Electoral system where voters vote for one candidate and the candidate with the most votes wins
First-past-the-post voting
(
FPTP
or
FPP
)
[1]
is a
plurality voting system
wherein voters cast a vote for a single candidate, and the candidate with the most votes wins the election. Analogous systems for multi-winner contests are known as
plurality block voting
or "block voting" systems; both FPTP and block voting are "
plurality
" systems in that the winner needs only a
plurality
of the votes and not an absolute majority (greater than half). The term
first-past-the-post
is a metaphor from
horse racing
of the plurality-voted candidate winning such a race; the electoral system is formally called
single-member [district] plurality voting
(
SMP/SMDP
) when used in
single-member districts
, and informally called
choose-one voting
in contrast to
ranked voting
[2]
or
score voting
.
[3]
FPTP is one of the simplest electoral systems, and has been used to elect the
House of Commons of England
(and its successors for Great Britain and the United Kingdom) since the Middle Ages. Its use extends to former British colonies, most notably the
United States
,
Canada
, and
India
. It is used as the primary form of allocating seats for legislative elections in about a third of the world's countries, mostly in the
English-speaking world
, and is used to directly elect executive positions in many more. For legislative elections, a country using FPTP is divided into geographic constituencies that each elect one member to the legislature using the method.
Notwithstanding its simplicity and antiquity, there are several major drawbacks to FPTP. As a
winner-take-all
method, it often produces disproportional results, particularly when electing members of a legislature, in the sense that political parties do not get representation according to their share of the popular vote. This usually favours the largest party and parties with strong regional support to the detriment of smaller parties without a geographically concentrated
base
. Supporters of
electoral reform
are generally highly critical of FPTP because of this and point out other flaws, such as FPTP's vulnerability to
gerrymandering
, the high number of
wasted votes
and the chance of a majority reversal (i.e., the party winning the most votes getting fewer seats than the second largest party and losing the election). Throughout the 20th century many countries that previously used FPTP abandoned it in favour of other electoral systems, including the former British colonies of
Ireland
,
Australia
, and
New Zealand
(which now use
STV
,
IRV
+ STV, and
MMP
respectively).
Some countries use FPTP alongside proportional representation in a
parallel voting
system, with the PR element not compensating for but added to the disproportionality of FPTP. Others use it in so-called compensatory mixed systems, such as part of
mixed-member proportional representation
or
mixed single vote
systems, which aim to counterbalance these. In some countries that elect their legislatures by proportional representation, FPTP is used to elect their head of state.
Description
[
edit
]
A first-past-the-post election entails a single winner, and a ballot on which voters may mark only one option from the list of candidates. Whichever candidate wins the greatest number, or
plurality
, of votes wins. In a legislative election, the polity is divided into any number of districts, or constituencies, each of which elect a representative to the legislature via FPTP.
Example
[
edit
]
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
|
- Memphis
- Nashville
- Chattanooga
- Knoxville
|
- Nashville
- Chattanooga
- Knoxville
- Memphis
|
- Chattanooga
- Knoxville
- Nashville
- Memphis
|
- Knoxville
- Chattanooga
- Nashville
- Memphis
|
In FPTP, only the first preferences matter, and voters are allowed to mark only them on the ballot. As such, the votes would be counted as 42 per cent for Memphis, 26 for Nashville, 17 for Knoxville, and 15 for Chattanooga. Since Memphis has the most votes, it would win a FPTP election although the majority of voters would oppose it the most. In contrast,
Condorcet methods
would
return Nashville
– the actual capital of Tennessee – whereas
instant-runoff voting
would
return Knoxville
.
Voting method criteria
[
edit
]
Scholars rate voting methods using mathematically derived
voting method criteria
, which describe desirable features of a method. No ranked preference method can meet all the criteria, because some of them are mutually exclusive, as shown by results such as
Arrow's impossibility theorem
and the
Gibbard?Satterthwaite theorem
.
[4]
The following criteria are passed or failed when FPTP is used in a single-winner contest:
|
Name of criterion
|
Explanation/details
|
Y
|
Majority criterion
|
The
majority criterion
states that "if one candidate is ranked in first place by a majority (more than 50%) of voters, then that candidate must win."
[5]
First-past-the-post meets this criterion (though not the converse: a candidate does not need 50% of the votes in order to win)
|
N
|
Mutual majority criterion
|
The
mutual majority criterion
states that "if a majority (more than 50%) of voters top-rank some k candidates, then one of those k candidates must win". First-past-the-post does not meet this criterion.
[6]
|
N
|
Condorcet winner criterion
|
The
Condorcet winner
criterion states that "if a candidate would get a majority of the vote in a head-to-head competition no matter who they would be facing, they must win." First-past-the-post does not
[7]
meet this criterion.
|
N
|
Condorcet loser criterion
|
The
Condorcet loser
criterion states that "if a candidate would lose a
head-to-head competition
against every other candidate, then that candidate must not win the overall election". First-past-the-post does not
[7]
meet this criterion.
|
N
|
Independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion
|
The
independence of irrelevant alternatives
criterion states that "the election outcome remains the same even if a candidate who cannot win decides to run." First-past-the-post does not meet this criterion.
|
N
|
Independence of clones criterion
|
The
independence of clones criterion
states that "the election outcome remains the same even if an identical candidate who is equally-preferred decides to run." First-past-the-post does not meet this criterion. This makes it vulnerable to
spoilers
.
