3.1 Different electoral systems Flashcards
What are NON-PROPORTIONAL and PROPORTIONAL systems?
NON-PROPORTIONAL = Larger parties typically win a higher proportion of seats than the number of votes they gain (increases chance of a single party gaining parliamentary majority).
PROPORTIONAL = Guarantees a near equal relationship between the number of seats won and the votes they gained.
What are the 5 features of the FPTP system?
- Constituency System: currently 650 constituencies in UK.
- Voters select a single candidate: refelcts the “one-person, one vote” principle.
- Constituencies are of equal size: ensured by the Electoral Comission, and the Boundary Comission for NI and Scot.
- Each constituency returns a single candidate: “winner takes all effect”.
- Winning candidate needs to achieve plurality of votes.
What are the 5 implications of FPTP?
- Disproportionality.
- 2 Party System.
- Systematic biases.
- Single-party system.
- Landslide effect.
Why is disproportionality an implication of FPTP?
Fails to establish reliable link between votes gained by parties and seats won, because the system is concerned with the election of individual members, not the representation of political parties. Means the wrong party may win…
- 1951, Cons formed majority gov with fewer votes than Lab.
- 1974, Lab formed minority gov with fewer votes than Cons.
Why are systematic biases an implication of FPTP?
- Larger parties benefit from FPTP: Winning candidates tend to come from large parties as they’re most liekly to be “first-past-the-post.” Also, discourages people voting for 3rd parties as they know they’re unliekly to win seats, let alone the GE - ‘wasted votes’ (so 3rd parties unlikely to get rep).
- Distribution of support: Party support geographically concentrated makes them more effective: more likely to gain pluralities and win seats. Evenly distributed support is worse, as they’re unlikely to win seats - danger that they’ll come 2nd/3rd every election.
Why have Lab + Cons been over represented by FPTP?
Both are large parties and both show large geographically concentrated support thanks to class divide in voters.
Why is a two-party system an implication of FPTP?
Lab + Cons been dominating since WW1:
- 95% vote share in 50s, 65% in 2010.
- This discourages potential supporters of 3rd parties from voting for them as they don’t want their votes to be ‘wasted’.
- Also, ‘heartlands’ where Lab + Cons are gauranteed seats means GE determined by what happens in minority ‘marginal seats’.
- This discourages potential supporters of 3rd parties from voting for them as they don’t want their votes to be ‘wasted’.
Why is a single-party system an implication of FPTP?
A consequence of the two-party system is that the larger ‘major’ party usually wins sufficient support to be able to govern alone - means it usually wins a majority of seats in the Commons. Other ‘major’ party forms opposition and acts as the govt’ in waiting.
Why is the landslide effect an implication of FPTP?
Relatively small shifts in votes can lead to dramatic changes in the seats the parties gain - creates ‘landslide’ victories on the basis of relatively modest electoral support.
Why is the landslide effect declining?
Few marginal seats left to swing voters, from 250 before 2010 to 160, and with fewer marginal seats to secure landslides, in order to win by a landslide, partys must swing several other parties safe seats - why current elections are not producing clear winners easily.
