First Past The Post

First Past The Post

1. Features

   • Two party system: Favors major parties with strong nationwide support, giving those parties a good chance of securing a parliamentary majority. Although it can be argued that there is no longer a two party system in the UK with Labour and Conservatives only making up 65% of the vote in 2010.
   • Winner's Bonus: Relatively small leads over the 2nd placed party often translates to a significant shift in seats in the House of Commons.
   • Bias to Labour: Labour's vote is more efficiently distributed - needs fewer votes to win seats. Labour constituents are smaller than that of the conservatives, smaller turnouts in Labour held seats, and anti-conservative tactical voting in 1997, 2001 and 2005 have also helped to cause a bias in favor of Labour
   • Discrimination against smaller parties: Parties without concentrated supports get no rewards for coming 2nd or 3rd in the vote and their share of the vote rarely if reflected in their amounts of seats. In 2010 Lib Dems had 35% of the vote but only 13% of the seats
   • Single Part Governments: FPTP has usually produced single party government with a strong majority. Only the 1974 and 2010 general elections have been coalitions in recent time.

2. Advantages

   • Simplicity: simpler and easier to understand than other electoral systems
   • Clear Outcomes: FPTP normally produce a clear winner the party securing the largest number of votes usually achieves a majority of seats 
   • Strong Stable Government: Normally produces single party governments who have working majorities, this allows them to fulfill their legislative promises in their manifestio 
   • Responsible Government: Clear lines between the winners and losers obliges the government to fulfill their promises or face expulsion from the government 
   • Effective Representation: Single-member constituencies provide a clear link between canidates and their voters

3. Disadvantages

   • Disproportional outcomes: The number of seats won by a party does not represent that parties share of the vote. Smaller more spread out parties will win few seats but get more votes than parties with concentrated support over a few areas
   • Plurality rather than majority support: Victorious candidates do not need the majority of the votes cast to win their seat. In 2010 2/3 candidates did not win a majority 
   • Votes are of unequal value: Votes in smaller constituency are more likely to influence the outcome than a vote in a larger constituency. 53% of votes in 2010 were wasted votes
   • Limited Choice: There is only one candidate per party. In safe seats opposing candidates have little chance of overruling the leading party in that area, this encourages tactical voting in the electorate.