|
Y
|
Monotonicity criterion
|
|
Y
|
Consistency criterion
|
|
Y
|
Participation criterion
|
|
N
|
Reversal symmetry
|
Reversal symmetry is a voting system criterion which requires that if candidate A is the unique winner, and each voter's individual preferences are inverted, then A must not be elected
|
Not applicable
|
Later-no-harm
|
Since plurality does not allow marking later preferences on the ballot at all, it is impossible to either harm or help a favorite candidate by marking later preferences, and so it trivially passes both Later-No-Harm and Later-No-Help. However, because it forces truncation, it shares some problems with methods that merely encourage truncation by failing Later-No-Harm. Similarly, though to a lesser degree, because it does not allow voters to distinguish between all but one of the candidates, it shares some problems with methods which fail Later-No-Help, which encourage voters to make such distinctions dishonestly.
|
Not applicable
|
Later-no-help
|
The following criteria are passed or failed when FPTP is used to elect legislatures in particular:
|
Name of criterion
|
Explanation/details
|
N
|
No majority reversal
|
Although the majority criterion is met for each constituency vote, it is not met when adding up the total votes for a winning party in a parliament.
|
N
|
Proportional in theory
|
|
N
|
Proportional in practice
|
|
Y
|
Provides local representation
|
Standard implementation of single-member plurality is based on local districts
|
Terminology
[
edit
]
The phrase
first-past-the-post
is a metaphor from British
horse racing
, where there is a post at the finish line
[8]
(though there is no specific percentage "finish line" required to win in this voting system, only being furthest ahead in the race).
FPTP is a
plurality voting
method, a
plurality
meaning the largest part of the whole, in contrast to
majority
, which generally means more than half of the whole. Under FPTP the candidate with the highest number (but not necessarily a majority) of votes is elected. Sometimes the term
relative majority
is used to refer to a plurality as opposed to an
absolute majority
meaning a (standard) majority. The word majority is also sometimes used to refer to the number of votes (or percentage of votes) a candidate won an election with: "Candidate A won the election with a 5000 vote majority" would mean Candidate got 5000 more votes than Candidate B, but could also mean Candidate A won 5000 votes in total, and won.
Even though FPTP is a type of plurality voting, it is categorised as a
majoritarian system
, even though it is not "majority voting" (like a
two-round system
is). This is because
majoritarian representation
(one of the 3 major types of electoral systems alongside
proportional representation
and
mixed systems
) is defined by the winner (of an electoral district) getting all the seats, and therefore all single-winner systems (such as FPTP) are majoritarian.
FPTP is primarily used in systems that use
single-member electoral divisions
. The multiple-member version of plurality voting is when each voter casts (up to) the same number of votes as there are positions to be filled, and those elected are the highest-placed candidates; this system is called the
multiple non-transferable vote
(MNTV) and is also known as
plurality block voting
.
When voters have only a single vote each, which is non-transferable, but there are multiple seats to be filled, that system is called the
single non-transferable vote
(SNTV). When voters have only a single vote each, which is a preferential vote and transferable if necessary, but there are multiple seats to be filled, that system is called the
single transferable vote
(STV). The multiple-round election (
runoff voting
) method most commonly uses the FPTP voting method in the second round. The first round, usually held according to SNTV rules, determines which candidates may progress to the second and final round. As usually only two candidates are in the second round, one or the other takes a majority of the votes. Thus, it is truly majoritarian.
Effects
[
edit
]
Party distribution
[
edit
]
Perhaps the most striking effect of FPTP is the fact that the number of a party's seats in a legislature has nothing to do with its vote count in an election, only in how those votes were geographically distributed. This has been a target of criticism for the method, many arguing that a fundamental requirement of an election system is to accurately represent the views of voters. FPTP often creates "false majorities" by over-representing larger parties (giving a majority of the parliamentary/legislative seats to a party that did not receive a majority of the votes) while under-representing smaller ones. In Canada,
majority governments
have been formed due to one party winning a majority of the votes cast in Canada only three times since 1921: in
1940
,
1958
and
1984
. In the United Kingdom, 19 of the 24 general elections since 1922 have produced a single-party majority government. In all but two of them (
1931
and
1935
), the leading party did not take a majority of the votes across the UK.
In extreme cases, this can lead to a party receiving the plurality or even majority of total votes yet still failing to gain a plurality of legislative seats. This results in a situation called a
majority reversal
or
election inversion
.
[9]
[10]
Famous examples of the second placed party (in votes nationally) winning a majority of seats include the elections in Ghana in
2012
, in New Zealand in
1978
and
1981
, and in the United Kingdom in
1951
. Famous examples of the second placed party (in votes nationally) winning a plurality of seats include the elections in Canada in
2019
and
2021
as well as in Japan in
2003
. Even when a party wins more than half the votes in an almost purely two-party-competition, it is possible for the runner-up to win a majority of seats. This happened in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in
1966
,
1998
and
2020
and in Belize in
1993
. This need not be a result of malapportionment. Even if all seats represent the same number of votes, the second placed party (in votes nationally) can win a majority of seats by efficient vote distribution. Winning seats narrowly and losing elsewhere by big margins is more efficient than winning seats by big margins and losing elsewhere narrowly. For a majority in seats, it is enough to win a plurality of votes in a majority of constituencies. Even with only two parties and equal constituencies, to win a majority of seats just requires receiving more than half the vote in more than half the districts?even if the other party receives all the votes cast in the other districts?so just over a quarter of the votes of the whole is theoretically enough for a majority in the legislature. Where multiple parties split the vote in a district, as few as 18 percent of the vote is enough to take a seat in FPTP.
