SA1: Living in a Democracy

Electoral Systems

Proportional Representation

Aims:

• Define Proportional Representation (PR)

• Examine different types of PR systems which can be used to decide the result of an election.

A Definition

• Many people would like to get rid of the First Past the Post system and use PR to decide the result of an election.

• Proportional Representation basically means:

% of seats = % of votes

The National/Regional List System

• Used in countries such as Sweden, Switzerland, Italy and Denmark.

• The voter choose a political party not a candidate.• Each party has a list of candidates – one for each

seat in the country. They put their candidates in order of preference i.e. who they would like to become MPs first.

• If a party gets 10% of the vote they would get 10% of the seats in the House of Commons.

• The first 65 names on the party list would become MPs.

The 2010 Election Result

Political Party

% of Vote

No of Seats FPTP

No of SeatsNat List

Conservative

36.1% 307 235

Labour 29.0% 258 189

Liberal Democrat

23% 57 150

Others 11.9% 28 76

The Single Transferable Vote (STV)

• Used in the Irish Republic.• Country is divided into multi-member

constituencies e.g. each constituency elects 3 MPs.• Vote for candidates in order of preference.• To be elected a candidate has to reach a quota – a

certain number of votes.• The surplus votes of the winners would be

redistributed to those who did not reach the quota.• This would continue until the full number of MPs are

elected.• No votes are wasted using this system.

Proportional RepresentationAdvantages:

• It is fair. Each party gets the same % of MPs as votes.

• Small parties get better representation

• All votes are important• Many other countries

use PR e.g. Italy, Ireland.

Disadvantages:

• Can be complicated to understand/organise.

• Often leads to coalition government as no party has a majority – nobody has voted for a coalition.

• Smaller parties get too much power – their support can determine who is in a coalition government.

• Representatives may not have a direct link with their constituents.