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Electoral systems - Coggle Diagram

- - - - However, this deos not prevent other groups campaigning for either side as well.
  - - - Since the Blair years it has become convention to secure public support for more major constitutional reforms.
    - - Referendums can be used when governenment faces internal divisions and by handing the decision to the people this can help prevent splits in the party.
      - This was first done in 1975 when Labour PM Harold Wilson used a referendum to deal with wheather the UK should be in the EEC/EU. If he had taken a government stance he would have been faced with resignations from both sides.
    - - Political parties may demand a referendum on an issue as part of a coalition agreement.
      - David Cameron was forced to hold a referendum on AV in exchange for the Liberal Democrats supporting the coalition.
    - - Governemnt can be forced to hold a referendum due to calls from the country/voters for a referendum on a certian issue.
      - Cameron was forced to do this twice, once of Soctish independence and once for Brexit.
  - - - Example of direct democracy where everyone has the possibility to enage with decision making.
      - Trust in politicans are low and people want to have a say in important matters.
      - Referendums act as a check on Brittian's 'elected dictatorship' as it enables the people to force the governments hand and prevents a small governemnt majority rushing through major changes without consulting people.
      - Referendums settle arguements and entrench reforms (only politically) as to go against them would be seen as an attack on democracy.
      - Referendums help raise voter awarness. The Scotish independce referendum helped raise many issues relating to independence that people never considered including the future of the UK's nuclear deterent in Scotland and the Scotish-EU relationship.
        
        This deos not drive increased turnout.
        
        4 out of the last 10 referendums have had turnouts below 50%.
        
        Only the EU (72%), Good Friday Agreement (81%) and the Scotish Indy Ref (84%) had turnouts greater then the 2019 GE (67.3%).
      - Refernedums have been regulated since 2000 by the Electoral Commission reducing the ability of unfair infleunce on either side.
    - - Referendums are a challange to parliamentry soverignty as they effectivly force the governemnt to take action.
        
        This is bad because voters lack the expertise to take these crucial decisions.
      - If arguements are not made clearly this can drive down turnout and there is an arguement that referendums need more regulation to ensure that misinfomation is not spread.
      - Governemnts decide when to call referendums and can use them to their own advantage.
      - The very low turnout casts doubt on the legitamacy of the results, for example only just over 25% of the Welsh voting population actually voted for devolution.
      - Referendums can be impacted by external factors such as people wishing to vote against the government because they don't like them.
- - - - A consquence of using more proportional systems for elections has meant that coalitions and minority governemnnts have become more common.
        
        Only once since 1999 has a party won more then 50% of the seats in the Scotish parliament.
        
        There has never been a majority governemnt in Wales.
        
        Unlike in many other countries that use PR coalitions have proved stable in the UK (in Italy they have had 70 governments since 1945).
    - - Negoations in the devolved powers have become the norm unlike in Westminister.
      - Claims that PR would make politics concentual have not proven 100% acurate as Scotland remains devide on many key issues.
      - Politics remains adverserial due to their being one opposition party taking the role as the opposition.
  - - - This has led to devolved powers creating their own policy agenda seperate from central government.
- - - - Strengthed by the Recall of Mps Act 2015 that enables MPs that have broken the law to be recalled (since 2015 3 recall petitions have been made and two have led to a bielection).
  - - - UKIP and the Greens are both examples of this.
- - - - Deos it provide a fair result and equal value to everyones votes across the country?
      - Deos it provide a choice of candidates?
      - Deos it provide an effective link between elected representiaves and the constitutiants?
      - Deos it provide a strong government that cna be heled to account by electors?
  - - - This is the voting system used on the UK and USA.
      - Process
        
        Everyone has one vote.
        
        They vote for the candidate that they want to win.
        
        The candidate with a plurality of the vote wins (i.e the winner is whoever gets the most votes).
      - FPTP is a simple plurality system.
      - The average number of people in a constiteuncy is 70,000, but there is considable variations and boundary changes (regulated by the Boundary Commission to prevent gerrymandering) aim to redress inbalances.
      - Advantages
        
        Speed and simplicity
        
        FPTP is very easy to understand.
        
        Elections results are usally known in the early morning of the day after the election which enables governemnts to be rapidly formed and helps ensure a swift transfer of power.
        
        Strong and stable government
        
        FPTP promotes the 2 party party system or at most the 2 and 1/2 party system, this means that it is the norm for elections to produce a party with a clear majoirty in parliament.
        
        Some argue that coalitions are undemocratic as people are not able to vote on the coalition and others argue that they grant smaller parties to much power by making them king makers. This is used to justify FPTP's generation of clear, one party winners.
        
        Exclusion of extremists
        
        Using first past the post makes it harder for smaller, extremist parties to gain a foothold.
        
        However, this could be argued to be anti-democractic.
        
        Strong link between MPs and their constituencies
        
        The small size of constituencies means that MPs are able to handle corroposndces from their constituents and hold surgeries at which they make themselves available to those seeking help and advice.
      - Disadvantages
        
        MPs and goverments can be elected with less then 50% of the vote.
        
        More than half of MPs do not comand a majoirty of support within their constiteuncy, this is because victory deos not relly on this.
        
        In Belfast South the MP won the constiency with just 24.5% of the vote.
        
        At a national level this can lead to goverments winning an overall majgority on a minority of the popular vote. The lowest percentage of vote won and a goverment being formed was in 2005 when Blair was re-elected with 35.2% of the vote.
        
