Our national electoral system has been a heavily debated topic for quite some time, with discussions on whether the current first-past-the-post structure is the best and most representational system to use. Luca, on of our newly elected Somerset Members of Youth Parliament (MYP), has been looking into this topic and asks the question: is first-past-the-post voting outdated?
In the UK, as you may know, we elect the Member of Parliament (MP) in our local constituency through a winner takes all vote – every eligible voter gets a single vote and the candidate with the most votes gets the seat representing the constituency in the House of Commons. This is known as first-past-the-post voting (with the name being a nod to horse racing). Seems simple enough.
However, when you look at previous election results closely, there are a vast array of problems caused by this simple system, with the most apparent being that it isn’t proportional.
In many constituencies, you’ll find that their MP was elected with less than 50% of the total vote. While this may be a consequence of there being quite a few parties to choose from, it still leaves more than half of the constituency’s population feeling that their MP does not have their interests at heart.
Somerset Youth Parliament is an apolitical group, and as a newly elected MYP I need to declare that I’ll refer to a political Party to reflect on how ‘first past the post’ voting doesn’t reflect proportionality,
In the 2015 general election, despite the party UKIP receiving 12.6% of the total vote share, they only won a singular seat in Parliament, when they really would’ve won about 82 if the Parliament was 100% representative. Some may be frustrated by this – others may be relieved but the question remains- does this voting system reflect and represent the people?
Another problem which can be applied to politics outside of the UK is the spoiler effect, and it is why tactical voting is very popular.
Let’s say you have two parties running for election, the Orange Party and the Purple Party. The Orange Party wins the election with 55% of the vote, and the Purple party gets 45%.
However, in the next election, a new party is running for election, the Yellow Party. While it does not appeal to Purple voters at all, it causes some Orange voters to switch to the Yellow Party. However, this results in the Purple party winning instead, still with 45% of the vote. However, the 55% of previous Orange party voters is now down to 40%, with the Yellow Party taking 15%.
The next election comes around again, and this time the Yellow Party voters remember the last election’s results. Even though they support their party a lot, they would much rather have the Orange Party in than the Purple Party. This may lead to some Yellow Party voters voting for the Orange Party instead, which causes some to feel disloyal to their favourite.
Now, you may be asking, if this unproportional system that creates unwanted tactical voting is clearly not perfect for the country, why don’t we change it? Well, we almost did.
In 2011, the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition held a referendum on whether elections should be run with Alternative Vote rather than first-past-the-post. Alternative Vote allows you to rank your candidates in order from most to least favoured. This would eliminate the problem of tactical voting as even if your first choice didn’t receive enough votes, your vote could be transferred to your second favourite.
However, many advertisements and campaigns were pushed out against the Alternative Vote, many in bad taste, and this led to “No” winning with a 68% margin.
In conclusion, should the current burden of potentially having to vote tactically, but simply, remain in our legislature? Or is it time we test the waters again?
Luca
Not just elected members
Did you know that Somerset Youth Parliament isn’t just it’s elected members? Any young person in Somerset aged 10-25 years can become a member of the Somerset Youth Parliament Advisory Group.
For more information about becoming a member of the Somerset Youth Parliament Advisory Group and to join, visit our Join Us page.
