For example in the 2010 general election the Conservative party won with 307 seats, however only 36.1 per cent of people on the electoral register voted for them, which means that there were 67.9 per cent of the votes cast in the general election had no effect on the outcome and were wasted. This highlights the criticism of the legitimacy and the authority the current government has as well as the question of the legitimacy of their mandate as effectively 67.9 per cent of people voted against them. Another criticism of the FPTP system is that it favors only the larger parties and in the UK only three parties (Conservative, Labour and arguably the Liberal Democrats). This is seen as a bad thing as many parties don’t even stand any kind of chance during these elections, mostly because unlike the main 3 parties they do not have the money to send Representatives of their party to many different constituencies. This is seen as unfair as the main three parties have such an advantage but also reduces the
Another example is when Britain joined a referendum by becoming a part of the E.U. This was very controversial because the UK is a democracy and without the consultation of the people, the UK no longer seems democratic. Elective dictatorship ties in with another reason which is time lag. Time lag plays an important role in the UK as it takes 5 years before another general election is held. This is criticised because the current political party in power have the ability to make their own decisions for the UK before listening to what the people want.
This type of range voting appears to have less serious drawbacks than plurality, IRV and the Borda count, but it has not been used for political elections. Tied political elections in the United States have led to costly runoffs and ballot recounts. For instance, the 2008 United States Senate election in Minnesota cost the state over $12 million. In this report, the results of simulations that counted the frequency of tied elections for plurality, instant runoff voting and range voting are presented. It is found
However, this does not always happen, which can be seen in the current government. Since the election in 2010, the UK have been under a coalition government with the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, with David Cameron as the Prime Minister and Nick Clegg as his deputy. First Past the Post is also a simple process, where each electorate has only one vote, meaning that the time taken to count the votes is very short, making it a quick and efficient process. The First Past the Post system also keeps extremist parties, such as the BNP party, away from power, so they cannot carry out their manifestos. For example, in their 2010 manifesto, the BNP party stated that if they were voted in as the leading party they would “The BNP will ban the burka, ritual slaughter and the building of further mosques in Britain” and that they would “reintroduce capital punishment for drug dealers, child murderers, multiple murderers, murderers of policemen on duty and terrorists where guilt is proven beyond all doubt”.
Before any of these Acts were passed, the old system was corrupt in many ways, perhaps the biggest issue was the way members of parliament were elected. The two types of franchise were boroughs and counties. A lot of the boroughs at the time were considered, "Rotten Boroughs" where before the city was vastly populated, but over time for whatever reason the population had decreased, but there were still two MPs regardless of the size or population. An example of a borough such as this would be Old Sarum, where there were only three houses and a population of 15 people. As only a few of these could vote due to the varied voting qualification such as a man only being able to
Illinois has a population of 12 million people and 22 electoral votes. This means have one vote per every 550,000 voters. This is a very unbalanced form of voting, not capturing the popular vote at all. Durbin also points out that we use a direct popular election system for Senators, Governors, Congressmen, and mayors, but not for our President. The Founding Fathers knew during their time that people running for congress lived closer to the people voting for them, so at that time, the people voted directly for them but only for them.
It is difficult for a Backbench MP to influence government policy if a government has a large majority in Parliament. The power of individual backbench MPs is reduced making it harder to challenge the government. Also, the PM has powers of patronage which demand loyalty; few MPs want to cause a general election by defeating the government. Thus accepting their fate as lobby
A voter could switch from voting for the Conservatives to vote for the Labour Party at the next election because they decide according to single issues. In general the public today is not really aligned to parties anymore. I would say that party allegiance is something which is nearly vanished in Britain’s voting behavior. There are still groups which are strongly related to one or the other party but that is not as common as was in the 50s and 60s. The important things today are which party has at the moment the right promises for the single voter and which party is better in delivering policy goals.
Are 1 percent of voters affected, 10 percent, or more? The studies that have been done range from showing no effects to showing more than 10 percent of voters potentially affected. Obviously, these cannot all be right, or they may be looking at different elections with different characteristics. An importantissue is the perceived closeness of the election before the election occurredand the peceived closeness of the election based on exit poll results. Jackson (1983), whose paper we discuss in greater detail below, points out very sensibly that the only time the exit polls can have an effect is when they change voters' perceptions about the closeness of the race.
‘If it isn’t broken don’t fix it.’ Discuss with reference to the electoral systems used for national elections in the UK and USA. The first past the post systems used in both the USA and the UK unquestionably have the potential to produce election results that are not representative of the break down of total votes in an election, providing results that don’t reflect voter wishes. One may argue that the electoral systems used in both the USA and UK marginalize minorities, causes wasted, insignificant votes and promote voter apathy. However despite the numerous criticisms of first past the post it has continued to be the system in place to decide the President in the USA and dictate which party forms government, and thus which party leader becomes Prime Minister in the UK, suggesting the system has its advantages. Proponents of the UK and US voting methods also often cite the lack of a credible alternative as a reason for the retention of the current systems.