[11]
[12]
And where multiple parties win seats, a minority position in the legislature (a party with much less members than half of the assembly) could have the largest block in the chamber and be set in a commanding position, although still needing majority support to pass a bill.
Under first-past-the-post, a small party may draw votes and seats away from a larger party that it is
more
similar to, and therefore give an advantage to one it is
less
similar to. For example, in the
2000 United States presidential election
, the left-leaning
Ralph Nader
drew more votes from the left-leaning
Al Gore
than his opponent, leading to
accusations that Nader was a "spoiler"
for the Democrats. According to the political pressure group
Make Votes Matter
, FPTP creates a powerful electoral incentive for large parties to target similar segments of voters with similar policies. The effect of this reduces political diversity in a country because the larger parties are incentivised to coalesce around similar policies.
[13]
The
ACE Electoral Knowledge Network
describes India's use of FPTP as a "legacy of British colonialism".
[14]
Duverger's law
is an idea in
political science
which says that constituencies that use first-past-the-post methods will lead to
two-party systems
, given enough time. Economist
Jeffrey Sachs
explains:
The main reason for America's majoritarian character is the electoral system for Congress. Members of Congress are elected in single-member districts according to the "first-past-the-post" (FPTP) principle, meaning that the candidate with the plurality of votes is the winner of the congressional seat. The losing party or parties win no representation at all. The first-past-the-post election tends to produce a small number of major parties, perhaps just two, a principle known in political science as
Duverger's Law
. Smaller parties are trampled in first-past-the-post elections.
?
from Sachs's
The Price of Civilization
, 2011
[15]
However, most countries with first-past-the-post elections have multiparty legislatures (albeit with two parties larger than the others), the United States being the major exception.
[16]
There is a counter-argument to Duverger's Law, that while on the national level a plurality system may encourage two parties, in the individual constituencies supermajorities will lead to the vote fracturing.
[17]
It has been suggested that the distortions in geographical representation provide incentives for parties to ignore the interests of areas in which they are too weak to stand much chance of gaining representation, leading to governments that do not govern in the national interest. Further, during election campaigns the campaigning activity of parties tends to focus on
marginal seats
where there is a prospect of a change in representation, leaving safer areas excluded from participation in an active campaign.
[18]
Political parties operate by targeting districts, directing their activists and policy proposals toward those areas considered to be marginal, where each additional vote has more value.
[19]
[20]
[21]
This feature of FPTP has often been used by its supporters in contrast to proportional systems. In the latter, smaller parties act as 'kingmakers' in coalitions as they have greater bargaining power and therefore, arguably, their influence on policy is disproportional to their parliamentary size- this is largely avoided in FPTP systems where majorities are generally achieved.
[22]
FPTP often produces governments which have legislative voting majorities,
[23]
thus providing such governments the legislative power necessary to implement their electoral
manifesto
commitments during their term in office. This may be beneficial for the country in question in circumstances where the government's legislative agenda has broad public support, albeit potentially divided across party lines, or at least benefits society as a whole. However handing a legislative voting majority to a government which lacks popular support can be problematic where said government's policies favour only that fraction of the electorate that supported it, particularly if the electorate divides on tribal, religious, or urban?rural lines. There is also the perceived issue of unfair coalitions where a smaller party can form a coalition with other smaller parties and form a government, without a clear mandate as was the case in the
2009 Israeli legislative election
where the leading party
Kadima
, was unable to form a coalition so
Likud
, a smaller party, managed to form a government without being the largest party. The use of
proportional representation
(PR) may enable smaller parties to become decisive in the country's
legislature
and gain leverage they would not otherwise enjoy, although this can be somewhat mitigated by a large enough
electoral threshold
. They argue that FPTP generally reduces this possibility, except where parties have a strong regional basis. A journalist at
Haaretz
noted that Israel's highly proportional
Knesset
"affords great power to relatively small parties, forcing the government to give in to political blackmail and to reach compromises";
[24]
[25]
Tony Blair
, defending FPTP, argued that other systems give small parties the balance of power, and influence disproportionate to their votes.
[26]
Allowing people into parliament who did not finish first in their district was described by
David Cameron
as creating a "Parliament full of second-choices who no one really wanted but didn't really object to either."
[27]
Winston Churchill
criticized the alternative vote system as "determined by the most worthless votes given for the most worthless candidates."
[28]
FPTP often results in
strategic voting
which has prevented extreme left and right-wing parties from gaining parliamentary seats. For example, PR systems such as the
electoral system of Hungary
have seen Fidesz (right-wing, populist party) win 135 seats in the
2022 Hungarian parliamentary election
and has remained the largest party in Hungary since
2010
. Since 2010, Fidesz has implemented anti-democratic reforms that now mean the European Parliament no longer qualifies Hungary as a full democracy.
