First Past the Post versus Proportional Representation Voting Systems

First past the post is a simple plurality system which requires the plurality of votes to win: that is one more vote than the second candidate. There is no requirement to obtain the votes cast. In contests involving three or more candidates, the winner may fall

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 second reason why FPTP should not be used for elections to the House of Commons is that it is not representative, meaning that the percentage share of votes is not proportional to the percentage share of seats, because of single member constituencies. This is a weakness as it means that there is not a fair level of representation within the House of Commons, which makes the system less democratic as not everybody’s views are entirely represented in Parliament. For example, in the 2010 general elections, the Conservative party won 36% of votes, but a staggering 47.1% of seats, whilst UKIP gained 3.1% of votes, but 0% of seats, indicating the tendency of FPTP to radically distort the relationship between votes and seats. Due to the fact that FPTP is a plurality system, rather than a majoritarian one, MPs can win the seat by as little as 1 vote, meaning that

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

FPTP is the voting system used for the election of MPs to 'seats' in the UK Parliament. It is a system in which the 'winner takes all' and usually gives a clear majority both at constituency and national level. This means that a candidate in a constituency only needs one more vote than the nearest rival to win the seat. Similarly, political parties only need to win one more seat in the House of Commons to have a majority.

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

Even though the Proportional Representation system sounds like it could be a good thing for the United States, I think that the system we use now works best for our country. I think we should stick to what we have been doing for all these years. No system is ever going to be perfect but since we are familiar to how our system works, we should just keep it. I feel as though adding more parties would just be too much and get a little out of hand. With the Proportional Representation system I see the votes getting split up between too many parties, therefore there will not be one candidate that is over powering the rest.

Ranked-choice voting allows voters to list candidates in order of preference so that if in the first round no one wins a majority, officials can recount the ballots immediately until someone does.

Westminster is the location of the Houses of Parliament, where the majority of political decisions (other than those for devolved states) are made for the nation. The current Westminster electoral system is First Past the Post (FPTP) which is used for general elections every 5 years (due to the new fixed-term parliaments brought in by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.) The FPTP system is constituency based, each person votes for a representative for their constituency and whichever party wins the most constituencies gains governmental power. First Past the Post works on the basis of a plurality of votes, that is, that the winning party need only gain the most votes out of all parties to gain power, they do not need an overall

The (FPTP) system is also known as the 'winner-take-all' system, in which the candidate with the most votes gets elected. FPTP voting methods can be used for single and multiple member elections. In a single member election the candidate with the highest number, not necessarily a majority, of votes is elected.

The system that the Law Commission ultimately recommended was the mixed-member proportional electoral system. In the MMP system a portion of representatives, usually between 50 and 60 percent, are elected from single-member districts, similar to FPTP, with the remainder of seats being elected from party lists, based on the party’s share of the popular vote (Law Commission 22). Each voter gets to cast two votes, one for the party that they support and another for the representative member that they prefer. Party lists can be either closed, where voters are not able to influence the order of candidates, or open, where voters have the ability to influence the ranking of candidates. A threshold for representation is usually set in order to prevent fringe and extremist parties from gaining seats in government. This system is used in Germany, New Zealand, Venezuela and Lesotho (Joseph 113).

The first past the post system runs on the idea that whichever party has the most votes wins. In Canada, the government has split geographical regions into constituencies which are called ridings.Each riding has a representative from each party that has chosen to have an individual represent them. When the election date comes, voters will go to the polling station and cast their vote for whichever individual they want to represent them. Whichever representative that

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

The Main Characteristics of Alternative Vote, PR List (open and closed), STV, First Past The Post and AMS

The number of seats a province is given in Parliament is established based on the population of the province. Voters are then divided into constituencies, also known as electoral boundaries, ridings, or districts. In order to win, candidates must get a highest amount of votes than any other competitor within the same electoral boundary. This means that if candidate A receives 41% of the votes, while candidate B gets 39% and candidate C 20%, candidate A becomes the winner of the election and gains a seat in Parliament. Note that 59% of the electorate opposed candidate A.