Electoral systems in the UK
- Created by: meliasyd
- Created on: 18-05-19 16:12
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- Election Systems in the UK
- First Past the Post
- Plurality system
- The winning candidate must have 1 vote more than the next candidate
- Evaluation
- Advantages
- Strong constituency link
- Single party government - strong
- Simple to understand and count votes
- Gives accountability to a MP and a govt
- Disadvantages
- Over / under representation (votes and seats often don't correlate) - unproportional
- Two party system - adversarial
- Wasted votes (especially in safe seats)
- Restricted choice - minority voice not heard
- Tends to mean women and bme candidates are less likely elected
- Discourages participation - can lead to apathy
- Advantages
- Plurality system
- Additional Member System
- Combination of first past the post and list system - voters elect constituency representative and party vote
- Evaluation
- Strengths
- Very proportional
- Wide choice - voters can split ticket
- Constituency representation
- Women and BME candidates elected through party list
- Enables small parties to win seats
- Weaknesses
- Too much power to party leaders - manipulation of lists
- Means extremist parties can be elected
- Confusing - two categories of representative, 100000 voter errors in Scotland 2007
- Coalitions highly likely - can be a strength or a weakness
- Strengths
- Single Transferable Vote
- Used to elect Northern Irish Assembly
- Multi-member constituencies
- Voters rank candidates in order of preference
- Votes are counted and redistributed accordingly
- Evaluation
- Advantages
- Wider choice
- Results tend to be representative (proportional)
- Few wasted votes
- Tends to produce coalition - advantageous to maintain peace
- Tends to keep out extremists - eliminated early
- Limitations
- Confusing
- Not as proportional as lists or AMS
- Multi-member constituencies weaken link
- Advantages
- Produces coalition governments
- Party Lists
- Voters cast votes for parties, proportion of votes cast = proportion of seats
- Highly proportional result
- Weak constituency link
- Party leaders can manipulate lists
- All votes = same value
- Extremist parties elected
- Coalitions inevitable
- General Elections
- First Past the Post
- Plurality system
- The winning candidate must have 1 vote more than the next candidate
- Evaluation
- Advantages
- Strong constituency link
- Single party government - strong
- Simple to understand and count votes
- Gives accountability to a MP and a govt
- Disadvantages
- Over / under representation (votes and seats often don't correlate) - unproportional
- Two party system - adversarial
- Wasted votes (especially in safe seats)
- Restricted choice - minority voice not heard
- Tends to mean women and bme candidates are less likely elected
- Discourages participation - can lead to apathy
- Advantages
- Plurality system
- Used to elect 650 MPs in single member constituencies
- Plurality example : 2017, North East Fife candidate won 2 more votes than next candidate (67% of votes wasted)
- Under representation : UKIP = 3.8 million votes and 1 seat in 2015 GE
- Over representation : SNP =1.4 million votes and 56 seats in 2015 GE
- Over representation : 2005 GE Labour = 36% of votes but 55% of seats
- Over representation : SNP =1.4 million votes and 56 seats in 2015 GE
- Does not produce strong, single party govt consistently; 2015 Coalition and 2017 minority govt
- First Past the Post
- Local Elections (Wales)
- In Wales, the electoral system used to elect local councillors is the First Past the Post system
- Election of representatives in 22 local authorities
- Welsh Assembly Elections
- Additional Member System
- Combination of first past the post and list system - voters elect constituency representative and party vote
- Evaluation
- Strengths
- Very proportional
- Wide choice - voters can split ticket
- Constituency representation
- Women and BME candidates elected through party list
- Enables small parties to win seats
- Weaknesses
- Too much power to party leaders - manipulation of lists
- Means extremist parties can be elected
- Confusing - two categories of representative, 100000 voter errors in Scotland 2007
- Coalitions highly likely - can be a strength or a weakness
- Strengths
- 40 AMs elected through first past the post - 20 'additional members'
- 2016 assembly election resulted in coalition between Labour and 1 Lib Dem
- Because of low number of AMs elected- small parties struggle to gain representation eg 2016 - only Labour, Conservative, Plaid, Lib Dem and UKIP
- Additional Member System
- European Elections
- UK elects 72 MEPs
- Wales elects 4 MEPs using regional list
- 2014 - Conservatives = 1 seats, Labour = 1 seat, Plaid Cymru = 1 seat, UKIP = 1 seat
- Only Labour and UKIP gained true 25% of vote- legitimate seats
- Not proportional in Wales because of the little amount of seats elected - 4 seats does not allow accurate and fair representation
- UK elects 72 MEPs
- First Past the Post
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