What is representative democracy?

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Government & Politics

Meté Serdar Coban

Assignment two

1} What is representative democracy?

A representative democracy is when more than one body acts in the people’s interest during an election period. A representative stands for another person, group or entity. An elected politician represents their electors, district and parties.

Also in a representative democracy, representatives sometimes hold the power to elect others such as the government in the UK, the prime minister and the president in other countries.

2} Outline the working of any 3 electoral systems used in the UK.

The main electoral system used in the UK is FPTP which is used for the general elections. In the British electoral systems is properly titled as the single majority in single majorities.  FPTP contains features such as each constituency returns one Member of Parliament. Each party may only nominate one candidate in each constituency. Voters have only one vote each. They choose the preferred candidate by means of the proverbial cross on the ballot paper. Whichever candidate wins the largest number of votes is declared elected. This is known as gaining a simple majority or plurality. It is not necessary for a candidate to achieve over 50 percent of the votes. Whichever candidate wins the largest number of votes is declared elected. This is known as gaining a simple majority or plurality. It is not necessary for a candidate to achieve over 50 percent of the votes.

AMS is used in Scotland and Wales. Two-thirds of the seats are elected using FPTP, as for UK general elections. This is a complex calculation, but, in essence, what happens is the seats awarded from the list system are adjusted to give a more proportional result. This variable top-up system adjusts the proportions of votes of votes cast on the list system. There is an important variation in the regional list part of the vote. The other third of the seats is elected on the basis of closed regional list voting. Parties which do less well in the constituencies have their proportion of list votes adjusted upwards. Those which do proportionally well under FPTP have their list votes adjusted downwards. The overall effect of variable top-up is to make the total result close to proportional of the total of the total votes cast in both systems.

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STV used in Northern Ireland assembly, it is a multi-member constituencies with wide voter choice. Highly proportional result. Many parties gain representation. Constituencies return more than one member each. In Northern Ireland, the normal number is six. In order to be elected, a candidate must achieve a ‘quota’. The quota is calculated by taking the total votes cast and dividing it by the number of seats plus one. Voters may vote for all the candidates in their own order of preference. They do not have to vote for all candidates, but only the number they wish to select.

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