First Past The Post Analysis

In what ways has First Past the Post been criticised?

In Britain our voting system is called First Past the Post (FPTP). The UK is split into 646 different constituencies and each constituency elects a single MP to enter the House of Commons. The candidate with the highest number of votes automatically wins whether they have more than 50% of the votes or not. The party that forms the government however is not decided by the number of votes they receive across the country. Instead it is determined by the number of seats they have gained throughout the constituencies. The party with the most seats becomes the next government. There are many criticisms about the FPTP system and about it's democratic values. In my opinion the main problem
with FTPT is the fact many votes are wasted. Under the FPTP system anything up to around 70% of votes can be wasted in each constituency. This is because votes not for the winning candidate are simply discarded. This means that the overall number of seats won by a party is rarely proportional to the number of votes it receives across the whole country. This problem is shown very clearly by the Lib Dem's results in 2001. They won 18% of the national vote but won only 8% of the seats. How can this be seen as a fair democratic result? Surely if a party wins 18% of the votes they should have proportional representation in the House of Commons. In the FPTP system it is also possible for a party to win fewer votes than another party but still gain more seats thus becoming the new government without the majority of the nations support. This happened in 1974 when Labour won 301 seats with 37.2% of the vote while Conservatives won just 297 seats with 37.9% of the vote. Surely with these vote results it would have been a sensible decision to make Conservative the new government? However with our FPTP system this is not the case. Again the question of this systems democratic values comes into debate. The above problem can (as well as most criticisms of FPTP) lead to a lack of people actually voting (Only 59% and 60% of people voted in the 2001 and 2005 elections) In 1997, in Great Britain, 14.7 million voters cast ineffective votes - that is 48.2% of those who voted.
This is not a great figure to encourage the public to vote. Knowing that if they vote for any party other than either Labour or Conservative their vote will be wasted, people cannot be bothered to vote at all. This makes it harder for parties like Lib Dems because it is easier for bigger parties to win in low turn out areas. The FPTP also encourages people to cast negative votes otherwise called tactical-voting. This means that they vote against the party they dislike most rather than for the party they want to vote for. The UK's FPTP system results in a regional imbalance. Britain's 'electoral geography' means that some parties have an electoral advantage while others do not. This recently has been a problem for the conservative party. In Wales during the 2001 general election, not a single Conservative MP was elected, despite the fact overall the Party received 21% of the vote. One theory for this problem is that Conservative support is very concentrated and not as scattered as labour or Lib Dem support, therefore leaving them at a
disadvantage. A large concern that comes from FPTP is that it could lead to an electoral dictatorship. This means that a government is good at winning overall majorities by capturing only the minority of the electorate as a whole. Labour currently has more seats in the House of Commons than all the other parties put together. They have an incredibly strong rule because in votes they can never be beaten as long as all labour stick together. This means that a government that has only a tiny vote percentage lead has complete power. The conservatives governed with large overall majorities from 1979 to 1992 with their highest result reaching only 43.9% of the vote. In 1997, Labour took over power with only 44.2% of the vote and an eve lower 42% in 2001. A fear of electoral dictatorships is that once a party has an overall majority they can pass any law or reform they want. This could lead to the crippling of a particular group in society or many other problems.