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Electoral Systems in the UK
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Electoral Systems
In this course, Professor David Denver (University of Lancaster) examines the electoral systems in operation across the United Kingdom. We begin by thinking about the basic functions that an electoral system performs before briefly introducing the main electoral systems used in the UK. We then consider first past the post (FPTP), focusing in particular on the importance of constituencies and the advantages and disadvantages of the system. Finally, we explore the proportional electoral systems used in the UK, such as the alternative member system (AMS), single transferable vote (STV), and supplementary vote (SV).
Electoral Systems in the UK
In this module, we consider the functions performed by electoral systems and then go on to think about the different electoral systems which exist in the UK, focusing in particular on: (i) first past the post (FPTP); (ii) additional member system (AMS) or mixed-member proportional representation (MMP); (iii) single transferable vote (STV); and (iv) supplementary vote (SV).
Hello, I'm David Denver.
00:00:02I was formerly a professor of politics at Lancaster University, but now retired,
00:00:05and I'm going to talk about electoral systems in the U.
00:00:11K.
00:00:14Let's start by asking about what is an electoral system
00:00:15in its broadest sense that that phrase refers to
00:00:19all the rules and regulations associated with the elections.
00:00:23Who can vote, who can stand broadcast rules, etcetera, etcetera.
00:00:26But it's a narrower sense we're talking about here. Um,
00:00:32all the individual votes that are cast by people
00:00:36somehow have to be aggregated in in order to produce
00:00:40an outcome to produce a result.
00:00:45Whether it's a council that's been elected,
00:00:46a Parliament or an individual like a president or mayor,
00:00:49there's got to be some agreed rules for
00:00:52translating the individual votes into a result.
00:00:55Now there are lots and lots of electoral systems in the world.
00:01:00A book written in the 19 nineties did across national sort of
00:01:04analysis and found 70 different electoral systems in this narrow sense.
00:01:09Uh, fortunately, there are not as many as that in the UK as we will see
00:01:15now, when we're evaluating the electoral systems, we could ask ourselves what,
00:01:22what is it supposed to achieve?
00:01:29What? What is an electoral system uh, supposed to do?
00:01:30And I can think of at least four obvious and simple answers to that question. Uh, one.
00:01:34First of all,
00:01:41it might be to give fair representation
00:01:42to different geographical areas within a country.
00:01:46Say
00:01:50a second obvious one would be to ensure fair representation of different opinions.
00:01:51Uh, third possibility is simply to elect a team of leaders who can form a government.
00:01:57Uh, and, fourthly, as a kind of other side of that, it might be that it's, uh,
00:02:05to enable the voters to throw the rascals out if
00:02:11they are dissatisfied with how the government has performed.
00:02:16Now,
00:02:21no electoral system can do all of these at the same time.
00:02:21And so when we're evaluating systems, really,
00:02:26we've got to make a value judgement about what
00:02:30kinds of things we think are most important.
00:02:33Is representing opinions the most important?
00:02:35Or is it the ability to turf out a government that you don't like?
00:02:38That's most important.
00:02:43So these are value judgments,
00:02:45and so people will differ about how
00:02:47they evaluate these different things and hence defer
00:02:49about the kind of electoral system they would prefer
00:02:53now in in the United Kingdom.
00:02:58For a very long time,
00:03:01all public elections were held under what's called a plurality system
00:03:03that sometimes known as first past the post system.
00:03:09Uh, now, that's an analogy drawn from horse racing
00:03:14in a horse race.
00:03:19The horse that is first past the post wins, whether it's first past the post,
00:03:20by a nose or a neck, or for long, it doesn't matter if you first past the post, you win.
00:03:25And that's the same sort of thing in elections.
00:03:33If you win a constituency, say, in this country by two votes,
00:03:36as the SNP did in in the 2017 election up in north East Fife, then you're elected.
00:03:41If, on the other hand, you win by thousands.
00:03:50Yes, of course you're elected, so it doesn't matter. It's just first past the post,
00:03:52although Britain used always,
00:03:59nearly all elections used to be the first past the post.
00:04:01Now the countries are sort of laboratory
00:04:05for anoraks interested in electoral systems.
00:04:08We still have first past the post for parliament, of course,
00:04:13for the House of Commons and for councils in England and Wales.
00:04:17But in addition, we have what's called the additional member system.
00:04:23It's also known as the multi,
00:04:29the mixed member Proportional. All these acronyms really get to you
00:04:31the mixed member proportional system.
00:04:35And we have that for the Scottish Parliament,
00:04:38for the Welsh Assembly and for the London Assembly. I'll explain how it works later,
00:04:41and we have the single transferrable vote known as STV uh,
00:04:47for the Northern Ireland Assembly
00:04:53and for all Scottish councils.
00:04:55Finally, we have the supplementary vote which is used to elect mayors in England.
00:04:58Now, just a word on how we come to have these different things.
00:05:05Um,
00:05:10we have single transferrable vote in Northern Ireland because it was thought
00:05:11important that the different communities in
00:05:17Northern Ireland get representation in Stormont.
00:05:19And as we'll see later, that's broadly worked.
00:05:23Although in Scotland it was rather less noble, uh, aspirations.
00:05:25STV was introduced for councils because Labour was in
00:05:32coalition with the liberal liberal Democrats and basically,
00:05:37Labour agreed to do that to keep the liberal Democrats on side.
00:05:42Uh, this didn't much please local label labour leaders and local councils.
00:05:46By the way, uh,
00:05:51the additional member system was was introduced for the Welsh Assembly
00:05:53and the Scottish Parliament in order to garner support for devolution.
00:05:59Uh, the people knew that if you had first past the post in both of these,
00:06:05then basically they would always be run by labour.
00:06:10And anybody who was anti labour would then vote against devolution.
00:06:13So to gather support for devolution,
00:06:17it was agreed to have this more proportional system.
00:06:20And finally, the supplementary vote for mayors.
00:06:23I've got to say I don't know really why this was introduced,
00:06:26although I suspect it might have been because, uh,
00:06:30the Labour government at the time was persuaded unusually
00:06:33by an academic that this was a good idea.
00:06:38
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Denver, D. (2019, September 26). Electoral Systems - Electoral Systems in the UK [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/electoral-systems
MLA style
Denver, D. "Electoral Systems – Electoral Systems in the UK." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 26 Sep 2019, https://massolit.io/courses/electoral-systems