        It is even possible for a party to win an election with fewer votes then the opposition.
        
        In 1951 Labour won the popular vote, but the Tories won more seats.
        
        In the first 1974 general election (in febuary) Labour lost the popular vote, but won the most seats.
        
        Lack of proportionality.
        
        FPTP deos not translate the number of votes into seats for each party. This means that on average some parties need to win more votes then others to gain MPs.
        
        In 2019 the Tories needed just over 38,000 votes to win a seat.
        
        In 2019 Labour needed just over 50,000 votes.
        
        In 2019 the SNP needed just under 26,000 votes to win a seat.
        
        In 2019 the Green party needed 835,000 votes to win a seat.
        
        Winner's bonus
        
        This means that the winner of the seat gains a disprotionate amount of the power, i.e the winner of a seat gets all the power from that seat without getting the corrosponding votes.
        
        Limited voter choice
        
        FPTP limits voter choice in severall ways.
        
        There is no choice in the shade of candidate people can vote for (this is because each party puts forward one candidate, in a multi-member constitency people could vote for a New Labour esque candidate or an Old Labour esque candidate).
        
        Voters in safe seats have very little chance of seeing their candidate win and this can force tactical voting where people vote for a different candidate who stands more chance of victory.
        
        It can be argued that there is no such thing as a safe seat as shown by Labour's collapse in recent years in both Scotland and the 'Red Wall' both former Labour safe seats.
        
        Votes are unequal
        
        In small constituencies it takes fewer votes to win and therefore each vote is worth more.
        
        Votes are said to be wasted if a vote is cast for the loosing candidate or the winner over the number they needed to win.
        
        In 2015 it is said that 74% of votes are wasted (however, whether these votes are wasted is debatable).
        
        Creates safe seats and marginal seats
        
        FTPT creates areas where one party stands no chance of winning and are gauranteed wins for one party, these are undemocractic as parties need to do little campaing to win the seat.
        
        However it can be argued that there are no such things as safe seats.
        
        The North was commonly said to be a Labour heartland earning the phrase 'Red Wall', however in 2019 this so called 'Red Wall' collapsed.
        
        Seats in SW such as Sommerton and Frome and Yeovil were, for quite a while, seen as Lib Dem safe seats but in 2015 many fliped Conservative.
    - - This system is used in:
        
        Hollyrood elections.
        
        Welsh Assemebly elections.
        
        Greater London Assembly.
      - How does it work:
        
        Voters have two votes:
        
        The first is for a constituency representative that is elected through FPTP.
        
        The seccond vote is for larger, multi-member constituency that use party list.
        
        There are fewer list members then there are constinuency representatives earning them the name 'adiational' members. In Scotland 73 of the 129 representives are constiency members and 56 are regional members.
      - Advantages
        
        Introduces a propertinal element to the election system, under FPTP in 2019 the Conservatives won 6 seats, but in the 2021 Scotish parlaiment elections the Conservatives won 31 seats.
        
        Mainting FPTP helps keep that link between representative and voters.
        
        Voters have a wider choice and are able to vote 'split ticket'.
      - Disadvantages
        
        Creates two different types of member.
        
        However, whether this is a flaw is debateable as there is no evidence that anyone views either representatives with less legitamacy.
        
        Closed party list means that the part selects the ranking of candidates in the proportional section, this enables the central party to prevent the rise of dissdents.
        
        Smaller parties achieve less representation under this system then under full PR.
    - - This system is used in:
        
        Northern Irish assembly elections.
      - How it works:
        
        Uses multi-member constiuencies.
        
        Voters rank their choices.
        
        In order to be elected candidates need to pass a quota (number of votes/number of seats + 1).
        
        Votes for any candidates that pass the quota are redistributed according to seccond preference and this is repeated with candidates that came last being knocked out until all theseats are filled.
      - Advantages
        
        There is a close corelation between seats won and votes (in the 2022 Northern Irish Assembly elections Sien Fien won 27.9% of the seats and 29% of the vote).
        
        High voter choice as people get to select multi[ple candidates from a range of parties.
        
        Has helped build peace in Northern Ireland through powersharing.
      - Disadvantages
        
        Not truely proportional and is less proportional the smaller the constituency.
        
        In large multi-member constiteuncies the linked between elected and electors can be weak.
        
        Coalition are very unstable and can collapse easily (Northern Ireland has lacked a funtional government for 35% of its post-Good Friday agreement history).
        
        Are coalitions democratic, voters may vote for a political party, but the coalition could take the party in a different direction to what the voter intended (Corbynites would not support a NL esque coalition with the Liberal Democrats).
    - - How it works:
        
        Each voter is allowed a first and seccond vote (this maybe done at once or in two stages (e.g French presidential election)).
        
        Any candidate that gets more then 50% of first preference votes wins.
        
        If no candidate gets more then 50% of 1st preference votes then all candidates but the top two are eliminated and the seccond preference votes are added to the remaining candidates and whoever has the most votes wins.
      - Advantages
        
        It ensures that the winner has a broad base of support (e.g Sadiq Khan has the largest personal mandate out of any politican in the UK's history after the 2016 London Mayoral elections).
        
        Simple and straight forward to use.
        
        Can help independent candidates win.
      - Disadvanatges
        
        Not proportional as one offical is elected to a single office.
        
        The winner deos not need to win an absolute majority of votes cast (although they normally do).
        
        Candidates need to identify the likely top two candidates to infleunce the election and this is not always clear.