[29]
On the other hand,
the Constitution Society
published a report in April 2019 stating that, "[in certain circumstances] FPTP can ... abet
extreme politics
, since should a radical faction gain control of one of the major political parties, FPTP works to preserve that party's position. ...This is because the psychological effect of the plurality system disincentivises a major party's supporters from voting for a minor party in protest at its policies, since to do so would likely only help the major party's main rival. Rather than curtailing extreme voices, FPTP today empowers the (relatively) extreme voices of the Labour and Conservative party memberships."
[30]
[31]
Electoral reform campaigners have argued that the use of FPTP in
South Africa
was a contributory factor in the country adopting the
apartheid
system after the
1948 general election
in that country.
[32]
[33]
Leblang and Chan found that a country's electoral system is the most important predictor of a country's involvement in war, according to three different measures: (1) when a country was the first to enter a war; (2) when it joined a multinational coalition in an ongoing war; and (3) how long it stayed in a war after becoming a party to it.
[34]
[35]
When the people are fairly represented in parliament, more of those groups who may object to any potential war have access to the political power necessary to prevent it. In a proportional democracy, war and other major decisions generally requires the consent of the majority.
[35]
[36]
[37]
The British human rights campaigner
Peter Tatchell
, and others, have argued that Britain entered the Iraq War primarily because of the political effects of FPTP and that proportional representation would have
prevented Britain's involvement in the war.
[38]
[39]
[40]
Tactical voting
[
edit
]
To a greater extent than many others, the first-past-the-post method encourages "tactical voting". Voters have an incentive to vote for a candidate who they predict is more likely to win, as opposed to their preferred candidate who may be unlikely to win and for whom a vote could be considered as
wasted
. FPTP wastes fewer votes when it is used in two-party contests. But waste of votes and minority governments are more likely when large groups of voters vote for three, four or more parties as in Canadian elections. Canada uses FPTP and only two of the last seven federal Canadian elections (
2011
and
2015
) produced single-party majority governments. In none of them did the leading party receive a majority of the votes.
The position is sometimes summarised, in an extreme form, as "all votes for anyone other than the runner-up are votes for the winner."
[41]
This is because votes for these other candidates deny potential support from the second-placed candidate, who might otherwise have won. Following the extremely close
2000 U.S. presidential election
, some supporters of
Democratic
candidate
Al Gore
believed one reason he lost to
Republican
George W. Bush
is that a portion of the electorate (2.7%) voted for
Ralph Nader
of the
Green Party
, and exit polls indicated that more of them would have preferred Gore (45%) to Bush (27%).
[42]
This election was ultimately determined by the
results from Florida
, where Bush prevailed over Gore by a margin of only 537 votes (0.009%), which was far exceeded by the 97488 (1.635%) votes cast for Nader in that state.
In
Puerto Rico
, there has been a tendency for
Independentista
voters to support
Populares
candidates. This phenomenon is responsible for some Popular victories, even though the
Estadistas
have the most voters on the island, and is so widely recognised that Puerto Ricans sometimes call the Independentistas who vote for the Populares "melons", because that fruit is green on the outside but red on the inside (in reference to the party colors).
Because voters have to predict who the top two candidates will be, results can be significantly distorted:
- Some voters will vote based on their view of how others will vote as well, changing their originally intended vote;
- Substantial power is given to the media, because some voters will believe its assertions as to who the leading contenders are likely to be. Even voters who distrust the media will know that others
do
believe the media, and therefore those candidates who receive the most media attention will probably be the most popular;
- A new candidate with no track record, who might otherwise be supported by the majority of voters, may be considered unlikely to be one of the top two, and thus lose votes to tactical voting;
- The method may promote votes
against
as opposed to votes
for
. For example, in the UK (and only in the
Great Britain
region), entire campaigns have been organised with the aim of voting
against
the
Conservative Party
by voting
Labour
,
Liberal Democrat
in
England
and
Wales
, and since 2015 the
SNP
in
Scotland
, depending on which is seen as best placed to win in each locality. Such behaviour is difficult to measure objectively.
Proponents of other voting methods in
single-member districts
argue that these would reduce the need for tactical voting and reduce the
spoiler effect
. Examples include preferential voting systems, such as
instant runoff voting
, as well as the
two-round system
of runoffs and less tested methods such as
approval voting
and
Condorcet methods
.
Wasted votes
are seen as those cast for losing candidates, and for winning candidates in excess of the number required for victory. For example, in the
UK general election of 2005
, 52% of votes were cast for losing candidates and 18% were excess votes?a total of 70% "wasted" votes. On this basis a large majority of votes may play no part in determining the outcome. This winner-takes-all system may be one of the reasons why "voter participation tends to be lower in countries with FPTP than elsewhere."
[43]
Geography
[
edit
]
The effect of a system based on plurality voting spread over many separate districts is that the larger parties, and parties with more geographically concentrated support, gain a disproportionately large share of seats, while smaller parties with more evenly distributed support gain a disproportionately small share. This is because in doing this they win many seats and do not 'waste' many votes in other areas. As voting patterns are similar in about two-thirds of the districts, it is more likely that a single party will hold a majority of legislative seats under FPTP than happens in a proportional system, and under FPTP it is rare to elect a majority government that actually has the support of a majority of voters. Because FPTP permits many
wasted votes
, an election under FPTP is more easily gerrymandered. Through
gerrymandering
, electoral areas are designed deliberately to unfairly increase the number of seats won by one party by redrawing the map such that one party has a small number of districts in which it has an overwhelming majority of votes (whether due to policy, demographics which tend to favour one party, or other reasons), and many districts where it is at a smaller disadvantage.
