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Plurality voting

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The first-past-the-post electoral system is a voting system for single-member districts, variously called first-past-the-post (FPTP or FPP), winner-take-all, plurality voting, or relative majority. In political science, it is known as Single-Member District Plurality or SMDP. This system is in use at all levels of politics; it is very common in former British colonies. A thorough list is given below.

The term "first past the post" refers to a now seldom-used analogy with horse racing, where the winner is the first to pass a particular point (in this case a plurality of votes), upon which all other runners automatically and completely lose ("winner take all").


Procedures

Each voter in a given electoral district selects one candidate. All votes are counted and the candidate with more votes than any of the other candidates is the winner. The winner represents the entire electoral district.

Example

Tennessee and its four major cities: Memphis in the far west; Nashville in the center; Chattanooga in the east; and Knoxville in the far northeast

Suppose that Tennessee is holding an election on the location of its capital. The population is concentrated around four major cities. All voters want the capital to be as close to them as possible. The options are:

  • Memphis, the largest city, but far from the others (42% of voters)
  • Nashville, near the center of the state (26% of voters)
  • Chattanooga, somewhat east (15% of voters)
  • Knoxville, far to the northeast (17% of voters)

The preferences of each region's voters are:

42% of voters
Far-West 		26% of voters
Center 		15% of voters
Center-East 		17% of voters
Far-East
  1. Memphis
  2. Nashville
  3. Chattanooga
  4. Knoxville
  1. Nashville
  2. Chattanooga
  3. Knoxville
  4. Memphis
  1. Chattanooga
  2. Knoxville
  3. Nashville
  4. Memphis
  1. Knoxville
  2. Chattanooga
  3. Nashville
  4. Memphis

If voting follows sincere preferences, Memphis is selected with the most votes. Note that this system does not require that the winner have a majority, but only a plurality. That is, Memphis wins because it has the most votes, even though more than half of the voters preferred another option.

Disadvantages

"Unfairness"

The most commonly expressed disadvantage – perhaps because it is easiest to express and explain – of first-past-the-post is that it is "unfair", i.e. that substantial bodies of opinion are not represented at all in the final result, and that a party may obtain a clear majority without popular support at that level.

Tactical voting

First-past-the-post encourages the tactical voting technique known as "compromising": voters are encouraged to vote for one of the two options most likely to win, even if it is not their most preferred option. In the above example, voters from Chattanooga and Knoxville may "compromise" by voting for Nashville, which they prefer to Memphis.

If enough voters vote using this tactic, the first-past-the-post system becomes a form of runoff voting where the first round is held in the court of public opinion. This can give substantial power to the media as voters will tend to believe their viewpoint on who the leading contenders are likely to be in the election and use that viewpoint to decide where a "tactical" vote would be (in the voter's opinion) best used. This can also become a system promoting votes against more so than votes for.

One consequence of the system is that many FPTP elections can be considered won before all votes are tallied, once there are no longer enough uncounted votes to override an established plurality count. Though not necessarily a disadvantage, this can produce a feeling of disenfranchisement among voters when running tallies are reported through the media.

Anomalous results

An interesting anomaly in the results of this system arose in the Canadian federal election of 1926 for the province of Manitoba. The province was entitled to 17 seats in that election. The result was very different from how people voted.

Political party Percentage of votes Number of seats
Conservatives 42.2% 0
Labour Progressives 19.5% 7
Liberals 18.4% 4
Progressives 11.2% 4
Labour 8.7% 2

The Conservatives clearly had the largest number of votes across the province, but received no seats at all. The other parties were able to have success by having concentrated support in particular constituencies, and by not running candidates in others.

This presents a problem because the parties tend to narrowly focus on the needs and well-beings of specific electoral districts where they can be sure to win seats, rather than be sensitive to the sentiments of voters everywhere. In order to secure election results, some also choose to use redistricting to distort election results by enclosing party voters together in one electoral district (i.e., gerrymandering.)

Duverger's law

Because of these anomalies and the tactical-voting tendencies, Duverger's law predicts that constituencies that use first-past-the-post systems will become two-party systems.

Strong government

Because first-past-the-post is held to produce strong government (see below), it follows that those who prefer weak government (government unable to effectively introduce social change or legislative progress) might support first-past-the-post. Preference for weak goverment is obviously likely to be found in the corrupt, but also in many other people who favour the status quo, who favour curtailing the power of government, or do not favour the direction any majority party is likely to take.

Advantages

Strong govermnent

It is argued that, because first-past-the-post is more likely to produce a simple majority for one party, this produces a stronger government. When difficult decisions or strong leadership are required for the good of the voters, a government is not distracted by the constant need to negotiate within the legislature. In addition, the need to govern leads to coalitions, which may give disproportionate power to a party with limited popular support, simply because the largest party sees them as "enemies of their enemies". In the UK, arguments for first-past-the-post often look to Italy where the frequent government changeovers are presented as undesirable.

Each representative must be a winner

Sometimes, the voters are in favour of a political party, but do not like specific candidates. An example was the premier of Alberta, Donald Getty. His government was re-elected in 1989, but because of voter dissatisfaction with the way the government was led, Getty, the leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party, was not re-elected by voters from his electoral district.

Similarly, in the 1999 Ontario provincial election, Mike Harris and his Progressive-Conservative party was re-elected to a majority government, but symbolic of the growing discontent among voters about cuts to education, his education minister and strong ally was resoundingly defeated by the opposition candidate.

It is often claimed that because each electoral district votes for its own representative, the elected candidate is held accountable to his own voters, thereby helping to prevent incompetent, fraudulent or corrupt behaviour by elected candidates. The voters in the electoral district can easily replace him since they have full power over who they want to represent them. In the absence of effective recall legislation, however, the electors must wait until the end of the representative's term

Where First Past the Post systems are used

Countries that use this system to elect the lower or only house of their legislature include:

See Table of voting systems by nation

The first past the post election system is used in the Republic of China on Taiwan for executive offices such as county magistrates, mayors, and the president, but not for legislative seats which used the single non-transferable vote system. This has produced an interesting party structure in which there are two broad coalitions of parties which cooperate in executive elections but which compete internally in legislative elections. Source: Making Votes Count, Gary Cox (1997)

Ballot types

Ballots can be of two forms. The simplest form is a blank ballot where the name of a candidate is written in by hand. A more structured ballot will list all the candidates and allow a mark to be made by a single candidate. (A ballot with a candidate list can include space for a write-in candidate as well)

File:Onevoteballotname.gif File:Onevoteballotmark.gif

See also

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