Why has neither the UK nor the US adopted a system of proportional representation?

The first, and probably the biggest, disadvantage to the FPTP system is the fact that it leads to disproportionate results. The number of seats a party gains does not directly reflect the number of votes they win. But, more worryingly, it is possible for a party to be elected outright with a minority of the votes cast. In fact in the UK in 2005 the Labour party gained only 35.3% of the vote and gained 356 seats, whilst the Conservatives gained 32.3% of the votes but only 198 seats. Moreover, in the USA in 2000, a worse scenario arose when in fact George W Bush gained only 47.9% of the popular vote compared to Al Gore’s 48.4% and yet won the election. Linked to this problem of disproportionality, is the second disadvantage of FPTP, the exclusion of minorities, both ethnic and women, from fair representation. In the House of Commons, following the 2005 election 128 seats were held by female MP’s out of 646, this is not even 20%, and the number has since fallen due to by-elections. Ethnic minorities are similarly ill-represented in the USA, despite Hispanic Americans being the biggest minority group in America, making up 14.8% of the population; they only have 3 Senators, out of 100, and 27 Members in the House of Representatives, just 6% of the total.

If the FPTP system has so many problems, the next question is what are the alternatives and why haven’t they been adopted in these two countries? In essence there are only two true systems of proportional representation; the List System and the Single Transferable Vote. The basis of a proportional electoral system is that the proportion of votes gained equals the proportion of seats won, classified on the basis of an electoral formula (Rae 1967). The first system, the List System, is by far the most widely used form of proportional representation, but has many variations. In its simplest form the party draws up a list of candidates for each constituency based on the number of seats to be filled; the electorate then vote for a party and the proportion of votes each party gains determines the number of seats they win. There are two main variations to the system; the closed list and the open list. The closed list allows the party leaders to place and rank candidates on the list, while the open list allows voters to vote on a candidate basis for the order and cast a party vote for the actual seat (Farrell 2001). List systems are used to elect parliaments in much of continental Europe including; Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and is actually used in the UK to elect MEP’s. The main advantage of the List System is its high degree of proportionality, in the National Council of Switzerland elections in 2007; the Swiss People’s Party won 28.9% of the votes and gained 31% of the seats, and the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland won 19.5% of the votes and gained 21% of the seats. Other advantages include the fact minorities are better represented and that this system also promotes unity within the country as the emphasis is on the nation and not on the local area. The disadvantages of this system largely lie in the individual application of it. The Closed List System puts a lot of power in the hands of the party leaders as they not only draw up the candidate lists, they order them and therefore effectively control who can and cannot be elected. This also has a negative effect on the representation of minorities as they may not be chosen by the party to appear on the list. The proportional aspect of this system leads to unstable government; Italy has had 62 governments since WW2. The third disadvantage is that this electoral system eradicates the link between constituencies and representatives and so can in effect produce a disenchanted electorate who do not feel their needs are catered for on a local level.

The second proportional system is the Single Transferable Vote (STV), unlike the List System, it is much more complicated. STV is a preferential voting system based on multi member constituencies. The voters must rank the candidates on the ballot paper in order of preference. The result is then calculated by using a quota, usually the Droop quota, to calculate the number of votes a candidate needs to be elected:

Droop quota= [Total valid votes/ (total number of seats +1)] +1

The first preference votes are counted and any candidate reaching the quota is elected the rest of the votes for the elected candidates are redistributed on the second preference and so on until all the seats have been filled (Heywood 2007). The advantages of this system are, first and foremost that seats are allocated on a proportional basis, in the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly election the Democratic Unionists gained 33% of the seats and won 30% of the votes. STV also, not only retains the link between constituents and representatives, but actually strengthens it through the multi-member constituency system. STV however has a very complicated counting process which can sometimes take days to determine a result; it is also very expensive to run because of this. As with all proportional systems it does not lend itself to producing strong and stable governments, coalitions in Ireland have led to a lot of “Irish brokerage politics” (Farrell 2001). Finally, the ranking system along with the number of candidates can cause voter fatigue. New York once adopted STV for municipal elections and in Brooklyn the constituency was so large there were 99 candidates on the ballot paper to rank (Hermens 1984).