[
citation needed
]
The British
Electoral Reform Society
(ERS) says that regional parties benefit from this system. "With a geographical base, parties that are small UK-wide can still do very well".
[44]
On the other hand, minor parties that do not concentrate their vote usually end up getting a much lower proportion of seats than votes, as they lose most of the seats they contest and 'waste' most of their votes.
[21]
The ERS also says that in FPTP elections using many separate districts "small parties without a geographical base find it hard to win seats".
[44]
Make Votes Matter
said that in the
2017 general election
, "the Green Party, Liberal Democrats and UKIP (minor, non-regional parties) received 11% of votes between them, yet they
shared
just 2% of seats", and in the
2015 general election
, "[t]he same three parties received almost a quarter of all the votes cast, yet these parties
shared
just 1.5% of seats."
[45]
According to Make Votes Matter, in the 2015 UK general election
UKIP
came in third in terms of number of votes (3.9 million/12.6%), but gained only one seat in Parliament, resulting in one seat per 3.9 million votes. The Conservatives on the other hand received one seat per 34,000 votes.
[45]
The winner-takes-all nature of FPTP leads to distorted patterns of representation, since it exaggerates the correlation between party support and geography.
For example, in the UK the
Conservative Party
represents most of the rural seats in England, and most of the south of England, while the
Labour Party
represents most of the English cities and most of the north of England.
[46]
This pattern hides the large number of votes for the non-dominant party. Parties can find themselves without elected politicians in significant parts of the country, heightening feelings of regionalism. Party supporters (who may nevertheless be a significant minority) in those sections of the country are unrepresented.
In the 2019 Canadian federal election
Conservatives
won 98% of the seats in Alberta and Saskatchewan with only 68% of the vote. The lack of non-Conservative representation gives the appearance of greater Conservative support than actually exists.
[47]
Similarly, in Canada's 2021 elections, the Conservative Party won 88% of the seats in Alberta with only 55% of the vote, and won 100% of the seats in Saskatchewan with only 59% of the vote.
[48]
First-past-the-post within geographical areas tends to deliver (particularly to larger parties) a significant number of
safe seats
, where a representative is sheltered from any but the most dramatic change in voting behaviour. In the UK, the Electoral Reform Society estimates that more than half the seats can be considered as safe.
[49]
It has been claimed that members involved in the 2009
expenses scandal
were significantly more likely to hold a safe seat.
[50]
[51]
However, other voting systems, notably the
party-list system
, can also create politicians who are relatively immune from electoral pressure (especially when using a closed-list).
[
citation needed
]
History
[
edit
]
FPTP is one of the simplest electoral systems, and alongside block voting has been used since ancient times. The
House of Commons of England
originated in the Middle Ages as an assembly representing the gentry of the counties and cities of the Kingdom, each of which generally sent two members of parliament (MPs). These two MPs were elected by block voting, although the
by-elections
that occurred between general elections were elected by FPTP. Starting in the 19th century and concluding with the
Representation of the People Act 1948
, constituencies to the House of Commons were all reduced to electing one MP each by FPTP.
The
United States
broke away from British rule in the late 18th century, and its constitution provides for an electoral college to elect its president. Despite original intentions to the contrary, by the mid-19th century this college had transformed into a
de facto
use of FPTP by the states' presidential elections. In any event, direct elections to the
United States House of Representatives
were conducted in FPTP, as were elections to the
United States Senate
both in the state legislatures and after they were made directly to the people. In
Canada
, elections to the
House of Commons
, and to provincial assemblies, have always been conducted with FPTP.
Criticism and replacement
[
edit
]
People campaigning against first-past-the-post and in favour of proportional representation
Non-plurality voting systems have been devised since at least 1299, when
Ramon Llull
came up with both the Condorcet and
Borda count
methods, which were respectively reinvented in the 18th century by the
Marquis de Condorcet
and
Jean-Charles de Borda
. More serious investigation into electoral systems came in the late 18th century, when several thinkers independently proposed systems of
proportional representation
to elect legislatures. The
single transferable vote
in particular was invented in 1819 by
Thomas Wright Hill
, and first used in a public election in 1840 by his son
Rowland
for the
Adelaide City Council
in Australia. STV saw its first national use in Denmark in 1855, and was reinvented several times in the late 19th century.
The Proportional Representation Society was founded in England in 1884 and began campaigning. STV was used to elect the British House of Commons's
university constituencies
between 1918 and their abolition in 1950.
Many countries which use FPTP have active campaigns to switch to proportional representation (e.g. UK
[52]
and Canada
[53]
). Most modern democracies use forms of proportional representation.
[54]
In the case of the UK, the campaign to get rid of FPTP has been ongoing since at least the 1970s.
[55]
However, in both these countries, reform campaigners face the obstacle of large incumbent parties who control the legislature and who are incentivised to resist any attempts to replace the FPTP system that elected them on a minority vote.
Countries using FPTP/SMP
[
edit
]
Heads of state elected by FPTP
[
edit
]
Legislatures elected exclusively by FPTP/SMP
[
edit
]
The following is a list of countries currently following the first-past-the-post voting system for their national legislatures.
