First Past the Post' is the electoral system we use in a UK General Election.
In a General Election the country is divided up into separate contests in local areas, constituencies. Voters are asked to choose a candidate to be the local representative in parliament. Candidates may (or may not) be representatives of political parties.
The direct result of a General Election is the election of new MPs to the House of Commons.
The indirect consequence, but the main purpose of the election, is the choice of a party to form the Government, and the selection of the Prime Minister follows from this.
The result of any election depends on many factors, but it is easy to forget that one of the major factors is the electoral system that is used.
How does DPR Voting influence Democracy, Politics and Government?
One MP in each constituency – but no safe seats and overall better MPs.
Simple, quick voting and counting – For a clear and transparent individual mandate for each MP.
Party Proportional voting – for a shift away from adversarial towards more inclusive politics
Every vote in every constituency counts – to re-energise public politics and party-political campaigning.
Electoral systems differ in the way they translate national votes into legislative seats. The result of an election depends in part on how people vote, but also in part on how the votes are counted. Majoritarian systems such as First Past the Post (FPTP) may produce an election result with a big difference between the share of the votes each party wins in the election, and the share of votes that each party has in the parliament. Proportional Representation (PR) systems try to reduce the disparity between a party's percentage of the national vote and its share of the parliamentary votes. With a PR Voting system if a party wins 30% of the votes in the country it should win approximately 30% of the votes in the Parliament.
How do other systems compare?
First Past the Post (FPTP)
‘First past the post' is a simple way of electing a single winner, for example, in an individual constituency. It can also be used in multiple member constituency elections. In a single member election the candidate with the highest number of votes, not necessarily a majority, is elected.
When this method is used to elect MPs to parliament, and thereby elect a Government, the number of MPs elected for each party is unlikely to be proportionate to the number of votes cast nationwide for the different parties. Small parties with thinly spread support may have proportionately fewer MPs elected. Coversely a small party with tightly concentrated support may have proportionately more MPs elected. It is possible for party A to have fewer votes than party B but still have more MPs, and thus be able to form the Government.
FPTP is used in the UK, Canada, and elsewhere. Countries using FPTP tend to evolve towards a two political party system.
An underlying feature of FPTP is that in an FPTP election votes are cast for different individual candidates. The purpose of the election is to elect a person to represent the constituency (local area). This is not directly a vote for a political party. However candidates are usually also representatives of their political parties. In the election there is only one winner. For convenience it is said that the Party of the MP wins the constituency, but this is only indirectly the case because technically it is the individual who wins. A weakness of such an electoral system is that it cannot be certain whether such a vote is an expression of support for the candidate or the candidate's party.
The overall election result is taken as the sum of the results (expressed as constituencies or 'seats' won by each party) of all the individual constituency contests. This way of counting the result does not necessarily reflect the actual balance of votes cast but nevertheless determines which party or parties will form the Government. This counting method, in effect, ignores all the votes cast for losing candidates.
The system is often called the 'winner takes all'.
Proportional Representation Systems (PR)
In PR systems such as PR List , AMS / MMP, or DPR Voting, voters cast a vote directly for a party. The votes for each party can be added up to give a total across the country, or across regions. This determines by simple proportionality how many votes each parliamentary party has in the parliament. For the prospective voter, every vote counts.
Each PR system then has different ways of determining who should be the representatives of the people in the parliament.
' Pure' PR - Party List Proportional Representation
Party-list proportional representation is a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation (PR) In a closed party list system, voters vote directly for the party. Parties make lists of candidates to be elected, and seats get allocated to each party in proportion to the number of votes the party receives. The larger the size of the constituency, the more proportional the result.
There are variations based on this system.
Party Lists are used in Israel, Italy and elsewhere. UK Members of the European Parliament are elected by a closed list system with regional constituencies.
A criticism of Party list PR is that the MPs are not elected directly in a constituency contest. Rather they are appointed by virtue of being on the Party List of candidates. The Party draws up the Party list of candidates. The candidate at the top of the list is elected first. Therefore whereabouts on the list is critical to the candidates' chance of being elected. MPs owe their election to the Party rather than the voters, and this gives the Party considerable power over its MPs. Similarly there are no Constituency MPs, and therefore the system does not provide a close link between an MP and their constituents.
