Electoral Systems - previewed questions

Question 1

How many constituencies are there in the UK general elections?

Answer 1

650

Question 2

What type of electoral system is FPTP?

Answer 2

A simple plurality system

Question 3

What is the difference between an MP with a majority mandate, and an MP with a minority mandate?

Answer 3

An MP has won the majority in an election so therefore has a strong mandate to carry out the policies on their manifesto.An MP with a minority mandate did not win a majority so they might have to enter a coalition or minority government where they do not have total authority to claim a strong mandate and may have to make compromises that weren’t on their manifesto before the election.

Question 4

What is a hung Parliament?

Answer 4

when no single party wins an overall majority in the House of Commons to form a government

Question 5

How many hung Parliaments have there been in the UK since 1945?

Answer 5

2. On the 2017 general election there wasn’t a majority government.

Question 6

Which parties formed a coalition in 2010?

Answer 6

The Conservatives and The Liberal democrats

Question 7

FPTP is often criticised for not giving a proportional outcome. What does this mean?

Answer 7

The percentage of seats won by a party does not match up to or is not proportional to the percentage of votes they get.

Question 8

How many seats did UKIP win for its 3.8 million votes in the 2015 General Election?

Answer 8

1 seat

Question 9

What are wasted votes

Answer 9

votes for a losing party are wasted because they do not help the party - there are no prizes for second place under first past the post
votes for the winning party that they did not need to win as they already had the majority are wasted as they also don’t help the party win any more seats.

Question 10

Why is the distribution of a party’s support so important under FPTP?

Answer 10

If a party has wide spread support but never wins the majority in a constituency they will never win a seat even though they may have a high number of votes overall. If a party has concentrated support and wins the majority in some constituencies but then barely gets any votes in other constituencies, they will get more seats and are more likely to win the election.

Question 11

What is the difference between safe and marginal seats?

Answer 11

A safe seat is when there are so many supporters of one party in a constituency that it is very likely they will always win this seat. A marginal seat is when there is a close to even split of supporters who support either one of the two parties most likely to win the seat so the party who wins the seat often changes in elections.

Question 12

What is tactical voting?

Answer 12

Voting for one of the two candidates that is likely to win, instead of voting for your preferred candidate.

Question 13

What electoral systems are used in the UK elections?

a) Labour and Liberal democrat leadership elections
b) Scottish local elections
c) UK general elections
d) Scottish Parliament elections
e) London mayoral elections
f) European Parliament elections

Answer 13

a) The alternative vote system
b) Single transferable vote
c) Single member simple plurality system , FPTP
d) Additional member system
e) Supplementary vote
f) Closed party list system

Question 14

What was the Jenkins Commission?

Answer 14

Established by the Labour Party in 1997 to investigate alternatives to FPTP.

Question 15

What did the Jenkins Commission recommend?

Answer 15

A system that:
Gives broadly proportional results
Produces a stable government 
Gives voters a greater choice 
Keeps links between MPs and constituencies

Question 16

How is the winner calculated under the Alternative Vote system?

Answer 16

If there is not one party that has a majority after the first preference vote, the votes are redistributed using the second preference votes from the least popular party until one party has a majority.

Question 17

How would the use of AV have impacted the result of the 2015 general election

Answer 17

The result was even less proportional, the conservatives would have had a larger majority an smaller parties would have had a smaller percentage of the votes.

Question 18

Why do some critics argue that AV makes votes ‘unequal’?

Answer 18

Supporters of unpopular candidates, who are eliminated first, will have their votes counted twice.

Question 19

How is the supplementary vote system different to AV?

Answer 19

Instead of numbering candidates, voters have two options, a first and second choice.

Question 20

The Closed party list system uses the d’hondt formula to calculate winners. What is the formula and how does it work?

Answer 20

Party list votes / number of seats won + 1
Which ever party has the highest resulting total wins a seat.
The seat is added to their total and the process is repeated to allocate the remaining seats.

Question 21

Why do critics argue that the party list system gives party bosses too much power?

Answer 21

Parties may leave there more outspoken, independent candidates at the bottom of the list. If a representative dies or resigns, they are replaced from the party list, there isn’t an election.

Question 22

In the European Parliament elections, how many constituencies is the UK divided into?

Answer 22

12 regional constituencies.

Question 23

Which party won the most seats in the 2014 European Parliament elections?

Answer 23

UKIP

Question 24

The single-transferable vote requires candidates to reach a quota. How is this quota calculated?

Answer 24

Quota - a number of votes only achievable by the same number of candidates as there are available seats.
The number of votes cast in the constituency/ the number of votes available in the constituency + 1.
at one to this number after its been calculated.

Question 25

Supporters of STV argue that it is particularly good at reducing wasted votes. Why is this?

Answer 25

It redistributes surplus votes that are wasted on winning candidates that have have more votes than needed to meet the quota and votes wasted on losing candidates are also redistributed until the right number of candidates have met the quota.

Question 26

STV can be distorted by alphabetical voting. What is this?

Answer 26

When voters see the party they want to vote for at the top of the ballot paper and ignore the candidate for the same party lower down the paper.

Question 27

Why could STV be said to have a weaker MP-constituency link than FPTP?

Answer 27

There is more than one MP per constituency, increasing the likelihood of coalitions and there is more than one line of accountability.

Question 28

What electoral systems is the Additional Member System a hybrid of?

Answer 28

FPTP (plurality system) and Party List (proportional system)

Question 29

Why do critics argue that hybrid systems can create tension between elected representatives?

Answer 29

It creates two classes of MPs - Constituency MPs and Regional MPs. one group of MPs tend to have ore power or more influence than the other group.

Question 30

What is split-ticket voting?

Answer 30

Voting for different parties at the same election by splitting their ticket. For example AMS.