3.1 Different electoral systems.

Question 1

what are elections central to?

Answer 1

central to the practice of democracy
- the uks claim to be democratic is largely based in nature of electoral system

Question 2

what is the electoral system based on?

Answer 2

• universal adult suffrage
• one person, one vote
• a secret ballot
• comp bet candidates and parties

Question 3

what are elections a link between?

Answer 3

between gov and people = voting = most imp form of pol participation.

Question 4

what are the main elections in the uk?

Answer 4

1. general elections
2. devolved assembly elections
3. local elections

Question 5

general elections

Answer 5

these are parliamentary which all seats in hoc come up for re - election and take place every five years according to Fixed term Parliament Act but in certain circumstances like 2017 and 2019 can occur before

Question 6

devolved assembly elections

Answer 6

thse elections for the scottish parliament, the welsh parliament and ni assembly = fixed term elections and take place every four years

Question 7

local elections

Answer 7

elections to district, borough and county councils
- include elections to Greater London Assembly, the London Mayor and mayoral elections also taking placee in other local authorities
- fixed term elections take place every four or five years

Question 8

what does sv stand for?

Answer 8

supplementary vote

Question 9

supplementary vote meaning

Answer 9

an electoral system in which the voter makers two preferential choices. if candidate obtains over 50% on the first vote then the contest is complete. if no candidate attains the level only the top two candidates remian. then the second choices are re distributed bet those two candidates, which results in a winner. this is a majoritarian system

Question 10

use of the supplementary vote

Answer 10

• non proportional
• majoritarian system
• all elections for directly elected mayors in eng, inc Mayor of London and in elections for Police and Crime Commissioners

Question 11

features of sv

Answer 11

• single member constituencies
• electors have two votes: a first preference vote and a second ‘supplementary’ vote
• winning candidates in the elections must gain a 50 % for all votes cast
• votes are counted acc to first preference
• if no candidate reaches 50% in the first round, the top two candidates remain in election and all candidate drop piut, their votes being redistributed on the basis of their second vote

Question 12

advantages of the sv

Answer 12

• simple to understand and woild be very easy for voters to use. its familiar and constiutency boundaries would stay the same. all that would change would be the ballot cards
• need to gain second preference votes to win in a second round encourages positive campaigning. seems to encourage moderate policies
• maintains traditional links between mps and constituents and those elected would have the support of a majority of their constituents
• like FPTP - penalises extremist parties who are unlikely to gain many first preference votes
• single party majority gpv seems to be norm in countries that use sv = electoral outcome broadly similar to those achieved under FPTP = sv adresses some of the flaws of FPTP while avoiding the pitafalls associated w proportional representation
• svs outcome are commonly prop that FPTPs albeit marginally sp
• preferential voting, as employed by sv = usually also allows the systems to elect candidate the basis of majorities and not pluralities

Question 13

disadvantages of sv

Answer 13

• fewer votes are wasted w sv compared w FPTP, sv doesnt necessarily ensure that the winning candidate has the support of at least 50% of voters bc a prop sv will be for candidates who have dropped out
• for a candidate to succeed they must be the first choice of a substantail number of voters. therefore if lib dems or greens where everyons second choice, it would do them no good
• if there are more than two strong candidates, voters must guess which two will make the final round and if they guess incorrectly their second vote preference will be wasted
• sv doesnt prod very prop results, and still under represents small parties
• bc sv only lets voters express two choices, it is possible for a high no of voters first choices to be excluded in round one and for their second choice to not be in round two

Question 14

sv as used in the uk

Answer 14

• elect the mayor of london, metropolitan mayors and police and crime commissioners
• despite results tables which suggests that all winners since 2000 have won over 50% of the vote in fact the ERS confirms that ‘in almost two decades of SV elections for the mol, only in 2016 has a mjor won over 50% of the total ballots. the reason is that non transferable votes (votes for anyone other than the two remaining candidates) are excluded.
  -> eg, in 2012 over 7% of votes were excluded from the second round meaning that mayor johnson won w 47.2% of the vote