In Closed List PR, the party vote determines by simple proportionality how many votes each parliamentary party has in the parliament. There is no separate ballot for the individual cadidates. The Representatives, the members of the parliamentary party are 'elected' from a list of party candidates. The numbers elected are proportional to the party vote and in strict order according to the predetermined party list. The voter has no say in which individuals of each party are elected.
Hybrid PR Systems (Systems that combine PR with FPTP)
In Hybrid PR systems such as MMP (Mixed Member Proportional), AMS (Additional Member System), and DPR (Direct Party and Representative Voting), voters have two votes, one for the party and one to elect a constituency MP. The party vote largely decides the total number of votes each parliamentary party gets in Parliament. The second vote is to choose the MP the voter wants to represent the electorate they live in. The members of the parliamentary party are elected wholly or partly by the second vote.
Additional Member and Mixed Member Proportional Systems
Additional Member System - AMS (see also Mixed Member Proportional - MMP) is a voting system designed to achieve a (close to) proportional result. To achieve proportionality there are two ways members can be elected – by election as a constituency MP and by election from a party list. In most models the voter casts two votes: one for a constituency representative and one for a party.
Some members of the parliamentary party are elected as constituency MPs. The Party vote is used to elect additional MPs from a party list in order to improve the proportionality of the result. Using your party vote is not necessarily simple or intuitive. With this system MPs can be elected by two different methods, some have constituencies and some do not. Compared with simple FPTP, AMS requires fewer constituencies, and thus changes have to be made to the size of constituencies and their boundaries, and/or the number of MPs in the parliament.
Mixed member systems differ slightly from country to country. In AMS the number of MPs in the parliament is fixed, and as a consequence the result may not be fully proportional. With MMP additional MPs may be required to achieve the required degree of proportionality. The degree of proportionality varies depending on the ratio of MPs elected by FPTP to the number of party list MPs, and the rules by which the party list MPs are appointed.
In MMP, but not AMS, if a party wins more constituency seats than justified by its proportion of the total vote, the size of the Parliament is increased so that the overall outcome is proportional to the votes, with other parties receiving additional list seats (Overhang). For this reason AMS is not a fully proportional system.
In MMP, but not AMS, to qualify for additional members from the party list, a party must exceed a predetermined threshold of votes - 5% in Germany.
AMS /MMP is used in Germany (MMP), Scotland(AMS), Wales (AMS) and elsewhere
DPR Voting is a simple system where voters have two separate ballot papers.
The voter has a one ballot paper to elect a Member of Parliament for the local area (constituency). With this ballot, a single MP is elected in each constituency by simple majority - the Representative vote. The voter also has a ballot paper to vote for a party to govern the country (The ‘Party’ vote). The Party vote alone determines how many votes each parliamentary party has in the parliament.
Usually there is a relative mismatch between the number of a party's MPs and the party's support in the country. For votes in the House of Commons the votes cast in parliamentary divisions are factored to reflect the relative support for the MP's party in the election.
MPs have the same democratic credentials and the same constituency and parliamentary responsibilities. They are elected in the same way. They are all single member constituency MPs. Parliamentary votes can be carried out in the usual way, except that the votes of each MP are factored - a simple arithmetic process.
Because there are no Party List MPs, there is no change to the overall number of MPs so the constituencies and their boundaries used in the existing 'First Past the Post' system would be unchanged. This would make the administrative process of change to a PR system easier and cheaper than for some other PR systems.
Preferential voting systems (AV and STV)
Some electoral systems focus of the choice of the candidate rather than the party, asking the voter to express first, second, third etc preferences. Different methods are used to count these preferential votes.
The simplest preferential system is the Alternative Vote where MPs are elected in single member constituencies. This voting system was proposed for the UK but was rejected by the referendum in 2011.
The Single Transferable Vote (STV) is a system of preferential voting combined with multimember constituencies. This allows the voter to choose from several candidates to elect several MPs. If candidates are party representatives and voters vote for the candidates on party lines, an STV election result may be close to a PR result. However STV is not a PR system and the degree of proportionality depends on how votes for the different parties are distributed across the country, and other variables such as the size of the multi-member constituencies and the numbers of parties competing in the election.
Single Transferable Vote (STV)
The single transferable vote (STV) gives the voter a choice of candidates in a multi-member constituency. This usually includes a choice of candidates with the same party allegiance. It is a preferential voting system so the voter ranks the candidates on the ballot paper in order of preference. The voter cannot vote directly for a party.
STV is a voting system designed to achieve a (more or less) proportional result. There are variations of the system. To achieve proportionality the system requires constituencies to be organised as multi member constituencies (MMCs).
