Some people believe that STV (Single Transferable Vote) is the best electoral system, however it causes confusion and a lower voter turnout. With STV voters can rank candidates in the order they want, it is therefore much easier to elect an independent candidate that the party does not want. STV is better than FPTP because it gives greater power to ordinary voters than any other electoral system. However I believe that FPTP is the best electoral system because it gives you a single MP for each constituency meaning that you know exactly who is representing you, on the other hand it is not an accurate representation of what the people actually want.
The AV vote is very similar to STV and FPTP which can sometimes cause confusion. In AV instead of simply putting an ‘X’ on the ballow paper, they have the chance to rank the candidates on offer. This system has its advantages and disadvantages as all electoral systems do. It is believed that it more accurately reflects public opinion, Coalition governments are no more likely to arise under AV than under FPTP, however it can be less proportional than FPTP and there is no transfer of power from party authority to the voters.
Under Party List voters elect candidates in multi-member districts, or sometimes an entire country. The more members per area increases the proportionality of the system, and in and open list system the size of the ballot paper. Party-List systems guarantee a high degree of party proportionality, however closed party lists are completely impersonal, weakening any link between the representative and a regional area.
In FPTP the voter simply puts a cross in a box next to one candidate. The candidate with the most votes in the constituency wins. All other votes count for nothing. It's simple to understand and therefore doesn't cost much to administer and doesn't alienate people who can't count. It also tends to produce a two party system which in turn tends to produce single party governments, which don't have to rely on support from other parties to pass legislation. However, FPTP wastes huge numbers of votes, as votes cast in a constituency for losing candidates, or for the winning candidate above the level they need to win that seat, count for nothing. Furthermore with relatively small constituency sizes, the way boundaries are drawn can have important effects on the election result.
FPTP forces parties to become coalitions in themselves rather than forming coalitions with other parties later. This is seen as a positive because it lets the voters know about the coalition before the vote. However, this can be seen as a negative, as it obscures what voters are actually voting for, as candidates from the same party can stand for radically different things, therefore a voter has no way of expressing which side of the party they support.
In conclusion it is difficult to decide what the best electoral systems are, because all of the different electoral systems that are on offer to the people can not please everyone. The trend between the electoral systems is that if they have an accurate representation of the people then usually they do not have a strong link between the people and their MP. When the people are represented accurately there tends to be a weaker MP link with more MPs to one constituency. The world of electoral systems can be very confusing, not least because there are so many varieties of system, some of which involve complicated counting procedures. Therefore if not everyone is pleased with the results that are given there is no electoral system which is the best electoral system.