[56]
[57]
Use of FPTP/SMP in mixed systems for electing legislatures
[
edit
]
The following countries use FPTP/SMP to elect part of their national legislature, in different types of mixed systems.
Alongside block voting (fully majoritarian systems) or as part of mixed-member majoritarian systems (semi-proportional representation)
As part of mixed-member proportional (MMP) or additional member systems (AMS)
Subnational legislatures
Local elections
Former use
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"First past the post"
.
nzhistory.govt.nz
.
Ministry for Culture and Heritage
. 13 January 2016.
Archived
from the original on 24 May 2022
. Retrieved
25 May
2022
.
- ^
Shawn Griffiths (5 December 2018).
"How ranked choice voting survives the 'one person, one vote' challenge"
.
FairVote
.
Archived
from the original on 10 July 2021
. Retrieved
10 July
2021
.
- ^
"Comparing Voting Methods: A Report Card"
. Archived from
the original
on 1 October 2020
. Retrieved
11 January
2022
.
- ^
David Austen-Smith and Jeffrey Banks, "Monotonicity in Electoral Systems",
American Political Science Review
, Vol 85, No 2 (Jun. 1991)
- ^
Single-winner Voting Method Comparison Chart
Archived
28 February 2011 at the
Wayback Machine
"Majority Favorite Criterion: If a majority (more than 50%) of voters consider candidate A to be the best choice, then A should win."
- ^
Kondratev, Aleksei Y.; Nesterov, Alexander S. (2020). "Measuring Majority Power and Veto Power of Voting Rules".
Public Choice
.
183
(1?2): 187?210.
arXiv
:
1811.06739
.
doi
:
10.1007/s11127-019-00697-1
.
S2CID
53670198
.
- ^
a
b
Felsenthal, Dan S. (2010)
Review of paradoxes afflicting various voting procedures where one out of m candidates (m ≥ 2) must be elected
Archived
24 February 2021 at the
Wayback Machine
. In: Assessing Alternative Voting Procedures, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.
- ^
Treguer, Pascal (11 May 2019).
"origin of 'first past the post' (as applied to a voting system)"
.
Archived
from the original on 27 January 2022
. Retrieved
10 July
2021
.
- ^
Geruso, Michael; Spears, Dean; Talesara, Ishaana (5 September 2019).
"Inversions in US Presidential Elections: 1836-2016"
.
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
.
14
(1): 327?357.
doi
:
10.3386/w26247
.
Archived
from the original on 19 March 2021
. Retrieved
14 July
2021
.
- ^
Miller, Nicholas R.
"Election Inversions By Variants of the U.S. Electoral College"
. Department of Political Science. UMBC. Archived from
the original
on 18 July 2021
. Retrieved
14 July
2021
.
- ^
"33rd Dail general election results"
(PDF)
.
data.oireachtas.ie
.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on 15 May 2020
. Retrieved
7 March
2023
.
- ^
"Election 2014 councillor poll by poll results"
(PDF)
.
toronto.ca
.
Archived
from the original on 29 October 2014
. Retrieved
7 March
2023
.
- ^
"First Past the Post"
.
Make Votes Matter
.
Archived
from the original on 31 July 2020
. Retrieved
26 June
2020
.
- ^
"India ? First Past the Post on a Grand Scale"
.
ACE Electoral Knowledge Network
. Retrieved
25 June
2020
.
- ^
Sachs, Jeffrey (2011).
The Price of Civilization
. New York: Random House. p. 107.
ISBN
978-1-4000-6841-8
.
- ^
Dunleavy, Patrick; Diwakar, Rekha (2013).
"Analysing multiparty competition in plurality rule elections"
(PDF)
.
Party Politics
.
19
(6): 855?886.
doi
:
10.1177/1354068811411026
.
S2CID
18840573
.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on 9 June 2022
. Retrieved
30 June
2016
.
- ^
Dickson, Eric S.;
Scheve, Kenneth
(2010). "Social Identity, Electoral Institutions and the Number of Candidates".
British Journal of Political Science
.
40
(2): 349?375.
CiteSeerX
10.1.1.75.155
.
doi
:
10.1017/s0007123409990354
.
JSTOR
40649446
.
S2CID
7107526
.
- ^
"First Past the Post is a 'broken voting system'
"
.
ippr.org
. Institute for Public Policy Research. 4 January 2011.
Archived
from the original on 15 November 2017
. Retrieved
15 November
2017
.
- ^
Terry, Chris (28 August 2013).
"In Britain's first past the post electoral system, some votes are worth 22 times more than others"
.
democraticaudit.com
. London School of Economics
. Retrieved
15 November
2017
.
- ^
Galvin, Ray.
"What is a marginal seat?"
.
justsolutions.eu
.
Archived
from the original on 15 November 2017
. Retrieved
15 November
2017
.
- ^
a
b
"First Past the Post"
.
electoral-reform.org.uk
.
Archived
from the original on 13 December 2019
. Retrieved
5 December
2019
.
- ^
Brams/Kilgour. Dorey (2013).
"Kingmakers and leaders in coalition formation"
.
Social Choice and Welfare
.
41
(1): 1?18.
doi
:
10.1007/s00355-012-0680-4
.
hdl
:
10419/53209
.
JSTOR
42001390
.
S2CID
253849669
.
Archived
from the original on 11 March 2023
. Retrieved
11 March
2023
.
- ^
Andy Williams (1998).