In a 4 or 5 member MMC, with 5 or 6 parties competing, the total number of candidates on ballot paper may be quite large. In practical terms it is relatively demanding to ask the voter to express a reasoned preferential choice when there may be more than ten candidates on the ballot paper.
Counting is also complex. Each vote is initially allocated to the voter's preferred candidate. Depending on the number of electors and the number of candidates, each candidate needs a minimum number of votes to be elected. Counting is done in stages. A candidate is eliminated at each stage. When a candidate is eliminated, or has enough votes to be elected, surplus votes are transferred to the remaining candidates. There are different methods of doing this.
While not a strictly proportional electoral system, results may be broadly proportional, although this does depend on the interplay between the numbers of parties competing in the election and the size of the multimember constituencies.
Multimember constituencies work best in areas of high population density, and worst in sparsely populated rural areas where geographically the constituency may be very large. Setting the size (number of MPs elected) and geographical boundaries of MMCs can be contentious since there may be a perceived party advantage, and thus scope for gerrymandering.
The system can produce 'unexpected and distorting outcomes'
STV is used in Ireland, Australia , and elsewhere.
STV seems well suited to UK local district council elections in the UK because many district wards are already organised as multimember wards. The FPTP system tends to give all the seats to one party eg in a 3 member ward the result is more likely to be 3-0 than 2-1.
The Alternative Vote (AV)
The Alternative Vote also known as Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a preferential voting system used to elect a single winner. Voters rank candidates in order of preference. Counting is in stages. Votes for the first choice candidate are counted as one vote. If a candidate gets iover 50% of votes cast, that candidate wins. Otherwise, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. The second preferences of the eliminated candidate are counted and added to the candidates remaining on the ballot. This process is repeated until a candidate receives over 50% of the votes, or has more votes than the only remaining candidate.
AV is used in Australia and elsewhere. It is often to elect leaders of groups, and Mayors.
As a system for electing single winners such as Mayors or Police and Crime Commissioners.
The Supplementary Vote (SV)
The Supplementary Vote is used to elect a single winner. Voters mark their first choice and (if they wish) a second preference. All the first choice votes are counted. If no candidate receives over 50%, the top two candidates continue and all other candidates are eliminated. The second preferences from the eliminated votes are then counted and added to the first round totals. The candidate with the most votes is declared the winner.
SV is used for Police and Crime Commissioners and directly elected English mayors such as the Mayor of London. The Supplementary Vote (SV) is a shortened version of the Alternative Vote (AV).
This system strongly favours the two largest parties and can result in the election of a candidate who wins fewer first and second preferences than one of the eliminated candidates would have done.
Alternative Vote Plus (AV+)
The Alternative Vote Plus, is a semi-proportional voting system invented by the 1998 Jenkins Commission.
AV+ is an additional member system. As in the Alternative Vote voting system, candidates are ranked numerically in order of preference. To ensure proportionality, an additional group of members are elected through a regional party lists system. These members are 20% of the whole parliament. Constituency boundaries would need to be redrawn to accommodate a smaller number of constituency MPs.
The system is untried.
Rural–urban proportional representation (RUP), also known as Flexible District PR, is a combination of voting systems designed by Fair Vote Canada. Rural–urban proportional uses the single transferable vote (STV) for urban constituencies and mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) for rural ridings. It recognises that STV works better in more densely populated urban areas, and but is much less suitable in sparsely populated rural constituencies.
Rural–urban proportional has been proposed as one of three possible systems to be adopted in British Columbia should voters decide to adopt a proportional voting system in a 2018 referendum in the province.
Total Representation
Total Representation involves election of Constituency and ‘Party' MPs. Constituency MPs are elected by the FPTP method. Party MPs are elected by pooling all the votes cast for the unsuccessful candidates in all the constituencies and dividing them proportionally among all the parties which fielded candidates in the election.
Constituency boundaries would need to be redrawn to accommodate a smaller number of constituency MPs.
The system is untried.
In Conclusion
Direct Party and Representative Voting (DPR Voting) is a form of Proportional representation (PR) which has the simplicity of the existing 'First past the post' system, maintains the single member constituency, and requires little change to the existing voting system.
It is a way of introducing proportionality to our political system while retaining much of the existing familiar electoral system.
It addresses the main criticisms of the FPTP and avoids the main criticisms of other proposed systems of electoral reform.