Other Voting Systems

• Although FPTP and AMS are used in British Parliamentary elections, there are other voting systems you should be aware of

1. Alternative Vote (AV)2. Single Transferable

Vote (STV)

Alternative Vote

• The Liberal Democrats proposed that the voting system used in UK elections be changed from FPTP to the Alternative Vote

• It is used in some elections in Australia and the Labour Party and Liberal Democrat Party in UK use it to elect their leaders

Alternative Vote

• In May 2011, the country voted “No” in a referendum on whether to change the voting system to AV.

• The “Yes” campaign failed for many reasons…

• Lib Dems failed to capture public’s attention and people found the system too hard to understand

Alternative Vote• The winning candidate has to

achieve an overall majority of the votes cast

• Voters write “1” beside their first choice of candidate, “2” beside their next choice and so on

• Only need to vote for first choice but have option to put down second, third choices etc…

Alternative Vote

• If no party has an absolute majority of first preferences, the lowest placed candidate drops out and the second preferences of his/her votes are transferred to the remaining candidates

• If this does not produce a candidate with more than 50% of the votes then the procedure is repeated until it does

Alternative Vote

Advantages Disadvantages•1 representative per constituency

•MPs will have gained the majority of the vote and have a broader support

•The candidate who gets most first preference vote might not get elected

•It retains all the same weaknesses as FPTP and is still unfair to smaller parties

Single Transferable Vote

• This is the voting system used for Scottish local government (council) elections since 2007

• It is also used in Northern Ireland Elections

Single Transferable Vote

• Representatives are chosen from multi-member constituencies. In a five-member local government constituency (ward), voters rank their preferences among the candidates using the figures 1-5 (can be many more candidates than this)

• Voters can vote for as many or as few candidates as they want

Single Transferable Vote

• A complicated quota system is used to calculate the number of votes required to win one seat

• This is calculated by dividing the number of votes cast by the number of seats available plus one

Single Transferable Vote

Advantages Disadvantages•STV gives voters more choice than any other system. This in turn puts most power in the hands of the voters, rather than the party leaders

•Fewer votes are 'wasted'

•Takes a long time to calculate results

•Very difficult and complicated mathematics used to calculate results