 5. In Scotland there are 7 seats per region and in wales there are 4

Each party running draws up a list of candidates for each region, ranking them in order they will be elected

Voters vote for the candidate and the votes are counted within each region

The d’Hont formula is used to given party/ number of seats a given party has gained +1

Once the formula is completed, the party with the highest number gets the first seat, the party after this with the second highest gets the second until all four seats have gone

Explain the constituency vote of AMS?

This works the same as FPTP- scotland is divided into 73 small single representatives constituencies

Explain the STV system history?

Due to the complexities of the history in Northern Ireland and the sectarian divide between Catholics and Protestants; Republicans and Unionists another system that has come to be used to elect members of the Northern IReland Assembly in Stormont

Explain the STV system?

Northern Ireland is divided into 18 multi member regions which each elect 6 reps for the Assembly

Voters rank in the candidate in order 1,2,3 ect

The ballots in each region are counted and to determine the winner they use the droop quota

Any candidate who have achieved the droop quota are automatically given a seat

Any votes that they achieved over this numbers are redistributed according to any second preference, if any more candidates now have the droop quota they are given the seat

If any seats are remaining and no one else has reached the droop quota, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed

This process happens until all seats are filled

What are the advantages of STV?

Vote transfer, voter choice, proportional result, coalition, greater representation, multi-party state

What are the disadvantage of STV?

Coalitions, constituency link, complicated in general

What are the advantages of FPTP?

Strong government, MP- constituency link, simplicity

What are the disadvantages of FPTP?

Disproportionate result, wasted votes, majorities, concentrated support, safe seats, votes per MP, vote value, a winner’s bonus, a two party system, vote value, lack of choice

What are the strengths of AMS?

Proportional result, greater representation, non-concentrated support, split tickets, coalition government

What are the weaknesses of AMS ?

More complicated, party control, types of representatives, FPTP link, coalition government

Do plurality systems ensure legitimacy?

Around 70% of the votes are not valid to the overall outcome

Give reasons for FPTP being retained?

Easy to understand and produces clear results

The system tends to produce a clear winner in the general election since party with a parliamentary majority helping to promote strong, stable, decisive governments

Produces on single reps for each constituency and so creates a close constituent- MP bond

The other political systems used such as AMS and STV are both very complex and may cause a reduced voter turnout if voters do not understand what they are voting for

Arguably FPTP has stood the test of time. Abandoning the system would be dangerous and be a step into the unknown

A switch might lead to unintended consequences, a choice to change to AMS was held in 2011 and voters rejected it

Possible for small parties to break through the system. 2015 SNP went from 6 seats to 56 seats and came to dominate Scotland. ALternatively UKIP may only have won seat it’s 3.8 million votes highlighted its popularity and they have been able to indirectly influence the tories

Majoritarian systems do nothing to eradicate the issue of wasted votes or allow for third parties to break through the electoral map

Give reasons that FPTP should be replaced?

Encourages voters to vote tactically and so abandon the party that they support

Produces poor results- lack of proportionally is increasingly evidence and this does not fit with the principles of representative democracy and does not deliver either MPs of a government with a majority of the voters case

Government that FPTP delivers can be argued to lack legitimacy and yet possess huge power- what Lord Hailsham describes as ‘an elective dictatorship’

Overall outcomes is not proportional or fair, some parties won less support warrants while others get less than they deserve

It means many votes are wasted

Doesnt always produce a majority government 2010 coalition and 2017

Since 1945 always resulted in winning party scoring less than half of the vote. In 2015 tories won with just 36.9 of the vote in 66% turnout.

Votes are unequal in value in that votes in sage seats are less valuable than those in marginals. In 2015 the UKIP vote was also hugely less valuable than the tories- whereas 3.8 million votes gained UKIP 1 seat; it took just 34,000 to gain the tories a seat

Prevents new parties from breaking into the system

Why is turnout for regional elections lower?

The percieved unimportance of the regional devolved bodies compared to westminster

The complexities of the voting system

What is the impact of parties on the new systems?

Number of parties under the new voting systems that are able to compete and win seats has increased

Allowed for revivals for parties that have struggled

On the other hand has given smaller parties a disproportionate levels of power- giving them ‘king maker’ status