Electoral Systems

Electoral Systems

1. Why do we have elections?

   • Accountability- enable citizens to hold government to account
   • Legitimisation- lend legitimacy to government providing it with an electoral mandate
   • Its an essential component of democracy, e.g. SOUTH AFRICA 1994.

2. What are the two main types of electoral systems?

   • MAJORITARIAN
     • one elected candidate per constituency, designed to produce one clear winner
     • NOT PROPORTIONAL
     • e.g. Supplementary Vote.
     • One type of majoritarian is PLURALITY- winning candidate gets more votes than nearest rival, but not a majority, e.g. FPTP
   • PROPORTIONAL
     • multi-member constituencies
     • seats in an elected assembly are in proportion to total share of votes
     • e.g. List System and STV

3. FIRST PAST THE POST advantages

   • Creates strong government, usually a single-party. Compared with other systems in Europe, e.g. Germany where PR is used, took 2 months of indecision over outcome
     • It tends to produce a two-party system which in turn tends to produce single-party governments, which don't have to rely on support from other parties to pass legislation.
   • Links between MP and constituents. Small single-party constituencies means that local people know their MP and who to contact
     • The voter can clearly express a view on which party they think should form the next government
   • It's simple to understand and thus doesn't cost much to administer.
   • It doesn't take very long to count all the votes and work out who's won, meaning results can be declared a handful of hours after polls close.
   • Government is more accountable because they can be voted out for not fulfilling their manifesto pledges

4. FIRST PAST THE POST DISADVANTAGES

   • Rather than allocating seats in line with actual support, FPTP rewards parties with 'lumpy' support, i.e. with just enough votes to win in each particular area. Thus, losing 4,000 votes in one area can be a good idea if it means you pick up 400 votes in another. With smaller parties, this works in favour of those with centralised support.
   • FPTP in effect wastes huge numbers of votes (up to 70% of votes cast), as votes cast in a constituency for losing candidates, or for the winning candidate above the level they need to win that seat, count for nothing.
   • the number of seats won is not proportional to the number of votes cast- e.g. 2005 labour won 335 seats with only 36% votes, 64.8 of those who voted, didn't vote for Labour
   • Representatives can get elected on tiny amounts of public support as it does not matter by how much they win, only that they get more votes than other candidates.

5. ALTERNATIVE SYSTEMS

   • SUPPLEMNTARY VOTE (majoritarian)