Electoral Reform Essay

The first proposal, of changing the electoral system for the House of Representatives, would mean that each state is represented in proportion to its population. This entails that states with higher populations will receive more votes because they have more seats in the House. Less populous states may argue against this reform because they will have a disadvantage when it comes to voting on legislation. However, the reform also includes having each state serve as electoral districts. In this case, multi-member districts will be needed—proportional representation will require a larger district magnitude. Having these territorial subdivisions will help create an efficient legislative system because there would be less possibility of manipulating the votes—not as relevant to election results when seats are proportional. Having the votes distributed in this manner may help avoid a deadlock and therefore, allow for a faster process when passing legislation. In addition, minorities will have chance to be represented by possibly gaining a seat in a particular district—a highly populous

The AMS and FPTP are voting systems in use for the Scottish Parliament and House of Commons elections respectively. It can be argued that AMS gives voters more choice and better representation than FPTP, and in order to assess the validity of this argument 3 key indicators must be analysed: constituency links; proportionality and representation of smaller parties.

The advantages to the proportional representation system are numerous. More women would be represented, racial and ethnic minorities would not be overlooked, and issue-oriented campaigns would arise. Elections would become more exciting to the public because their voice and vote will make a difference. "Winner take all" will no longer exist. Americans

The first reason that FPTP should continue to be used for elections to the House of Commons is that it produces effective constituency representation because there are single member constituencies, meaning that people know which MP represents them in the House of Commons, and thus who they can take their grievances to. This is a strength because it results in a strong working link between an MP and a geographical area, thus connecting communities to central politics. For example, Greg Barker, the Conservative MP for Bexhill and Battle, has worked with his constituents, since he won 51.6% of the vote and was thus elected to the House of Commons in 2010, to represent

The Canadian electoral system is criticized for using the single member plurality (SMP) system more commonly known as first past the post, we adopted system from the British because at the time there were only two political parties in Canada. The current problem now is that many people feel that the system is unfair given that a party is able to gain a majority government even if they received less than fifty percent of the vote. As long as they have the majority of the popular vote, that party wins. However, the first past the post system has been able to establish a clear line of accountability between the elected representative and the voters. Yet, the public still feels that a proportional representation system would be

It has become widely accepted that Canada uses a first past the post electoral system. However, this system may not be in the best interest of Canada any more. There are many reasons why Canada should change its electoral system to a mixed member proportional one, a variant of proportional representation. With a first past the post system, the elected officials will always be of the majority and this excludes minorities from fair representation. Adopting MMP can create stronger voter turnouts, more personal campaigning, better individual representation, and better party selection. John Hiemstra and Harold Janson, are both in favour of a MMP electoral system. They understand that with the switch, the citizens will get more representation in

In this essay I will assess the outcomes of Additional Member system, First Past the Post system and the Closed Party List system. The F-P-T-P system is used to elect the members of House of Commons and local government in England and Wales. Voters select candidates, and do so by marking his or her name with an ‘X’ on the ballot paper. This reflects the principle of ‘one person, one vote’. The Additional Members system is used in Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, and Northern Ireland Assembly and Greater London assembly. It is a mixed system made up of F-P-T-P and party-list elements. The Regional party list (or the closed party list) is used to elect the

First-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system in general allows candidates to win who may not have a majority of the vote. It privileges big parties and majorities at the cost of smaller parties and coalitions. It also favours parties with strong regional concentrations over parties whose electoral base is more spread out. This is Canada’s current election system and for the past couple of years. In the years that Harper has been in power, he has won majority of the seats with less than 50 percent of the votes. In fact, in 2011, “Stephen Harper won a majority government with 54.1 percent of the seats and only 39.6 percent of the total vote” (Aucoin 161). Harper was able to form a majority government without a majority of the vote and he had a plurality of votes that was less than 50 percent. Canada has been electing its government in this way and the winning party does not hold the majority of the votes, with a few exceptions. In terms of changing the election system, FPTP system is able to produce a clear majority and the majority that wins is able to produce a clear line of power through a majority government. Also, supporters of FPTP, such as Brian Crowly, say that clear lines of power are

