“The British Electoral system is in need of a reform.” Discuss

“The British Electoral system is in need of a reform.” Discuss
The British Electoral system is a voting system used to make democratic decisions. We are currently using the FPTP system to elect MPs to Westminster. There have been many calls to change the system currently used to elect MPs to Westminster. However, there has been evidence to show that the majority of people’s preference is the FPTP system. The outcome of the referendum that was carried out in May 2011 provides support for this. This referendum asked the public whether the alternative vote should be used instead. 32.1% votes yes whilst 67.9% voted no. Supporters of the current electoral system claim that the advantages of FPTP far outweigh the disadvantages.
FPTP is a simple plurality electoral system. A candidate has to gain a minimum of one vote advantage over their nearest rival in order to secure victory. The larger the margin, the outcome is the same victory in that seat. A winning margin as small as one is all that is required for the winning candidate. Only one MP is returned per constituency. The ‘winning post’ in a constituency is determined after all the votes have been counted. To win the general election, a party must gain 326 seats. This therefore means there is a predetermined finishing post. The above shows that the FPTP system is one that is easy to understand and operate. Other systems may require calculations to take place after all the votes have been collected, however FPTP does not require this.
The main advantage of FPTP is that it is a simple system and easy for the voter to use. The voter chooses just one candidate from a pre-established list by placing an ‘X’ in their choice. There is no need to rank the candidates or make more than one preference – as is the case for other systems – which limits any confusion or complications. Other systems may have a huge number of spoilt papers under various types of PR as a result of voter confusion. In Scotland, when STV was used, there was a large amount of spoilt ballot papers. This is evidence to show that citizens are denied democracy. This bolsters the argument in favour of retaining the current British electoral system.
A further advantage of FPTP is the speed in which the results are known. We usually get the results in constituencies’ hours after the polls close and the result on who will govern before the next dawn breaks. It can be argued that this increases voter turnout, which is important for a healthy democracy. The speed of the FPTP results means that the new PM can be in number 10 the next day. This is a big contrast to other electoral systems where the vote counting can take days to find out who will govern the country.
Building on this, the current system delivers clear results with one party being able to govern alone. The emerging government will have had a clear working majority and this means that it can pass legislations and laws without difficult operative restrictions that prevent the government from carrying out a task they see fit. The system – usually – tends to avoid coalitions. Coalitions involve decisions and deals being made after the election and this can take time for the government to form. There is a greater chance of a coalition being weak than a single-party government. It is common to have problems arise in coalition agreements and we can see this is the case with the partnership between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Hence strength and stability often linked together are claimed attributes for first-past-the-post.
However, despite the clear benefits of the FPTP system, there are some major drawbacks to it. A main criticism of FPTP is that the number of votes cast for a party in general elections is not accurately reflected in the number of seats won. An example of this was the 1997 election when the Tories gained 18% of the vote in Scotland but not one seat. This is mirrored at constituency level, where the winning candidate may have received only one third of the votes cast. A government may be elected on a minority vote, as happened in 1974 when Labour won the general election on the number of seats gained but the Tories had a larger share of the vote across the country.
Furthermore, smaller parties are not fairly treated under FPTP. Although they may have a sizeable national support across the country, they do not get a proportional number of MPs because there are not enough votes concentrated in constituencies to let them win seats. This means that the smaller parties are disregarded and are not represented accordingly. The system favours the parties whose electoral support is geographically concentrated. This is because parties whose support is dispersed tend to be unable to win the necessary 35%+ of the votes needed to win a majority. This is why the small parties suffer under the FPTP system.
As well as putting smaller parties at a disadvantage, FPTP also encourages tactical voting. This is when the candidate in question has little prospect of winning and so the voter will give the second-choice vote to an option that has a better chance of winning the seat. It can also be to vote for a party, other than your preferred party, to prevent another party from being elected. An example of this would be when a Labour supporter in a marginal Liberal/conservative seat vote Lib Dems in order to keep the Conservatives from winning. This can lead to a wasting of votes and further prevents smaller parties from gaining the power that they deserve to be represented in Parliament.
In conclusion, there are numerous arguments which support FPTP. It may have some defects but they are vastly outweighed with the advantages mentioned. Furthermore, the public demand for reform does not exist as the referendum verdict from May 2011 displayed. Reform is unlikely to happen giving FPTP a long time to run.