Despite the fact that these two electoral systems do for the most part provide proportional outcomes at elections, they fail in many other areas and so we can assume this is a factor in why neither STV nor the List System has been adopted in the UK or the USA. However, although not entirely proportional there is another system which is a hybrid system combining the advantages of proportional and majoritarian systems, it is called the Additional Member System (AMS).  This system is a mixture of First Past The Post and the Closed Party List. The electorate have two votes; one for their constituency candidate, FPTP, and one for their party, List System, these additional members are assigned to parties to correct the proportion of seats they hold in the legislative assembly compared with the votes they have won (Heywood 2007). This system has all the advantages of FPTP and the List System and very few disadvantages as they are balanced out by the two systems. Opponents sometimes cite the perceived difference in status between the two types of representatives as well as possible over centralisation of power to the parties due to the closed list. However one must recognise that there are always going to be disadvantages to any system, but these problems are very small and if we look at the examples of Scotland and Wales this system works exceedingly well. AMS would potentially work in both the US and the UK, the Jenkins Report went so far as to suggest it as the preferred system for the UK, yet there are no signs of it being adopted. Therefore we must presume there are other factors which have prevented electoral reform. It is, as Longley discusses in “The Politics of Electoral Reform in Great Britain and the United States” (1988) a number of other factors which have defined electoral reform in these two Countries.

The most important factor when understanding why the US and the UK have not adopted a system of proportional representation is the opposition to it by the main parties or as Longley puts it “perceptions of self-interest”. Longley dwells on relatively small and specific cases where proportional representation could damage interests, such as that of black politicians (Longley 1988). But, it seems that the issue is actually much larger and simpler than Longley suggests. The fact is the introduction of a proportional system would diminish the power of the two main parties in both countries. In the 2005 election Labour would have won 228 seats not the 356 it actually did under a proportional system and would have had to have a coalition in order to form a government. Moreover in the US George W Bush would have conceded the 2001 Presidential election to Al Gore in a proportional system. These two facts clearly show how proportional representation would have potentially catastrophic effects on the power of the main parties and why, therefore they are unwilling to change.  It is smaller parties in both the US and the UK who espouse the virtues of electoral reform because it is they who would gain the most, in 1996 the Reform Party in the US gained 8% of the national vote and yet won no seats in Congress. As it stands the current electoral systems magnify the vote to the advantage of the winning party and therefore a winning party is unlikely to change the system.

The second major factors are people and organisations. Although not grouped together by Longley, these two do not really exist without each other, and they influence reform through either their support or opposition. There are a myriad of pro reform groups in both the US and the UK including; Fair Vote and the Electoral Reform Society, but there are equally opponents to electoral reform. These groups and organisations not only try to influence politicians, but also the public. The public play a key role in the politics of electoral reform. It is after all the public that governments are accountable to at elections, and voting behaviour is shaped to an extent by policy decisions (Campbell 1960). And therefore along with the influence of groups and individuals is the influence of the media. If the media is not behind electoral reform the chances are the public will not be either as it is the key medium through which the public learn the various arguments.

One must also consider the influence that other seemingly unrelated issues have on electoral reform. In our current political climate electoral reform is not high on the agenda for politicians or the public with the prevailing issue being the one of the economy. And this is often the case during elections. Parties are more interested in pushing forward policies that are of high importance to the electorate; health, education, the economy. That electoral reform is sidelined. In the UK electoral reform is a key policy for the Liberal Democrats; however as a party unlikely of ever being able to form a government without a proportional system it is relevant that neither  Labour nor the Conservatives are proposing reform. In fact in America the lack of any real third party means that ideas of electoral reform are largely kept out of the public eye.

There are however certain circumstances, in which an electoral reform is more likely which are landslide victories and closely run elections; in the UK a hung parliament and in the US an Electoral College deadlock. The problem however, is that the FPTP system does not tend to produce these extreme results, and therefore limits the prospects of reform. There have been instances in both countries tolerably recently where these situations have arisen; Bush vs. Gore 2000, and in the UK in 1974 with Wilson. However in neither situation did we see the adoption of proportional representation or in fact any sort electoral reform. This is explained neatly by Longley as “the interplay” between all of these factors (1988:531) effectively working against each other to prevent electoral reform. One factor may be lending itself to electoral reform, but a number of others are always pulling against it.

Electoral reform and the adoption of proportional representation in the US and the UK are subjects which have been much debated over during political history. However as we have seen, there are a number of factors, some obvious and some less so which at all times effect the likelihood of reform. A combination of the entrenchment of the electoral systems currently used in the US and the UK and the fact that, AMS aside, other alternatives do not prove themselves much more effective go some way to explaining why there has not been electoral reform. However, the Alternative Member System, and other hybrid systems, force us to look at other factors preventing electoral reform. For the most part these are; the resistance of the main parties to move away from a system which hands them so much power and the fact that, despite the best efforts of a number of organisations, electoral reform remains an issue low on the agenda of the majority of the electorate.  It is for these reasons that despite their misgivings the current electoral systems look set to remain in place until a time when all of these factors come together to facilitate electoral reform.

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