Essays: Would a change to the Westminster electoral system.
The voting system used to elect MPs to the UK Parliament is called First Past the Post (FPTP). The FPTP electoral system is used to elect MPs to the House of Commons. For the purpose of the.
The simplicity of FPTP is both its virtue and vice: electors are asked to make the difficult choice—for many, a choice never without hesitation—to select one candidate, on the strength of the candidate’s person, the officially affiliated party, the unofficially affiliated manifesto, the party leader, or some uncertain combination.
However, in this political climate where people accuse the FPTP system of bias, being wasteful and being disproportional, the system for electing Members of the European Parliament, the Closed List System (CLS) has also been under question. In this essay I will explore the faults and benefits of both systems and how they may be reformed.
There is a closer relationship between percentage of votes and percentage of seats. Unlike in 1999 when under FPTP Labour gained 46% of the vote and 94% of seats in Edinburgh. Under this system SNP won 54% of seats with 45% of the vote, therefore having a closer relationship between percentage of seats and percentage of votes.
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A disadvantage of FPTP is that it is not proportional, that is, parties' number of seats in the legislature do not accurately reflect the share of the popular vote in the election. FPTP tends to be biased towards bigger parties which can get more than 30% of the vote in a lot of constituencies.
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