Velma Said:

Has any party in the U.K under the first past the post system ever been elected under a majority vote?

We Answered:

Not since 1922.
This year there's a real prospect that the Lib Dems will get the largest number of votes, but fewer seats than Labour or Conservative,

Terrence Said:

Why is First Past The Post the most ideal voting system?

We Answered:

It is not. It is just that for the UK, it has been deemed the least worst of the other options.

With PR, you will not have an MP who represents you.

With our system, you have an MP who is directly elected by you, and is answerable to you. This has proved important when a consituency wants to do what is best for it, rather than what a big political party thinks is best for it. An example was the election of Martin Bell. In the last election, other independent MP's were elected as well under our system.

With PR, you will not get independent MP's in parliament. It will favour the larger of the small parties only. So both systems are unfair. It is which you think is the least unfair really.

Scott Said:

Doesn't this prove that the 'First Past the Post' voting system is a joke?

We Answered:

The Irish people are amused.

Dale Said:

What is an advantage of thr first past the post voting system?

We Answered:

Proportional representation usually means that nobody has overall power as no party will have more votes than the others combined

That then means that parties have to form alliances to get overall power and the alliances will be with undemocratically elected parties making the system undemocratic.

What then happens is that no party has a mandate to complete eanything and there is constant fighting and nothing ever gets done.

With an election, like any other race or competition, you need a clear winner.

Katie Said:

Should we get rid of first past the post voting? -this would greatly help to get rid our our two-party system?

We Answered:

First the US is not a Democracy, I hate to inform you. It is a Republic. Repeat the US Pledge of Allegiance and you will see. (This by the way has nothing to do with the 2 parties.) The reason for the Republic is for its quick and simple form of voting (which still isn't always as quick and simple as people would like). Lets not complicate things any more, thank you very much! The best way is throw out the stupid parties and lets hear what the candidates stand for and want to do and I mean specifics not some all encompassing vague statements. Then vote for who you think has the ideals and priorities closest to yours.


Explanation of Democracy and Republic:

The US has never supposed to have been a Democracy because it used to, and still does, take to long to count all the individual votes. However individual states within the US are a Democracy while the country is a Republic.

A democracy is when a simple majority vote determines the election. A Republic is when a representative votes on behalf of a given group of people. The US president is voted in by the electoral collage, not actually by individual citizen votes. The electoral collage usually votes based on the results of the group they represent but not always. The electoral collage member is voted for democratically. So it is more complicated to explain but simpler to to determine the election.

Dictatorship: One has absolute power.
Monarchy: One makes the decisions but does not have absolute power.
Republic: Representatives chosen by a group make choices in behalf of that group of citizens.
Democracy: Citizens make the decisions by simple majority vote.

Dustin Said:

Is the 'first past the post' voting system now outdated?

We Answered:

Any other type of voting system would make it even less clear. Proportional representation of whatever kind would more directly reflect the proportion of votes cast for each party, and that would give the Liberal Democrats a lot more seats and make the result even more evenly balanced. Countries (like most of continental Europe) that work on that basis have this situation after every general election and to them it's normal.

FPTP works perfectly well as long as there are only two main parties. That's why the USA doesn't have these same questions - apart from the Democrats and Republicans, nobody else really counts. But Britain has three and unlike other European democracies, isn't used to the idea of coalitions. That's the only reason it feels like we are entering uncharted territory.

Leona Said:

What sort of party system is normally associated with first-past-the-post voting?

We Answered:

B.

just like us.,