Electoral systems

• How to judge electoral systems: voter choice

  • how many votes voters get
  • how many candidates/parties are standing
  • how much individual votes impact the outcome
• How to judge electoral systems: representation and proportionality

  • perhaps the most important - what's the point of voting if it doesn't affect the outcome?
  • how strong the link is between amount of votes and seats won, the closer they are, the more proportional a system is
• How to judge electoral systems: Link to Representatives

  • how close the link is between representive and represented
  • ways this could be analysed is the number of representatives per voter
• example of FPTP simplicity and speed:

  • in 1997 Blair arrived at Downing Street at 1pm on the day of election, very quick
  • proportional representation often takes more time e.g. after the 2007 Scottish parliament election it took 2 weeks for the SNP minority gov to be sworn in, after failed coalition talks with the Lib Dems
• example of FPTP producing strong governments compared to proportional systems:


  1980's this enabled Thatcher to bring about widespread changes such as privatisation, giving it the legitimacy and mandate she needed of 362 seats
• example of FPTP creating an MP constituency link


  e.g. in 2022, 33 conservative MP's rebelled against Liz Truss' government and abstained in a vote on banning fracking despite the government ordering them to, including Mark Fletcher of Bolsover which had a strong local movement against fracking in the area
• example of FPTP excluding extremist parties


  in 2010 the extreme right wing BNP (British national party) won 2% of the vote but got no seats while in the 2009 EU parliament elections which used a proportional closed party system, won 6.2% and 2 seats.
• examples of lack of representation under FPTP

  over half of MPs typically don't command a majority within their constituency e.g. in the 2015 election Alasdair Mcdonnell of the SDLP won with just 25% of the vote in Belfast south and the turnout was only 60%.
• examples of lack of proportionality at the National level


  FPTP exaggerates the win of the biggest party through 'winners bonus'. in 2019 the tories won 56% of the seats with 44% of the vote + in elections like that of 1951 occasionally happen where the party with more seats got less votes. In 2015, UKIP won 3.9 million votes and only one seat (13% of votes AND 1.7% of the seats)
• examples of lack of voter choice under FPTP


  votes for the party that doesn't win in a constituency are essentially wasted, leads to tactical voting which warps the public view and shows a lack of democracy. A yougov poll in 2019 found that 32% of voters tactically voted. South Staffordshire has elected a tory in every election since its creation in 1983. swing seats get lots more attention and higher turnout, very unfair e.g. Thanet South in Kent which has een won y every winning party in a general election since t's creation.
• Why is FPTP used

  • serves the interest of the 2 main parties which have been in office since ww2.
  • Labour offered a referendum on FPTP in their 1997 election manifesto, but had no incentive to deliver it after winning a large majority
• what is AMS and where is it used

  • AMS is used in elections to the Scottish parliament and Welsh assemblies
  • voters have 2 votes, one for a constituency representative elected using FPTP and another for a party list which uses multi-member regional constituencies. The Dhondt formula is used to get the most accurate party representation in that area. bigger constituencies are used. In the Scottish parliament, 73 of the 129 members are elected