First Past the Post

• First Past the Post is a voting system which gives a seat to the candidate with the most votes in a constituency.
• Constituencies are areas designed to be of similar size in terms of their population, with each constituency electing one representative.
• There are 650 constituencies in the UK.
• In the UK, the average constituency size is 72,000 people
• 2015 General Election

  Date: 7th May 2015

  Prime Minister: David Cameron (Conservative)

  Majority: 12 seats

  Electorate: 46,425,386

  Turnout: 66.1%
• Strengths of FPTP:

  • Simplicity: results are obvious and easy to understand and there is a very fast turnaround.
  • Tradition: there is not a great demand for reform (the 2011 AV+ referendum had a low turnout)
  • Strength: it allows single parties to rule with large majorities and make decisions quickly- they can act without fear of being overruled in an emergency
  • Representative: MPs are representatives for a community and hopefully have a close constituency link through attending surgeries. They can represent local views and raise awareness of local issues in the House of Commons.
• Weaknesses of FPTP:

  • Minority rule: the majority of the franchise may have wanted a different candidate
  • Under FPTP, people end up voting for the candidate they least dislike, leading to a low turnout and a potential participation crisis
  • Gerrymandering: changing constituency borders in order to gain as many seats as possible for a certain party
  • Lack of proportionality: the two main parties are overrepresented in Parliament (two-party system)
  • Multiplier effect gives the winning party a bonus excess of seats
  • Limited voter choice and safe seats (e.g. Labour in Knowsley) lead to voter apathy
• What type of voting system is FPTP?


  Majoritarian
• Where is FPTP used?

  Local and general elections
• The Electoral Reform society recorded 56% of seats were safe seats in 2015
• A strength of FPTP is that it provides clear winners and losers which makes it easier for the government to form policies and pass legislation.
• FPTP has been criticised by some because it does not allow voters to vote for more than one person or party at once. This means that voters cannot express their full range of preferences on election day.
• FPTP has been criticised by some who argue that it does not accurately reflect public opinion because the number of votes cast for a particular party does not always correspond to the number of seats won.
• Another criticism of FPTP is that it can result in minority governments where no one party holds a majority of seats in parliament.
• Another weakness of FPTP is that it can result in a situation where the winner only receives a small percentage of the popular vote. For example, in the 2019 General Election, Boris Johnson's Conservative Party won a large majority with just under 44% of the popular vote.
• Minority governments are unstable as they rely on support from other parties to get laws passed through Parliament.
• FPTP encourages two party politics as smaller parties have little chance of winning seats unless they concentrate all their resources into targeting specific constituencies. In contrast, proportional representation (PR) systems tend to produce multi-party systems where many different parties have a realistic chance of winning seats.
• FPTP also tends to favour two main political parties - the Conservative Party and Labour Party - as smaller parties struggle to gain enough support to win seats.
• FPTP can be unfair as it allows parties with less support to win seats if they are concentrated in certain areas. For example, in the 2019 General election, the SNP won only 4.3% of the national vote but secured 48 out of Scotland’s 59 seats.
• One advantage of FPTP is that it encourages two-party politics, which makes decision making easier and reduces political instability.
• One advantage of FPTP is that it provides clear results and allows for decisive government action without the need for coalition building or complex negotiations between multiple parties.
• In 2019, the Conservatives won 43.6% of the popular vote but gained 55.9% of the seats in parliament.
• Vote splitting is an electoral effect associated with plurality voting systems like First-Past-The-Post, in which the distribution of votes over multiple candidates with similar platforms decreases the chance of any one of them winning whilst increasing the chances of a dissimilar candidate winning.
• Another disadvantage of FPTP is that it can lead to wasted votes where people cast ballots for losing candidates who have no realistic chance of being elected.
• A disadvantage of FPTP is that it does not accurately represent public opinion because voters may feel their preferences do not count due to the winner taking all system.
• A major disadvantage of FPTP is its tendency towards polarisation, where voters feel compelled to choose between two extreme options rather than expressing their true preferences.
• FPTP has been criticised as undemocratic by some critics, particularly those on the left wing of British politics, who argue that it gives too much power to the Conservative Party at the expense of other parties.
• FPTP can result in unrepresentative outcomes when there are large numbers of spoilt ballot papers, such as during the Brexit referendum in 2016.