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First Past the Post

First Past the Post. How representative is it?. It is a, simple, voting system used in the UK general elections The voter puts an X next to the name of the candidate they want to be their MP Basically, the candidate with the most votes wins. What is FPTP. Yes and No

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First Past the Post

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  1. First Past the Post How representative is it?

  2. It is a, simple, voting system used in the UK general elections • The voter puts an X next to the name of the candidate they want to be their MP • Basically, the candidate with the most votes wins What is FPTP

  3. Yes and No • Yes because in the constituency, the most popular candidate in the area is voted as the MP • However, other people’s votes for another candidate who did not win, their vote is wasted • In the 2010 general election, Conservatives had only 36% of the vote, but had much more than 36% of the seats (307) • Liberal Democrats were affected the most. With 23% of the votes in 2010, they only won 57 seats (8.7% of the seats) • On the other hand, FPTP keeps out extremists parties, such as BNP, but other non-extremist parties e.g. Green Party don’t get seats either • And FPTP (usually) turns out with a majority win for a party but In 2010, this did not happen. Is it actually fair?

  4. 2010 election(PR) 2010 election(FPTP) What difference would PR make on the 2010 election We can see that the results between the actual electioncompared to another voting systems possible outcome that FPTP does not seem fair…

  5. Although FPTP has been used in UK elections for years, it is very disproportionate to the opinion of the UK voters • Therefore it tends to lead to a government that doesn’t tend to represent the UK as a whole, as the winning party tends to get less than 50% of the vote • And in 2010, only 61.5% turned out to vote, so the remaining 38.5% did not have a say In conclusion

  6. A PR system seems to be a fairer system • It tends to lead to a government that is more representative of the country • Although it does have it’s critics, as PR usually tends to lead to a coalition government- In Scotland a PR system is used and for 4 elections in a row the result caused a coalition • However, FPTP in 2010 lead to a coalition in the UK and PR lead to a majority government in Scotland An alternative?

  7. Thanks for listening

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