FPTP

IronGiant

Thanks those who enlightened me.  I thought  I would probably getter a better answer in here than from Google and I think I was probably correct

Sonic67

How different voting systems would have turned out in 2010:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8644480.stm

If voting for a candidate is important you could for instance use STV.

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/single-transferable-vote

There's a guide to many of them here, with various hyperlinks:

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems

It's a long choice of possible voting options and everyone has their pros and cons.

FPTP seems to have lot more cons than pros though:

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/first-past-the-post

I think it dates back to the Victorians? It used to be popular but now a lot of places have changed to something else.

Sonic67

Just in case you weren't aware.

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/alternative-vote

AV is not proportional representation and in certain electoral conditions, such as landslides, can produce a more disproportional result than First Past the Post (FPTP)

EarthRod

The last UK general election has highlighted the FPTP voting system is great for (and actually promotes) two party elections, but is no good for multi-party elections. No doubt FPTP is easy to understand and doesn't take long to count votes, therefore cheap to administer, but should now be replaced with a more representative voting system.

One of the Proportional Representation systems (there are quite a few) should be adopted to replace FPTP. Single Transferable Vote (STV) or one of the derivatives of the Party List Proportional Representation (Party List PR) could be used - or one of the others.

Quite a few countries have ditched FPTP in favour of one of the PR systems, even though they are more complicated and take longer to count and administer.

Rasczak

What an awful thought. FPTP is a simple, effective system that fundamentally ties success or failure down to a local level. The SNP's success in Scotland is indicative of that as is the regional 'punishment' inflicted on the Lib Dems. The idea of a party list is absolutely abhorrent - just think if we had used such a system in 2015 - we wouldn't have got the Balls, Cable, Danny Alexander (etc) decapitations because they would all have been too far up the list. No, FPTP serves us well and I can't foresee any appetite to change it anytime soon. Super constituencies are almost as bad IMHO.

pragmatic

I'd agree with you a tiny bit if there was a right of recall, but there isn't so local accountability once every 5 years is bollox all accountability.

Sonic67

And FPTP leaves lots of voters disenfranchised. As the links above says it has few things actually going for it. Weren't we trying to encourage more voters? Won't a system that has no safe seats be entertaining? Again Rasczak why doesn't so many others use it now? One day I'm going to put all the times I've asked into one long post. Why don't we use it to elect our Euro MPs? What about all the new regional assemblies? Why not?

Rasczak

Wasn't 'right of recall' one of the things mooted by the Tories in 2010? (I can't remember). If so it might be back on the table under the planned Bill of Rights amend.

Pecker

If people want 'simple' there's an alternative - a variation on Additional Member.  It goes like this.

Double the size of constituencies.

Put several constituencies into a larger district.

Vote as now (FPTP) with an 'X' against your preferred candidate.

They go to Westminster, and you have an accountable MP.

Now, within each district, find the proportion of votes cast, and the proportion of MPs elected. Correct any imbalance with 'additional members'.

Pros - simple, you don't have to change boundaries (just double them up), should be pretty proportional, maintains constituency link.

Cons - two classes of MP, assumes vote for an MP is also a vote for the party, leaves power in the hands of the party to choose who stands as an MP, and the order of additional candidates in their list.

Steve W

Rasczak

Additional members, presumably drawn from a list? No thanks.