UK Government & Politics
. Heinemann. p. 24.
ISBN
978-0-435-33158-0
.
Archived
from the original on 22 May 2024
. Retrieved
11 October
2016
.
- ^
Ilan, Shahar.
"Major Reforms Are Unlikely, but Electoral Threshold Could Be Raised"
.
Haaretz
.
Archived
from the original on 21 August 2019
. Retrieved
8 May
2010
.
- ^
Dr.Mihaela Macavei, University of Alba Iulia, Romania.
"Advantages and disadvantages of the uninominal voting system"
(PDF)
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 24 December 2019
. Retrieved
8 May
2010
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
P. Dorey (17 June 2008).
The Labour Party and Constitutional Reform: A History of Constitutional Conservatism
. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 400?.
ISBN
978-0-230-59415-9
.
- ^
"
David Cameron
. "
David Cameron: why keeping first past the post is vital for democracy
Archived
18 January 2018 at the
Wayback Machine
."
Daily Telegraph.
30 April 2011
- ^
Larry Johnston (13 December 2011).
Politics: An Introduction to the Modern Democratic State
. University of Toronto Press. pp. 231?.
ISBN
978-1-4426-0533-6
.
- ^
"MEPs: Hungary can no longer be considered a full democracy"
(Press release).
European Parliament
. 15 September 2022.
Archived
from the original on 15 September 2022
. Retrieved
25 March
2023
.
- ^
Walker, Peter (22 April 2019).
"First past the post abets extreme politics, says thinktank"
.
The Guardian
.
Archived
from the original on 6 December 2023
. Retrieved
23 June
2020
.
- ^
"The Electoral System and British Politics"
.
consoc.org.uk
.
Archived
from the original on 25 June 2020
. Retrieved
23 June
2020
.
- ^
Cowen, Doug.
"The Graveyard of First Past the Post"
.
Electoral Reform Society
.
Archived
from the original on 4 July 2020
. Retrieved
4 July
2020
.
- ^
Winter, Owen (25 August 2016).
"How a Broken Voting System Gave South Africa Apartheid in 1948"
.
Huffington Post
.
Archived
from the original on 18 March 2021
. Retrieved
4 July
2020
.
- ^
Leblang, D.; Chan, S. (2003). "Explaining Wars Fought By Established Democracies: Do Institutional Constraints Matter?".
Political Research Quarterly
: 56-24: 385?400.
- ^
a
b
"PR and Conflict"
.
Make Votes Matter
.
Archived
from the original on 31 July 2020
. Retrieved
27 June
2020
.
- ^
"What the Evidence Says"
.
Fair Voting BC
. 19 November 2017.
Archived
from the original on 29 June 2020
. Retrieved
27 June
2020
.
- ^
"Democracy: we've never had it so bad"
.
The Guardian
. 3 May 2010.
Archived
from the original on 22 May 2024
. Retrieved
27 June
2020
.
- ^
Tatchell, Peter (3 May 2010).
"Democracy: we've never had it so bad"
.
The Guardian
.
Archived
from the original on 22 May 2024
. Retrieved
26 June
2020
.
- ^
Barnett, Anthony (10 January 2020).
"Will Labour's next leader finally break with first-past-the-post?"
.
Labourlist.org
.
Archived
from the original on 5 July 2020
. Retrieved
5 July
2020
.
- ^
Root, Tim (30 September 2019).
"Making government accountable to the people"
.
Left Foot Forward
.
Archived
from the original on 31 July 2020
. Retrieved
5 July
2020
.
- ^
Begany, Brent (30 June 2016).
"The 2016 Election Proves The Need For Voting Reform"
.
Policy Interns
.
Archived
from the original on 22 October 2019
. Retrieved
22 October
2019
.
- ^
Rosenbaum, David E. (24 February 2004).
"THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE INDEPENDENT; Relax, Nader Advises Alarmed Democrats, but the 2000 Math Counsels Otherwise"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on 19 September 2008
. Retrieved
7 February
2017
.
- ^
Drogus, Carol Ann (2008).
Introducing comparative politics: concepts and cases in context
. CQ Press. pp.
257
.
ISBN
978-0-87289-343-6
.
- ^
a
b
"First Past the Post"
.
electoral-reform.org.uk
.
Archived
from the original on 13 December 2019
. Retrieved
16 December
2019
.
- ^
a
b
"Make Votes Matter?Everything wrong with First Past the Post?Proportional Representation"
.
Make Votes Matter
.
Archived
from the original on 2 November 2019
. Retrieved
16 December
2019
.
- ^
Beech, Matt; Hickson, Kevin (3 July 2020).
"Divided by Values: Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party and England's 'North-South Divide'
"
.
Revue Francaise de Civilisation Britannique
.
XXV
(2).
doi
:
10.4000/rfcb.5456
.
S2CID
198655613
.
- ^
"First Past the Post"
.
conservativeelectoralreform.org
. Conservative Action for Electoral Reform. Archived from
the original
on 15 November 2017
. Retrieved
15 November
2017
.
- ^
"Elections Canada ? Results by Province(s)"
.
2021 Elections Canada ? Provinces
. Elections Canada. 21 September 2020.
Archived
from the original on 9 December 2022
. Retrieved
4 November
2021
.
- ^
"General Election 2010: Safe and marginal seats"
.
The Guardian
. 7 April 2010.
