First Past The Post (FPTP)

The country is divided into voting districts. In each district, voters get a list of candidates. They can only vote for one candidate. This is called single member voting districts. The winning candidate is the one who gets the most votes (they do not need to get a majority of votes, but simply more than any other candidate).

This system encourages the formation of two dominant parties, and one party is usually able to win enough votes at the election to rule without a coalition.

Used in the UK and other countries historically influenced by Britain, including Burma, the United States, Canada, India, Malaysia, and Nepal. FPTP is also used by 10 Asian states, 18 African countries, and some small island nations.

First Past the Post voting systems are the most popular in the world today. 68 out of 211 countries and related territories, or 32%, use First Past the Post systems.

Advantages

• Offers a clear-cut choice between two parties.

• Usually, one party is able to secure a majority, which means that they can rule without forming a coalition. This means the ruling party can implement their policies with less negotiation and conflict.

• The minority party then becomes the opposition party, checking and critiquing the policies of the ruling party.

• Political parties are forced to have to appeal to all segments of the population, which is especially good in ethnically divided societies.

• Extremist parties are very unlikely to get elected to be represented, unless their support is geographically concentrated.

• Geographic accountability: representatives are directly elected by their constituents and thus more accountable to them.

• Voters can choose the candidate they like rather than just voting for a party. It also gives independent candidates a chance to be elected.

• Simple and easy to vote; also easy to count.

Disadvantages

• The national vote; i.e. the percentage of votes a party gets overall in the country, does not always correspond to the number of seats that party gets in the legislature, meaning that it can produce disproportionate results. In the 1998 election in Lesotho, the Basotho National Party won 24% of the national vote but only got 1% of the seats. This especially excludes minority parties from fair representation.

• A large number of wasted votes. Votes which don’t go towards the election of any candidates are often called wasted votes. For example, if 40% of people in Districts A, B, and C vote for X Party, and 60% of people vote for Y Party, Y party will win the seats in all three districts. X Party will not win any seats, and all the votes for them will be wasted votes. Related to the point above, minority voters may feel they have no hope of ever electing a candidate of their choice. This can be a big danger in new democracies, where extremists can more easily use such issues to turn people against democracy as a system of government.

• They exclude minorities from fair representation. Parties usually have the most broadly acceptable candidate run in a particular district, so that the majority of the voters will support that candidate. For example, in the US and England, it is rare for a black candidate to be nominated by a party to run in a majority white district. There is strong evidence that racial minorities and ethnic minorities across the world are far less likely to be represented in parliaments elected by FPTP.

• They exclude women from the Legislature. Women are often less likely to be nominated by male-dominated party structures. Women are less likely to be elected to the legislature under first past the post systems than under proportional representation systems. In 2004, women made up 14.4% of the MPs in established democracies using FPTP, but 27.6% of the MPs in countries using list proportional representation.

• They can create regions where one party always wins. Regional minorities will feel excluded from representation. This can reinforce some minorities’ feeling that politics is a battleground defined by who you are and where you live, not what you believe in.

• Electoral district boundaries can be manipulated. The district boundaries might be drawn by the governing party in a way to make sure that opposition party’s constituencies are split in half, so they won’t easily be able to win an election in either district in the future.

Advantage or Disadvantage?

Encouraging the Development of Ethnic Parties: In situations where ethnic groups are geographically concentrated, FPTP can encourage parties to base their campaigns and policy platforms on hostile conceptions of ethnicity, race, or regionalism. For instance, in one country in Africa, Malawi, where there was strong regional conflict, the people in the North voted for one party, the people in the Center voted for another party, and the people in the South voted for a third party. There was no incentive for the parties to try to reach voters outside their region and cultural base.