First-Past-The-Post.

The system is used:

for elections to the House of Commons and local elections in the UK and in USA, Canada and India.

Arguments used in favour:

• It is simple to understand.
• The voter can express a view on which party should form the next government.
• It tends to lead to a two-party system. The system tends to produce single party governments, which are strong enough to create legislation and tackle the country's problems, without relying on the support of any other party.
• It provides a close link between the MP and their constituency.
• The system represents the views of the people, as the candidate with the greatest support wins through a fair process.
• The UK's democracy is one of the strongest in the world, it works and since no system is perfect, why should we go through the massive overhaul of changing?

Weaknesses:

• Only one MP is elected in each constituency, so all the voters who did not vote for him or her are not represented. Their votes do not help elect anybody and so are wasted, they could have stayed at home and the result would not have been altered.
• In 1997, in Great Britain, 14.7 million voters cast ineffective votes - that is 48.2% of those who voted. A high proportion of these voters are the same people every time, e.g. Conservative voters in County Durham or Labour voters in much of Surrey.
• >There is a lack of choice given to the voters. The candidates are selected by a small number of party members, and voters can only choose between parties. If the candidate selected for your party has views with which you disagree, you are left with no alternative choice within that party.
• Voters are represented unequally. In 1997, the average number of votes per MP elected was: 32,376 for Labour, but 113,826 for Liberal Democrats
• Concentrated support for a party produces results. In 1997, Conservative support was spread thinly over most of Scotland. They got 18% of the vote in Scotland, but no seats. The Liberal Democrats got 13% of the Scottish vote and a similar share of the seats because they had strong support in a few constituencies and minimal support in most of the others.
• The system leads to many people casting negative votes i.e. voting against the candidate they dislike most rather than for the candidate they like best.
• The way the boundaries of constituencies are drawn can affect the results. Governments are often accused of gerrymandering, adjusting the boundaries of constituencies to influence the results.
• In 1997, Labour won 43.3% of the total vote, but got 65.2% of the seats in Parliament, giving them power to form a government. Although 11 out of 20 British electors voted against the Government, it has complete power.