Majoritarian system (require candidate to win a simple or absolute majority), Proportional system (attempts to distribute seats in proportion to votes cast), Hybrid system (combine majoritarian and proportional system elements)
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What electoral systems does the UK opperate under?
FPTP- Scottish Parliament and Welsh assembly and Greater London committee operate under AMS, northern irelend= STV, London mayor- SV
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What is the FPTP system?
Voters are given a single vote, candidate securing largest number of votes wins, it has single-memeber constituancies, last time a party won a 50% majority was 1935, in 2005 L got 35.2% of votes cast
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How does the popular vote apply to the FPTP system?
candidate requires a simple plurality of votes, leading to wasted votes (Liverpool 2010=29,440 out of 34,332 were wasted) possible to win more votes but get less seats as it is reliant on "floating voters"
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What are the strengths of FPTP?
part of our tradition, cheap, easy to operate and understand, close MP-consituancy link, it produces strong majority governments instead of Coalitions
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What are the Weaknesses of FPTP?
distorts the popular vote, provides little voter choice, asted votes, disadvantages smaller parties
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What is the Single Transferable vote?
Proportional system- aims to improve voter choice, and eliminate wasted votes, multi-member constituancies, voters may indicate as many prefrences on their ballot as there are seats to fill, a candidate must achieve a quota, votes redistributed
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What is the impact of STV on the UK?
majority of voters in NI do not understand the system, resulted in proportional electoral outcomes and enhances representation, benefits parties in the centre, leads to coalition Gov, in 1997 GE Labour got majority of 179 only got 25 under STV
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What is a Hybrid System?
awards a proportion of seats availavle on a majoritarian basis and the rest on a proportional basis, seeks to have strong MP-constituancy link, majority gov, voter choice
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Examples of hybrid systems?
Additonal Member systems (50% of seats distributed in FPTP), First-Past-The-Post-Top-Up (a variant of AMS), Alternative Vote plus
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What is a Party List?
They are party based not candidate based. votes are for a party and parties get there share of the popular vote to give seats out from a closed or open list, some have threshholds to keep a stable government, its proportional but removes the MP link
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What is a Supplementry vote?
Majoritarian system= voters rank candidates in order of preferance, if candidate does not recieve 50% all but the top 2 candidates are eliminated and votes transferred to 2nd prefrences, it favours centre-left, reduces tactical voting
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What is a representative and Direct democracy?
Burke= we elect individuals to represent us in Parliament- they are not delegates with specific instructions to follow, they might make decisions contrary to our wishes, Direct= we as people get directly involved in politics
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What is a Referendum and an initiative?
A referendum is a vote on a single issues usually in the form of a question with a yes or no answer, Initiatives- citizens have the right to initiate their own referendum if they have enough signitures
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What are some examples of Uk referendums?
1973 "should NI stay in the UK?" (98.9% yes 1.1% no 58.1% turnout) 1979 "should there be a welsh parliament" (20.3% yes 79.7% no 58.3% turnout), 2011 "should AV be adopted for elections to the westminister" (32% yes 68% no 42% turnout)
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What was the turnout and results of the 2014 scottish referendum and the 2016 EU referendum?
Scottish= turnout of 84.6%, Scotland has voted against becoming an independent country by 55% to 45%. EU=turnout of 72.2%,The referendum resulted in 51.9% of voters voting in favour of leaving the EU
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What are the strengths of Referendums?
direct form of democracy, encourages participation, focus on particular issues, legitmisies constitutional changes, prevent divisions, avoids deadlock, gives a clear answer, method for resolving tricky moral problems
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What are the weaknesses of Referendums?
inconsistant with our system, undermine represntative democracy, government lacks responsibility, low turnout leads to tyranny of the minority, issues to complicated, funding differentials, questions may be phrased biasly, decisions are not final
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
What electoral systems does the UK opperate under?
Back
FPTP- Scottish Parliament and Welsh assembly and Greater London committee operate under AMS, northern irelend= STV, London mayor- SV
Card 3
Front
What is the FPTP system?
Back
Card 4
Front
How does the popular vote apply to the FPTP system?
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