The same is true at a national level. In the '97 general election Labour got 43.2% of the total votes cast. But, the combined number of votes for the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats represented 47.5% of the voters. Therefore Labour could not truly claim they were the people’s party, as the majority of the people throughout Britain didn't want them in power. This was once again true in the 2001 election, with Labour gaining 43% of votes cast and other parties gaining 57% of the vote. Also, no government since 1935 has had the majority of public support shown through the percentage of votes gained in a general election.
So, surely this system of voting does in no way reflect the views of the nation. The question that could now be asked should be, 'Is this true democracy?' Another flaw related to this is that the first past the post system is not proportional. So the number of votes cast for a party does not reflect the number of seats they gain in the House of Commons. So, once again the views of the people have not been taken into account. For example, in 2001 Labour got 9% more votes than the conservatives, yet they gained 247 more seats in parliament than the Tories. Is this fair? Is it fair that with only 40.7% of the votes Labour managed to gain 63% of the seats in the commons? Thus giving them a huge majority. Can this be called fair?
On the other hand, this fact of parties generally gaining a large majority means that a strong single party government is usually produced. Therefore enabling them to implement their manifesto with little or no interference, as no matter if all the other parties in the commons disagree with the government suggestions, they can always be outvoted by the majority party; this can speed up the proceedings of parliament. Or it can create problems. This majority gained means that the government can do anything they want to. They have complete control in parliament and so it is really irrelevant if the other parties vote on matters, as their opinions will not count. The government could bring in new laws, or change existing laws with no opposition whatsoever.
A response to this could be that the system works. It has been tried and tested over many years and everyone in the country can understand it. The process of ticking a box next to the candidate name of the person you want to win and then the person with the most votes wins, is not a hard process to understand. Why change the system and confuse all voters?
Another aspect that must be regarded is that there have often been low turnouts at general elections in Britain. One main reason for this is that in a voter’s constituency there is always one party with a large majority, so much that it would take a miracle for any other party to win. Therefore this doesn’t give the opposition voters any eagerness to vote, as they know that their vote will not be able to sway the result. This also leads to tactical voting, a method that can only be used because the first past the post system is non-proportional. Tactical voting is employed in such constituencies as mentioned above, where one party always wins the election. If in the constituency it is a close race between the party coming first and second, any other voters who don’t support these two parties will then vote for their preferred party out of the two, as they know that by doing this at least the party they dislike the least will get into power. Tactical voting defeats the idea of true democracy, but it is inevitable in first past the post.
There is, however one outright advantage of the first past the post system. This is the fact that there are strong MP – constituency links formed each general election.
Since the MPs in each constituency have to win the support of the voters, they must get to know the area and the needs of the people in that area. This therefore means that by the time the winning MPs are put into the House of Commons, they will have strong links with their constituencies. This can only be a good thing, surely.
There is however a small problem with this, that is that when the winning MP wins the constituency he / she must represent and help everyone in that constituency, whether they voted for or against him / her. This should work in theory, but unfortunately this doesn’t always work in practice. Some constituents do not feel they can turn to their local MP as he / she represents a political party which does not do what that constituent wants doing.
First past the post, however, does benefit some whilst it is unfair to others. One example of this is the fact that the present system doesn’t work well for smaller growing parties for example the Liberal Democrats, where as the Conservatives and Labour have benefited from this system.
At the ’97 general election, the Liberal Democrats got 16.8% of the votes, yet only got 46 seats in the commons. Whereas the conservatives got 30.7% of votes and won 165 seats, Labour also got 43.2% of votes cast and they won 419 seats. If this was done proportionally based upon the number of seats Labour won, the Liberal Democrats should have got around 106 seats in the house of commons. Plus, in the 2001 election the Liberal Democrats got 52 seats from 19% of the vote, whereas if the electoral system in Britain today were proportional then this would have given them approximately 120 seats in parliament. The first past the post system can therefore be said to be limiting the power in Britain to just two parties. Which isn’t fair in true democracy.
So as can be seen in the essay above there are many different advantages and disadvantages to the British electoral system / First past the post. So the arguments for and against should be weighed up.
Although there are various reasons as to why the system works I feel that alternative systems should definitely be considered as there are simply to many unfair results using the present system, there are to many wasted votes; there needs to be more order to the system, where tactical voting will be eliminated and the true opinion of the British voters shown through the result of the general election.
The fact that first past the post has been around for so long is not a reason to keep it and overall I think that it is not a success in the world today.