The Plurality System.

Rose Szarowicz 8th Dec 03

The Plurality System

This system is called first past the post, and has been used in the UK for centuries. The system has lasted so long in the UK because it has many advantages over other systems available. The system almost always produces a single party government. George Foulkes, a labour MP argued that the government in power is at least making decisions on behalf of the largest majority, whereas with PR, there is an imbalance of power as government decisions are in the hands of small minorities. In 2001 the Labour party had 42% of the vote, and won 2/3rd of the seats, due to them having a majority over other parties. Although this seems not completely fair, it provides them with mandate; a right to govern and rule the whole country. This also makes it a strong government, as they do not have to form coalitions with other parties and share power, they can freely (with opposition from parliament) create laws and policies that they feel are in the best interests of the people. They do not have to compromise on certain policies, and weaken the effects of their choices.

The system creates a link between MP’s and constituencies. The constituents must vote for a named candidate, who they can meet, and have a closer link with. This is more ‘close to home’ than voting for a whole party with shared views and anonymous candidates. By them voting for their own MP, he or she can represent their constituency as a whole, and try to raise issues in parliament that effect the constituents. This system is easy to understand as the voter must simply put a cross against the name of the party they feel should win, and one party will have a majority, giving them a mandate to rule. So the system works, and has done for many years. It’s more effective than the other systems available to us in the UK, and as all other systems are flawed, there is no point replacing one flawed system with another.

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Although not all aspects of first past the post are positive. The greatest drawback or the system is that many votes are wasted, as many as 70% in each constituency. Votes cast for losing candidates are ignored in seat allocation, as only votes for winning candidates are taken into account. Extra votes adding on to the winning parties majority give no benefit to them. It will not gain them any more seats in parliament. This was illustrated in the 1997 election where the Lib Dem’s won 16.7% of the vote but only 7% of the seats. Also in 1974 where labour won 301 seats with 37.2% of the vote when the conservative party won 297 seats with 37.9% of the vote. Although the system produces a single winning party, the party rarely wins an outright majority. Only in two occasions has the winning party won more than 50% of the vote; in 1900 where the conservatives and the lib dem’s won 50.3% of the vote, and in 1931where the national government had 53.3%, but this formed a coalition within which the conservatives had a very large majority. Apart from these two cases, the winning party normally wins less than 50% of the vote. This means that the government is formed on a minority vote; more people have voted against it than for it.

Regional imbalance also has a big effect on the vote. Support for some parties may be evenly spread across the county, with say a small percentage of supporters in each constituency, and because there are few of them, theirs votes aren’t enough to win their party MP in their constituency, and so their overall votes reduced. Whereas another party may have imbalanced support across the country, with support very concentrated in some areas. This means those areas will have ‘safe seats’ and their MP can win in those areas. As Curtice and Steed (1997) argued ‘Conservatives have become a relatively small party whose vote is geographically relatively evenly spread from one part of the country to another’ this statement means that they will find it difficult to gain a majority vote in areas where they have support, because its so widespread, the support is too little.

There is an over importance of marginal seats in the UK, this can effect the votes and the policies of the government. There are normally about 500 ‘safe seats’, these are constituencies where there is so much support for a certain party, that it is almost certain that that party will win in that area. This can result in people in these areas voting tactically as they are not in favour of the popular party or they could develop apathy and not bother to vote as ‘their vote wont count anyway’ as there wont be enough support to enable their party win. The result of this is that marginal seats have too great an importance. As the party knows they have ‘safe seats’ in certain areas, they don’t need to focus campaigns there. But in areas where the support of different parties is fairly equal, they will focus all their campaigning there, trying to get a majority. It could lead them to developing policies that would benefit those areas, to increase the support and the vote.

Although having a link between MP’s and constituencies can be seen as an advantage, it can also be seen a weakening of government. One MP cannot possibly represent the views of all people living in their constituency, as in every community there are different social, political, economic, ethnic and religious views. One constituency cannot be put under the title of a ‘natural community’, as the fact they happen to be living in the same area, doesn’t mean they will share the same views. Plant (1992) argues that the whole system of dividing the country into 659 constituencies, each having an individual MP to represent their views isn’t representative. Rather constituencies should be seen as a microcosm of society which doesn’t have one person representing its views but a committee representing the views of many groups of people. He sees parliament as representative, when it reflects ‘in a proportionate way, the wider society’. He feels the country would be more representative divided into large multi-seat constituencies rather than many small single seat constituencies.

This type of system can produce an ‘elective dictatorship’ whereby a party can be held in power for a long time by a large majority, even with a small % of the vote. For example Conservatives being held in power from 1979-1997, and then again from 1951-1964. Although it doesn’t produce a coalition, it still must deal with members of its own party as it must in a coalition. The only difference is that in PR the deals are made openly. Also PR doesn’t necessarily lead to coalition governments. Rooker (1992) stated that many countries have PR with a one party majority, e.g. in Spain they had their 3rd majority socialist government on PR in 1986.

Critics argue that in coalitions the line between the government and the electorate is lost through coalition politics; if each party produced a manifesto before the election, one the votes have been done and a coalition is formed, their original views may be compromised the results never reach the electorate who voted them in. Although supporters of PR such as Temple (1995) argues that voters of coalition election vote in anticipation of certain parties forming, and quite often the parties announce their proffered coalition beforehand so voters can have in mind a proposed government.

Supporters of the plurality system often use the argument that FPTP is simple and easy, all other systems are too complex. But in reality, it is very simple for the voter in all other voting systems. For example in the STV (the single transferable vote) it is mathematically complex to determine seat allocations, but all the voter must do is write in their order of preferred governments. It is the returnable officer who must determine who gets how many seats. There is no reason why voters shouldn’t be able to switch to other ‘more complex’ voting systems.

Overall it seems there are far more faults with the current system than there are advantages. Although it can be argued that there are faults with all the other systems, so there is no point replacing one flawed system with another, there are other systems available that would be more representative than the current one. Many say that the system should be changed.

Electoral reform has been looked at by the government and has been investigated. As devolution was brought to Scotland and Wales, electoral reform was brought about, and changed their voting systems from the plurality system. Conservatives kept electoral reform for England low on political priorities, yet since Labour came into power, they have been looking into other voting systems. They held a referendum on electoral reform in 1997 and came up with five announcements to concerning new electoral arrangements. To have a regional closed list for European elections, a version of the additional member system for new Scottish and welsh assemblies , STV for the Northern Ireland Assembly, an additional member system for the London assembly and a supplementary vote for the mayor of London.

On top of this they set a report to be done headed by Roy Jenkins in 1997 to investigate alternative methods of voting suitable in the UK. The report published in October 1998 recommended the AV (Alternative Vote) whereby 80-85% of MP’s in single member consistencies would use this method. The voters write in their order of preference of MP’s, and the votes would be counted. The candidate in first place on the most ballots would win a seat, and the candidate with the least votes in first place would be eliminated. On these ballots, the second preference would be counted. This would continue until one MP has more than 50% of the vote. In 80 constituencies, the top-up system would be used, where the voter can write their preferred party OR candidate. Counting of the votes in this system is very complex.

Reform for England hasn’t been high on the political agenda again since 1998, and it may be time for the government to look again at how representative our voting system really is. Supporters of PR would find little wrong with the system, and many would say it would do very well in the UK, although it too has its drawbacks. It must be looked into if the advantages of the system outshines its disadvantages.