First-past-the-post vs. proportional representation
The hung Parliament resulting from the May 2010 general election has raised the profile of a debate that has been going on in political circles for well over a hundred years. Should the UK continue with its "first-past-the-post" system of electing Members of Parliament, or should the country move to some form of proportional representation (PR) system?
Most countries or regions that switch from first-past-the-post to PR do so in an attempt to address what some see as unfairness or inequity in the first-past-the-post system.
Many countries already use PR (including most European nations) and the UK now uses it to elect representatives to the European Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, Northern Ireland Assembly, London Assembly, and Scottish and Northern Irish local government.
Criticisms of first-past-the-post
The main criticism of first-past-the-post is that individuals can be elected and parties can achieve a governing majority of parliamentary seats even though they have not received a majority of the votes. In fact, most Members of Parliament are elected with less than 50% of the total votes cast in their constituency.
Another criticism is that first-past-the-post results in a large number of wasted votes. Since the winner in most parliamentary elections gets only a plurality of votes (and not a majority), the majority of votes cast are wasted, in that a vote for a candidate placing a close second or third gives the voter no voice at all in Parliament.
First-past-the-post also works to the advantage of political parties whose support is concentrated in certain areas but may be weaker in other parts of the country. Such a party may win more seats than a party whose nationwide support is spread more uniformly -- so the number of seats that an election allocates to each party is not commensurate with the overall level of support the party has on a nationwide basis.
Critics also say that first-past-the-post tends to put election outcomes in the hands of a small number of swing voters in marginal constituencies, and that it only seems to function well in a two-party system (which, they say, it also tends to perpetuate). The other side of that argument, though, is that a PR system, while giving lots of different parties a voice in Parliament, will often lead to unstable coalition governments.
PR systems
A pure PR system might be one where each voter casts a vote only for a party, and the legislative seats are then allocated strictly in proportion to the outcome of the overall vote. So, for instance, if Party A gets 38% of the nationwide vote, then it gets 38% of the seats in Parliament. That type of pure PR is rarely used. In most places where a PR system is used, it is more of hybrid with first-past-the-post. In general, such hybrid systems seek to give voters both the opportunity to choose their local representative while at the same time ensuring that the overall allocation of seats is not overly skewed.
In fact, there are a large number of ways of structuring PR systems. The Electoral Reform Society has an online guide to PR voting systems , which explains the Additional Member System, the Alternative Vote, the Alternative Vote Plus, the Supplementary Vote, the Single Transferrable Vote, and the Party List system. Some of those systems can be used in combination with other systems.
An example of PR -- the Scottish Parliament
The system used in Scottish Parliament elections provides an example of a PR system in action. In Scotland, the Additional Member System (AMS) is used alongside the first-past-the-post system. It works like this:
- The country is divided up into 73 individual constituencies, each of which has one representative in Parliament, and larger regions, which have several representatives. So the geographic area of each constituency is also part of a larger geographic region.
- Each voter gets two votes. One is for a constituency representative and the other is for regional representatives .
- The constituency representative is elected in the traditional, first-past-the-post way. The voter chooses from a list of individuals (who each have party affiliation) and votes for one individual. The individual getting the most votes wins the seat.
- The regional representatives are elected by AMS. The voter casts his vote for a party rather than an individual, and when the votes are tallied for the region the regional representative seats for that region are divided among the parties in proportion to the share of the vote that each party received.
- The result is that parties who may be completely shut out of Parliament in the first-past-the-post elections may nevertheless get some seats in Parliament if they get enough of a share of the vote for regional representatives.
The Welsh Assembly and London Assembly elections use a similar system, whereas the Northern Ireland Assembly elections use a Single Transferable Vote System. The London Mayoral elections use -- interestingly -- a Supplementary Vote system. You can get details as to how all of those systems work from the Electoral Reform Society .
In 2008, the Ministry of Justice published a review of the way PR systems have worked in the UK . It concluded that the use of AMS in Scottish Parliament elections had made representation more proportionate to the vote, but also concluded that the system had not generated greater voter turnout for elections. The report indicated, however, that as PR systems have only been recently introduced to various regional elections in the UK, there may not yet be enough data to form the basis for firm conclusions about what works best.
Is PR Confusing for Voters?
Although discussions on the various PR alternatives can seem complex and even bewildering, many election observers conclude that once a region has settled on a particular system the voters do not tend to find it unduly confusing. In fact, some have suggested that PR may be less confusing than the tactical voting schemes that are sometimes advocated in first-past-the-post elections -- where voters are encouraged to vote for someone other than their favourite in order to prevent a disliked candidate from winning the seat.
Getting more information
The Electoral Reform Society and the Ministry of Justice 2008 Review of Voting Systems are two good starting points for people interested in learning about electoral systems in detail. They may, in turn, lead you to other sources, such as the 1998 Jenkins Commission report on voting systems . There are also numerous other commentaries and academic works on the subject, and the main political parties have their own publications setting out their positions on voting systems too.
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