Electoral Systems - Electoral Systems - Proportional Proportional

Representation Representation

S4 Standard Grade Modern Studies

What we will do today…What we will do today…

• Learn about Proportional Representation (PR) – an alternative to First Past the Post

• Learn about the ‘pure’ form of Proportional Representation – National List System

• Learn about the PR system used to elect local councillors in Scotland – Single Transferable Vote (STV)

But first….. But first….. 1. What is the name of the voting system

used to elect MPs to the House of Commons (General Elections)

2. How many constituencies are in the UK?

3. Under the FPTP system, how is a government elected?

4. What is a ‘marginal seat’?

5. Who are the Opposition?

6. Some people think the UK electoral system (FPTP) is unfair. Write down two disadvantages of FPTP

7. Write down one advantage of FPTP

How did you do?

Voting systems used in Voting systems used in Scotland… Scotland…

Voting Systems

in the UK

The British electoral system used to elect MPs to the House of Commons is known as ‘First Past the Post’

The voting system used to elect MSPs to the Scottish Parliament is called the Additional Member System (AMS)

Local councils in Scotland (from 2007) are elected by a system called the Single Transferable Vote (STV)

What’s the alternative to What’s the alternative to FPTP? FPTP?

• Many people would like to see a change to the First Past the Post system

• The Liberal Democrats, for example, have long campaigned for a system of Proportional Representation

• Proportional Representation is a ‘group name’ – it is the name given to many different types of voting systems that try to share out seats in proportion to votes

• PR is when the electoral system is such that the proportion of MPs/MSPs a party gets should be the same as the proportion of votes they get at the election. For example, if a party gets 20% of the vote they should get 20% of the MPs/MSPs.

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8492622.stm

National List SystemNational List System• Under this system each party makes up a list of people

they would like to be MPs/MSPs. The most important people go at the top of the list.

• Voters choose a party only - not a candidate. All ballot papers across the country would be the same:

Conservative

Labour

Lib. Dems.

SNP

• % of votes = % of seats

• So if Labour got 40% of the vote, the first 40% of the people on the Labour list would be elected, and so on.

• Voters simply put an X next to the party they want to vote for.

National List Cont’d… National List Cont’d…

• The National List is a form of Pure Proportional Representation

Activity:

•Look at the sheet I gave you last week regarding the 2005 General Elections.

•Calculate how many seats each party would have won had the system been the National List

646 X percentage of votes

100

•I’ll take you through the first party – you calculate the rest

Party Seats under FPTP (2005)

Seats if National List

Labour 356228

Con 198209

Lib Dems 62143

Other 3066

Advantages and Disadvantages of the National

List System Advantages

• the result is much fairer and represents the views of the voters much better than FPTP

• smaller parties do much better, e.g. Liberal Democrats, and no party dominates in the Parliament.

Disadvantages

• leads to a weaker government as no party is likely to have an overall majority (over half the MPs/MSPs) - parties must join together to form a government - this is called a COALITION government

• you vote for a party and not a candidate, which means there are no constituencies and you do not have a local representative.

Take aNote

Textbook QuestionsF/G: pg21-25 (answer all the

questions beginning at pg22)pg27-28 (questions on pg28)

G/C: pg61-66 (begin with only answering question 3 on pg62)pg68-69 (questions 1-3 on pg69)

Single Transferable Vote

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/local-council-elections-and-single-transferable-vote/6069.html

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/results-and-benefits-of-single-transferable-vote/6070.html