Archived
from the original on 3 March 2016
. Retrieved
15 November
2017
.
- ^
Wickham, Alex.
"
"Safe seats" almost guarantee corruption"
.
thecommentator.com
. Archived from
the original
on 15 April 2021
. Retrieved
15 November
2017
.
- ^
"FactCheck: expenses and safe seats"
.
channel4.com
. Channel 4.
Archived
from the original on 8 May 2021
. Retrieved
15 November
2017
.
- ^
"What We Stand For"
.
electoral-reform.org.uk
.
Archived
from the original on 26 June 2020
. Retrieved
25 June
2020
.
- ^
"Home"
.
Fair Vote Canada
.
Archived
from the original on 1 July 2020
. Retrieved
25 June
2020
.
- ^
"Electoral Systems around the World"
.
FairVote.org
. Archived from
the original
on 11 September 2021
. Retrieved
18 July
2020
.
- ^
"Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform ? About LCER"
.
labourcampaignforelectoralreform.org.uk
. Archived from
the original
on 11 August 2021
. Retrieved
25 June
2020
.
- ^
"Countries using FPTP electoral system for national legislature"
.
idea.int
. Archived from
the original
on 6 October 2014
. Retrieved
3 December
2018
.
- ^
"Electoral Systems"
. ACE Electoral Knowledge Network. Archived from
the original
on 26 August 2014
. Retrieved
3 November
2015
.
- ^
"Electoral College Frequently Asked Questions"
.
National Archives
. 6 July 2023.
Archived
from the original on 6 December 2023
. Retrieved
23 October
2015
.
- ^
Milia, Juan Guillermo (2015).
El Voto. Expresion del poder ciudadano
. Buenos Aires: Editorial Dunken. pp. 40?41.
ISBN
978-987-02-8472-7
.
[
permanent dead link
]
- ^
"Law 14,032"
.
Sistema Argentino de Informacion Juridica
.
Archived
from the original on 20 October 2017
. Retrieved
19 October
2017
.
- ^
"Kiesstelsel. §1.1 Federale verkiezingen".
Encarta-encyclopedie Winkler Prins
. Microsoft Corporation/Het Spectrum. 1993?2002.
- ^
"Elections 2019: The European Parliament"
.
Flanders News
. 17 April 2019.
Archived
from the original on 6 April 2023
. Retrieved
2 December
2022
.
The European Parliament elections in Belgium will be held on 26 May, the same day as the regional and federal elections. In the European elections there are three Belgian constituencies: the Dutch-speaking electoral college, the Francophone electoral college and the German-speaking electoral college.
- ^
Bhuwan Chandra Upreti (2010).
Nepal: Transition to Democratic Republican State : 2008 Constituent Assembly
. Gyan Publishing House. pp. 69?.
ISBN
978-81-7835-774-4
.
Archived
from the original on 22 May 2024
. Retrieved
11 October
2016
.
- ^
Encarta-encyclopedie Winkler Prins (1993?2002) s.v. "Kiesstelsel. §1.1 Geschiedenis". Microsoft Corporation/Het Spectrum.
- ^
"PNG voting system praised by new MP"
.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
. 12 December 2003. Archived from
the original
on 4 January 2005
. Retrieved
19 May
2015
.
- ^
"Which European countries use proportional representation?"
.
electoral-reform.org.uk
.
Archived
from the original on 27 December 2019
. Retrieved
1 December
2019
.
- ^
MrdaljPolitikolog, Mladen; Univerzitetu, Predava? na Webster (8 October 2020).
"Sedam zabluda o uvođenju ve?inskog izbornog sistema"
.
Talas.rs
.
Archived
from the original on 13 January 2024
. Retrieved
13 January
2024
.
- ^
Prior to the
2020 election
, the US states of
Alaska
and
Maine
completely abandoned FPTP in favor of
ranked-choice voting
or RCV. In the US, 48 of the 50
states
and the
District of Columbia
use FPTP-
GT
to choose the electors of the
Electoral College
(which in turn elects the president); Maine and
Nebraska
use a variation where the electoral vote of each congressional district is awarded by FPTP (or by RCV in Maine beginning in 2020), and the statewide winner (using the same method used in each congressional district in the state) is awarded an additional two electoral votes. In states that employ FPTP-GT, the presidential candidate gaining the greatest number of votes wins all the state's available electors (seats), regardless of the number or share of votes won (majority vs non-majority plurality), or the difference separating the leading candidate and the first runner-up.
[58]
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
|
Referendum question
| "At present, the UK uses the “first past the post” system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the “alternative vote” system be used instead?"
|
---|
Legislation
| |
---|
Parties
| For a "Yes" vote
| |
---|
Neutral/split
| |
---|
For a "No" vote
| |
---|
|
---|
Advocacy groups
| Advocating a "Yes" vote
| |
---|
Advocating a "No" vote
| |
---|
|
---|
Print media
| For a "Yes" vote
| |
---|
For a "No" vote
| |
---|
|
---|
|
|
---|
Components
| | |
---|
Parliamentary
officers
| Legislative Council
| |
---|
House of
Representatives
| |
---|
|
---|
Members
| Legislative Council
| |
---|
House of
Representatives
| |
---|
|
---|
Procedure
| |
---|
Elections
| |
---|
Locations
| |
---|
Miscellaneous
| |
---|