In what ways does the present Electoral Law in Britain affect Voting Behaviour?

Advantages of the FPTP system and majoritarian systems in general are that they produce strong governments, with little chance of producing a coalition government. Although more representative, coalition governments are generally believed to be weaker in terms of strength to effectuate policy change and the amount of time it takes to pass policy through parliament. Larger parties benefit from the system and some would argue serves as a security measure against extremist far left and right parties. The FPTP system is very easy to understand and prevents confusion caused by more complex systems.  An additional feature of the British FPTP system is the link between constituencies and their MP. Although very few people actually contact their MP, many feel that the link between the voters and MP is an important one.

Although the FPTP system seems to work well in two party systems the system actively discriminates against parties whose support falls below about one third, effectively excluding smaller parties are excluded from the political process. Many people consider the exclusion of fringe parties a bad thing because support for them should be translated into seats in parliament. As support for smaller parties has increased, this situation has worsened leading many to believe that some type of proportionally representative system should be used.

In what ways then does the FPTP system affect voting behaviour?  Since 1945, the winning party has, with few exceptions won a greater proportion of seats than its share of votes. On two occasions, 1951 and 1974 the party with the majority of seats actually won a smaller proportion of votes than the loser. Consequently, it is obvious even to the casual observer that the FPTP system lacks neutrality and will have an influence on the voting behaviour or the electorate.  As previously suggested, the fact that fringe parties are ostracised by the current system and support for them is not proportionally translated into votes means many voters who might vote for a fringe party such as the Greens instead will vote against a party in what is described as tactical voting.  Tactical voting turns smaller parties into simply pressure groups, when if voters voted for those they wanted in power, they could come to power under a proportional representative system.  Tactical voting is where voters vote against a party rather than the party they positively support to ensure the party they strongly oppose to not get into power. Some would go far as to suggest, “Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody.” 

A study of tactical voting found it occurred principally where voters are strongly committed to unseating an MP and where there were advantages of voting for an opposition party over voting for their party of preference. “It was found that ‘about 4% of the British electorate voted tactically in 1983, as did nearly 6% in 1987.’” Take the hypothetical situation of a largely dominant Conservative party with considerable Labour opposition. Green Party support may lag far behind to such an extent that their supporters they vote for Labour to try to make the difference needed to topple the Conservatives from power. Green supporters in the electorate recognise that they lack the support to ever win the constituency under an FPTP system so they decide to tactically vote for Labour. The Greens supporter does not positively support Labour yet strongly opposes the Conservative party.

A proportional or mixed member system would be the alternative to the FPTP system and has been recommended in the Jenkin’s Report for electoral reform. Proportional systems try to match the percentage of seats to the percentage of votes cast offering much greater neutrality in converting votes to seats. Mixed member systems are where some candidates are elected under a majoritarian system in single member local systems and others are voted in under a proportional formula in ‘top up’ areas.  The Jenkins Commission, a result of the Cook-McLllean pact was commissioned to find an alternative system to FPTP which would improve voter choice, deliver stable government, maintain the link between MP’s and local constituencies and produce broadly proportional results.  The Jenkins Commission recommended an AV-plus system, a mixture of the Alternative vote at the single member level and 15-20% top up MP’s elected proportionally across seventy-eight small top up areas to give further local accountability. Although this may have produced a ‘fairer’ voting system and law, it is mere idle speculation that it would affect tactical voting behaviour.  However, by the very nature of the system, increased proportionality is likely to increase support for smaller parties.

Interestingly, Britain is one of very few countries, especially in the EU that have maintained the FPTP system. Most other countries have tried to increase proportionality and improve the translation of votes to seats in parliament. Supporters of proportional representation (PR) believe that it empowers the voter. Downs (1957) argued that voting was irrational.  He suggested that because a voter’s single vote is insignificant insofar as it will have no affect on the final outcome, there is no rational reason for wanting to vote when you are not rewarded for voting or punished for not voting. It could be argued that this ideology pervades the British system where support for a part will not necessarily mean they come to power or even if they were to in a coalition government, could bring out the policy change some voters wanted.

This raises questions about what democracy really is? Is voting the trademark of democracy? Does it ensure that the people are sovereign?  J.S Mill believed that voting was important to promote the ‘development’ of the people but believed that extending the franchise to the extent of today’s system, would be impeded by hoi polloi. Schumpeter more cynically sees it as a competition between elites for control of the country. Even when presented with the opportunity to vote, an ideal that many died preserving in world wars, the number of people exercising their right to vote has steadily fallen. Some suggest this is because there really is no incentive to vote. Consequently, in Australia compulsory voting has been introduced to ensure the vote is more representative of public opinion. This could be introduced to Britain although in Australia, the penalty for not voting is not very high and electoral officials do not follow up many non-voters. That said, the system is effective inasmuch as it increases the number of voters to around 80%; much higher than the current British levels of around 60% in the last general election.

British political parties such as the Labour and the Conservative Parties gained a lot of their popularity and dominance by associating themselves with the provenance of the electorate. Labour has a deep-rooted history with the trade unions and the industrial working class whereas the conservative party tended to reflect the upper classes. In the 1950s approximately two thirds of the working class voted Labour and four fifths of the upper class voted Conservative. The extension of the franchise from 720,00 in 1830 – a limited franchise of male property holders to the situation today where the majority of citizens over the age of 18 can vote has been a huge electoral law change empowering the working class. But whilst it may be expected that this extension would increase support for Labour – the perceived party of the working class, this has not necessarily been the case. As the franchise has extended, so has voting behaviour. The class alignment of the ‘50’s and 60’s has now radically changed so there is no broad class voting patterns.

Partisan dealignment would appear to be the greatest single reason for voters not voting. As New Labour and the Conservatives have softened their stance to become more middle ground, catch all parties, voters no longer feel any particular allegiance to a party. The ‘rational choice model’ has replaced the former alignment between class and party. This model suggests that people will vote for the party that benefits them the most rather than the party of their class. The David Denver suggests, “Rather than party choice being stable and predictable…we should expect the dealigned electorate of the 1980’s and after to be volatile and unpredictable”

In conclusion, electoral law affects voting behaviour but only in a broad sense. The system of optional voting affects voting behaviour; it is clear that because the law dictates that voting is optional and because of the costs involved, many people do not see voting as a rational choice. An issue at the heart of electoral reform is that of proportionality and how votes do not necessarily translate to seats in parliament this disaffecting some voters. Additionally, the class dealignment and the move to rational choice voting has seen the two main parties converging on the middle ground so there is no discernable difference between the parties. Policy has become vague and a government’s promises bland in an attempt to appeal to as much as the electorate as possible. One way to overcome this may be to adopt a more proportional system of voting so that support for smaller parties is translated into seats in parliament.  This may encourage more people to vote for, rather than against parties. This might reverse the trend of a reduction in the number of people voting, as people would have an incentive to vote, knowing that their vote counted.   Current electoral law affects voting behaviour, but this essay has shown that there are many other factors, and probably to a greater extent which also affect voting behaviour.