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

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.

These are flaws, which are reality in the present voting system. Issueless campaigns, low voter turnout, and wasted votes are also characteristic of this system. New and minority parties have little or no chance of emerging. Only a few democracies in the world are still using the voting system similar to that of the United States.

OBJECTIVE: Students will be able to analyze a series of sources related to the causes and effects of exploration and answer questions.

There is a number of systems that use PR such as the Single Transferable Vote (STV) (the Regional and National Lists) and the Alternative Vote. There is a third system that combines these two, known as the Additional Member System (AMS) or the hybrid or top-up system. The AMS system is presently used in elections for the Scottish Parliament, where voters can vote for single candidates in their constituencies but also for candidates from regional 'lists' put forward by each party. If there is a discrepancy between the percentage of seats the party has won and the percentage of votes cast, the seats are 'topped up' from the

There is no doubt that the United States of America is a democracy, but how democratic are some of the components of our system of government? For example, the Electoral College is used when selecting the president of The United States, but the founders developed the Electoral College based on a theory of how it should work with no practical, real-world example of how it realistically works. Based on the three core principles of democracy which are popular sovereignty, political equality, and political freedom, the Electoral College falls short when assessed using these democratic values.

One factor that was alarming about the “first past the post” system is shown through this example; given four candidates (A, B, C, and D) the one that has the

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

The two political party system started when George Washington was the only president without a party. It wasn’t until the election of 1796 that two political parties were used to help the people choose which side they would take and determine who they would vote for. Back in those times, two parties were called the Federalist and the Democratic-Republican. The Federalist were considered themselves to be “friends of order”. And the Democratic-Republican were referred to as Republicans. Vice President John Adams was the presidential candidate for the Federalist and Thomas Jefferson was the presidential candidate for the Democratic - Republican Party. Everyone saw the Democratic - Republican Party to be a more diverse group than the Federalist,

They also describe the electoral process and who actually decided to run for the positions in the 41 sectors that held elections.

The United States uses plurality voting for a traditional election method for presidential candidates. Plurality voting is when each voter submits a ballot with one candidates name. The candidate that wins a plurality of votes wins. Sounds simple enough. The idea is reasonable when there are just two candidates, obviously it’s one or the other, but when you start to introduce several candidates, it’s get a bit more complicated. However, when it comes to the electoral, plurality voting can have several disadvantages and some advantages.

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

To clearly understand the concept of PR and how does it work, two most common forms of PR must be evaluated. They are Single Transferable Vote (STV) and Additional Member System (AMS). In Single Transferable Vote (STV) each voter has only one vote. As in the name of the system word “Transferable” occurs, so votes may go from a candidate who is first preference, to the second and continues if there is no opportunity for a preferred candidate to win or a candidate already has enough votes. In this case it is not obligatory to have a majority of votes, because all is needed is just to reach a “quota” of 50%. Candidates, who have the least votes are eliminated and votes are redistributed. Using this voting system, voters have more choice than in any other systems.

However, more recently different voting systems have been used by devolved powers throughout the U.K – like the Scottish parliament -- as well as for other votes such as the European Parliament. (Ministry of Justice, 2008, pp. 24-25) These different voting systems are based on proportional representation, a term which characterises various types of electoral system, but share one main idea – the proportion of votes received correlates directly with the amount of seats a party wins. As democracy has become more widespread, other countries within Europe have naturally developed different electoral systems. Particularly, France is one of the few other countries in Europe who practice a very similar type of electoral system as the United Kingdom. The majority of countries in Europe, such as Germany, favour systems with an element of proportional representation.