VOTING SYSTEMS IN THE UK

2005 and 2010 Election Results Comparison.

2010 Election Results-

Conservatives 306 seats (share of the vote, 36.1%)Labour 258 seats (share of the vote, 23%)Lib Dem 57 seats (share of the vote, 23%)SNP 6 seats (share of the vote, 1.7%)Others 22 seats

2005 Election Result-

Conservatives 198 seats (share of the vote, 32.5%)

Labour 355 seats (share of the vote, 35.2%)

Lib Dem 62 seats ( share of votes, 22%)

SNP 6 seats ( share of votes, 1.5%)

Others 25 seats

First Past The Post

First Past The Post (FPTP) voting takes place in single-member constituencies. Voters put a cross in a box next to their favoured candidate and the candidate with the most votes in the constituency wins. All other votes count for nothing.

Advantages

• It's simple to understand and thus doesn't cost much to administer and doesn't alienate people who can't count.

• It doesn't take very long to count all the votes and work out who's won, meaning results can be declared a handful of hours after polls close.

• It tends to produce a two-party system which in turn tends to produce single-party governments, which don't have to rely on support from other parties to pass legislation.

• Its easy for the voter to clearly state who the would like in government.

Disadvantages• Representatives can get elected on tiny amounts of public

support as it does not matter by how much they win, only that they get more votes than other candidates. E.g. in the 2010 election, Lib Dems 6% less of the vote compared to Labour but only got 57 seats compared to 258.

• FPTP in effect wastes huge numbers of votes, as votes cast in a constituency for losing candidates, or for the winning candidate above the level they need to win that seat, count for nothing.

• It encourages tactical voting, as voters vote not for the candidate they most prefer, but against the candidate they most dislike.

• Smaller parties barely ever get any seats. E.g UK Independence Party.

Who does FPTP Benefit?• Labour – They won the 2005 election with only 37% of the

voters voting for them. • Conservative – They won the 2010 election with only

36.1% of the voters voting them.

This shows that though 63-64% of the population did not vote for them, meaning that 63-64% did not want labour(2005) and conservative(2010) in power, as they did not vote for them.