To what extent is the Westminster electoral system in need of reform? The current system used in the UK general elections is the First Past the Post electoral system. It is a simple plurality system- meaning a candidate only needs one more vote than his/her opponent in order to win a constituency seat in a single member constituency. Although the First Past the Post system has a strong constituency link and nearly always produces a majority government which means a strong government, its negatives include many wasted votes and a lack of clear representation. This is why some argue that the current Westminster electoral system is in desperate need of reform.
On the other hand, First Past the Post is noticeable for its simplicity and being straight forward. Additional Member System is an electoral system which each elector votes separately for a party and for a representative. One criticism of AMS is it allows extremist parties to get to power and govern the country. For example, in the Scottish Parliament 2011 elections, in FPTP Green Party would have received no seats but under the Additional Member System they were able to get 2seats. Although this is a good thing because it allows smaller parties to govern it gives extremists parties the chance to govern.
As shown in 2010 where in the general election the Green and other small parties combined achieved 7.9% of the votes but the Green party was the only one of these parties to gain a seat and they only won one seat. This can encourage tactical voting with people voting for parties not that they want to win but for parties they feel will stop the parties they dislike from winning. However there are also positive attributes to the FPTP voting system as it provides a straight forward electoral choice to the voter and is simply just a mark is a box is all that is required to vote for your preferred party. This means the voter are far less likely to be confused or daunted by the prospect of voting. This makes also makes the count easier for a less time consuming.
In 2005, the Liberal Democrats had 22% of the overall vote in the UK, sharing, but because of the FPTP system they only won 62 seats out of the 646 constituencies in the UK, this shows this system as clearly an unfair. However, there has been a change in the power of the two parties in the UK. For example, the Scottish Parliament has employed the voting system of AMS. This has meant that in Scotland, there is no longer a two-party system because the Scottish National Party was voted into parliament winning one single seat. As AMS is a partly PR system, the percentage of votes equals the percentage/number of seats, this in turn, means the big two parties no longer dominate the government.
Another advantage of the FPTP system is that it manages to marginalise extremist and revolutionary parties such as UKHIP and BNP as they are unlikely to win overall constituencies. This was demonstrated well in the 2010 election as BNP and UKHIP did not even come close to winning any seats in the House of Commons. One of the general advantages the FPTP system has been known for is its ability to produce single party governments that aren’t a minority vote or a coalition. This is due to its ability to
Asses the importance of the ethnic minority vote in the US political system The political system within the US consists of two parties; Democrats and Republicans. Whilst the Democrats conventionally gain the vote of the worse off citizens, the Republicans achieve the vote of the better off citizens; nevertheless, neither party are oblivious of the importance of the ethnic minorities. In 2008 Blacks voted at higher levels than they ever had in any other Presidential Election. Black voter turnout averages between 5% and 10% below that of the White voter turnout. Many Blacks doubt the political system has any value for them.
One arguments showing that public participation advances democracy is that it allows a wider range of candidates to run for presidency that are not part of the Washington establishment. This enhances democracy because the public have a wide variety of candidates to choose from and can pick the candidate that they believe will represent and support their political ideology. The process is therefore opened up to outsiders who do not initially have a national reputation such as Bill Clinton in 1992, Barack Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2008 also. For example Hillary Clinton was considered an outsider because she was a female candidate and only male candidates have yet made it to presidency. The fact that the process is open to unlikely candidates and the public have the right to choose such candidates means that democracy is advanced because the decision lies with the public.
It is logical to assume that a Prime Minister’s degree of power will be very dependent on the size of majority his party enjoys in the House of Commons. In the case of Blair, he enjoyed a very large one, with 63.4% of the seats filled by Labour MPs. Since the party won the right to govern, the Prime Minister carries all the elective authority with him. Also, with little opposition, it allows the Prime Minister to exercise his powers more efficiently, which would undoubtedly be very helpful when wanting to pass new laws. Cameron in turn, should expect to enjoy less power as he had to form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, in order to achieve a majority.
They also are ineffective at representing their constitution because out of 650 MPs, only 147 of them are female, and even fewer are ethnic minorities which means they are not effectively representing the population. Secondly, MPs are effective because they scrutinise and hold the government to account with questions. They can scrutinise the opposition, or if they are rebels for example, Nadine Dorries, they can scrutinise their own party. Recently, MPs have become even more under the Speaker John Berkow who has allowed increasing amounts of urgent questions, 25 in his first year. There is also the 10 minute question time, and ballot box at the end of Question Time.
This system is known as Direct Election and includes instant runoff voting. Instant runoff voting is a voting system in which voters rank the candidates in order of preference using one ballot. If no candidate has the majority of votes they then eliminate the candidates with the lowest number of votes until they are down to the last candidate with the most number of votes. This process saves the government a lot of time and money. This would cause the candidates to feel it necessary to campaign in every state.