Another electoral system, which can result in a majority government, is ‘Alternative Vote’. This system is main used in Australia where voting is compulsory and consists of preferable voting which can mean as many preferences as candidates. Unlike FPTP ‘Alternative Vote’ only has one member per party and they are listed in alphabetical order. There is one member per constituency but no MP can be elected without an absolute majority. Counting continues until an absolute majority is reached and those last at each count are eliminated. This electoral system also produces a stable government but has a slow and exhaustive ballot.
The system used in Germany is called A.M.S. It was adopted in West Germany in 1949 but is now extended to United Germany. It creates a stable government and provides legislation. This system is different from most as the elector has two different votes. One for the constituency, and a second for a party. When the votes are counted the constituency representatives are elected from the first vote. The constituency representatives fill half of the six houndred and fifty-six seats.
The party vote is made proportional to the amount of votes cast but computing how many seats each party would be entitles to and then subtracting from that number the amount of seats each party has won in the constituency vote. The figure remaining is equal to the number of extra seats received on the second vote. A party, which fails to secure 5% of votes across the country of 3 constituency seats, cannot take part in allocation of seats based on second votes. The list is ordered and the candidates are numbered.
One complicating cam and does occasionally happen that a party wins more seats from the first vote that the total entitlement under the second vote. The party is allowed to retain extra seats and the Bundestag in enlarged.
Proportional representation list system is the most common for of PR as there are many versions. It is used in all European countries except in the UK, Eire and France. Voters have one vote and they vote for a list a candidates from various political parties. In this system votes are equal to seats. The electoral unit may be a whole country so some people feel that this weakens the link between the MP’s and the constituency. It can result in an unstable government and multi-party coalitions.
The open system aims to represent political parties with very little choice of candidate and parties draw up list in the order the want the elected. Voters can slightly change the order of the party list. It aims to get exact proportionality. It is used in Belgium.
The PR closed system is used in Israel Spain and in EU elections. It consists of multimember constituencies, e.g. in Israel the was one for 120 seats. You vote with an ‘X’ and have no choice of candidate. The parties all receive a percentage of the votes in proportion to the percentage of votes the receive. There is very good proportionality but it usually ends up with coalitions e.g. in Israel and can be unstable as there were 3 elections in 4 years.
Finally another version of Proportional representation is Single Transferable Vote (STV) is used to ensure a close link between the total amount of votes cast and the number of seats on. STV is used in European and The North of Ireland Assembly elections. And is based on multimember constituencies. Voters show their preference by writing a number beside each candidate they wise to get elected. A quota is then calculated by dividing the number of votes cast by the number of seats available plus one. If a candidate has enough votes they are elected, if the have a surplus these are redistributed according to second preference. The candidate with least number of votes is eliminated and votes are redistributed until all the seats have been filled.