The issue of electoral reform has become more important than ever in Canada in recent years as the general public has come to realize that our current first-past-the-post, winner-take-all system, formally known as single-member plurality (SMP) has produced majority governments of questionable legitimacy. Of the major democracies in the world, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom are the only countries that still have SMP systems in place. Interestingly enough, there has been enormous political tension and division in the last few years in these countries, culminating with the election results in Canada and the USA this year that polarized both countries. In the last year we have seen

Canadian electoral system is largely based on the single member plurality (SMP) system which was inherited from its former British colonial masters. The system dates back to several years before the formation of the Canadian confederation. Some of the common features of the Canadian electoral system include election candidates to represent designated geographical areas popularly known as” ridings”, counting and tallying of the votes casted on the basis of the districts as opposed to the parties of the candidates (Dyck, 622). Finally, a candidate only needs a simple majority over the other candidates in order to be considered a winner, even if the winner has a small percentage of votes. This system has however been heavily criticized for its winner takes all way of judging victory. Critics argue that if the winner takes over the whole system, it may result into unfair representation of the various social groups, but it may also bring into power unstable minority participation in government. For example, a candidate can win even with barely 25% of all the votes casted, while the small parties may end up with no seats in the parliament.

Proportional representation is an electoral system where parties will earn congressional seats in proportion to how many votes people cast for them. This would be an extreme opposite to the result of gerrymandering. People would then feel the need to vote because they know that their vote will actually go towards something. If 25% of the voters supported a certain party, that party would then get about 25% of congressional seats. Proportional representation is a way that could help fix the unfairness of the plurality system. The plurality system allows for larger parties to get an unfair amount of congressional seats whereas smaller parties do not have this advantage and also have a huge difficulty in winning any representation at all, also known as Duverger’s law. This would be a great way to prevent gerrymandering which helps with the redistricting issue majorly. Proportional representation could be brought in without a constitutional amendment in some cases, but the system born from this would not work well unless the powers of the Governor General were made clear. What would require a constitutional amendment would be a change to the powers of the Governor General. If it were simple enough to not require a constitutional amendment, I feel as if this would be an excellent idea and help solve many problems and unhappy people with our current

Another important reason that Canada should select a different election system is that the FPTP system has a large impact on smaller parties. According to Political Scientist Maurice Duverger’s Law, given enough time FPTP systems will eventually become a

There is a fundamental problem with the democratic process in Canada. This problem is rooted within our electoral system. However, there is a promising solution to this issue. Canada should adopt the mixed-member proportional representation electoral system (MMP) at the federal level if we wish to see the progression of modern democracy. The failure to do so will result in a stagnant political system that is caught in the past and unable to rise to the contemporary challenges that representative democracies face. If Canada chooses to embrace the MMP electoral system it will reap the benefits of greater proportionality, prevent the centralization of power that is occurring in Parliament and among political parties through an increased

For decades, Canadians have been defending their right to have a fair and open electoral system. Since its creation in 1867, Canada has been proud to call itself a true democratic country, but today there would be many people who disagree with this statement. The Canadian electoral system, which uses First Past The Post (FPTP), has come under scrutiny for not being as fair as it claims to be. Over the past couple of decades, many countries have switched their system to Proportional Representation (PR) or some form of it. Based on successful results in other nations, Canada’s current FPTP system should change to Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), which is a form of Proportional Representation, as it will allow for more fair elections. The intent of this paper is to outline how an electoral reform from First Past the Post to Proportional Representation or Mixed-Member Proportional, will lead to more confidence in the government, more accurate seat-vote percentage, and better overall representation of the population.

First Past the Post is the system we currently use in the UK, but whilst some may enjoy this system, there are limitations to this system. Perhaps the strongest criticism of the system is that it does not proportionally reflect the voting of the people. What is meant by this is that a party may receive less proportion of seats in the General Election than