First-Past-the-Post Electoral System: Advantages and Disadvantages

FPTP uses a simple majority vote.
Voters mark an X beside their chosen candidate's name.
The candidate with the most votes in a constituency (seat) wins and becomes the MP for that area.
The political party with over half of the 650 MPs (a majority) in the House of Commons forms the government and leads the country.
If no party gets a majority (quite rare), they will need to work with other parties to pass policy or form a coalition.

Simplicity:
- Easily understood and familiar to people.
- Voters vote once.
- Straightforward count (add up the votes to see who has the most).
- Results are usually announced quickly.
- Voters chose to keep FPTP for UK parliament elections, showing it's a popular system.
Encourages voter turnout:
- The more people that vote, the more views that can be represented in parliament, which is good for democracy.
- Contrast: 140,000 spoilt ballot papers in the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections that uses AMS (a form of proportional representation where the public get two votes).

Minority of the vote:
- In most constituencies, more people vote against the winning candidate than for them.
- An MP can be elected with as low as 35% of the vote.
- The winning party is usually elected by less than 50% of the voters.
  - Example: In 2015, the Conservative Party won the election with only 36.9% of the vote.
  - Example: In 2024, the new Labour government has 412 MPs but only 33.7% share of the vote.
Voter representation:
- Voters may feel their views are not represented.
- Some people may choose not to vote in the future.
- The less people that vote, the less democratic the system is.

UK Vote Share:
- CON: 42.4%
- LAB: 40.0%
- LD: 7.4%
- SNP: 3.0%
- UKIP: 1.8%
- GRN: 1.6%
UK Seats:
- Conservative: 318 (-13)
- Labour: 262 (+30)
- Scottish National Party: 35 (-21)
- Liberal Democrat: 12 (+4)
- Democratic Unionist Party: 10 (+2)
- Sinn Fein: 7 (+3)
- Plaid Cymru: 4 (+1)
- Green Party: 1 (0)
- UKIP: 0 (-1)

Smaller parties do not gain fair representation:
- Example: In 2015, UKIP polled 12.6% of the vote but returned only 1 MP.
- Example: In Scotland, Labour received 24.3% of the vote and returned 1 MP, while the SNP received 50% of the vote and returned 56 of the 59 Scottish MPs.
Reasons for Disparity:
- SNP's support is concentrated in one part of the UK, making it easier for them to win constituencies.
- UKIP and Labour had plenty of support, but their vote was spread across the UK, meaning they often came 2nd or 3rd.
Impact:
- Views of a lot of people who voted are not represented in Parliament.
- FPTP is not proportional, as the share of the vote does not equal the share of seats, which can be considered bad for democracy.

Seats Needed to Win: 326
Seats:
- CON: 365 (+47)
- LAB: 203 (-59)
- SNP: 48 (+13)
- LD: 11 (-1)
- DUP: 8 (-2)
- OTH: 15 (+2)
UK Vote Share:
- CON: 43.6%
- LAB: 32.2%
- LD: 11.5%
- SNP: 3.9%
- GRN: 2.7%
- BRX: 2.0%

In GE 2019, the Conservatives and the SNP boosted their ratio of seats-to-votes.
Data includes comparisons of seat share % and vote share % for Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem, SNP, UKIP, Green, and Brexit parties in 2015, 2017, and 2019.

Votes:
- Tories: 11,334,920
- Labour: 9,347,326
- Ukip: 3,881,129
- Lib Dem: 2,415,888
- SNP: 1,454,436
- Green: 1,157,613
Seats:
- Tories: 331
- Labour: 232
- SNP: 56
- Lib Dem: 8
- Ukip: 1
- Green: 1

UKIP:
- Why might UKIP feel badly done to in both 2015 and 2017?
Lib Dems:
- Why might the Lib Dems feel hard done to in 2017 and 2019?
Unfairness:
- Is there anything else from these two elections that you think could be considered to be unfair?

Strong single-party government:
- Usually one party wins the election, giving the winning party five years to put its plans (manifesto promises) into action.
- Example: In 2024, the Labour Party won the General Election with a healthy majority.
- The Prime Minister and cabinet can get their policies voted through in Parliament without compromise with smaller parties.
Benefits:
- The elected party can keep the promises they were elected to put into action.
- Many voters get what they voted for.
- Governments are less likely to collapse because they can’t agree on what to do.
- Avoids coalitions associated with Proportional Representation (PR) systems such as AMS which can slow decisions.

Tactical voting and Voter apathy:
- FPTP encourages tactical voting and/or people not bothering to vote because they think their vote will have little chance of helping to elect their candidate.
  - In a ‘safe’ seat (e.g., Conservative), there is little point in a voter choosing Labour.
  - People may vote not for a candidate they prefer but against a candidate they dislike, or they might choose not to vote at all.
  - Two-thirds of constituencies in the UK are described as safe seats.
Impact:
- Less of the public’s views are represented.
- Makes the FPTP less democratic.
- Voters' views are not truly represented if they vote for a candidate they don’t believe in.

FPTP often prevents extremist parties from getting any of their candidates elected:
- Example: The British National Party (BNP) achieved over half a million votes in the 2010 general election but gained no seats.
- FPTP is not good for small parties whose support is not concentrated in one area.
Benefits:
- Keeps minority/extreme views out of Parliament which are not held by most people in the country.
- Under a proportional representation (PR) system, the BNP won two seats in the 2009 European elections. (Why can this be seen as a disadvantage?)

Remember to PEE (and E a wee bit more)
- One disadvantage of first past the post is that it can lead to voter apathy. This is a disadvantage because… An example is……