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Overview:

Electoral rules help to shape the pattern in political competition.  By choosing one form or another by which to conduct elections, a national constitution can make it more likely that a two party, or a multi-party, political system will result from public voting decisions.  Political party systems dominated by two major parties tend to be more stable than multi-party political party systems.  Thus, in choosing a system of electoral rules, decision makers are making decisions that are likely to have impact on the stability of governments and the stability of the political system as a whole.

Single Member District systems of elections are used in both the United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  This means that in national legislative elections, one individual candidate is elected from each separate geographic district.  In both the U.S. and the U.K., the "first past the post" principle also is used.  This means that a legislative candidate need not win a majority of votes in that district to win the seat: he or she merely needs to finish first, i.e. with more votes than any other candidate.  Executives in government also are chosen according to these principles, either directly (i.e., in the U.S.) or indirectly (i.e., in the U.K.).   Directly in this matter means that in elections for President of the U.S., the candidate winning the most votes in any state will receive all of that state's electoral votes.  (Maine allocates its electoral votes by Congressional District, but within each district the "first past the post" principle still is used: the first place finisher is awarded all the assigned electoral votes).  Indirectly in this matter means that in general elections to the U.K. House of Commons (i.e., the British legislature), the "first past the post" principle is used to select all members of this house of Parliament; then these elected members (and not the public) choose among themselves the Member of Parliament who is to be designated the national executive leader, or Prime Minister.  By custom, the Member of Parliament who is The Leader of the political party with the largest number of seats in the House of Commons is always asked by the monarch (i.e., Queen Elizabeth, the nominal national executive) to form The Government.  Invariably, this leads to the Leader of one of two political parties, the Labour Party or the Conservative Party, being asked to form a government.

The Single Member District system based on the "first past the post" principle is only one way to organize political competition through national elections.  It is certainly not the method most likely to mirror the widest array of choices made by voters.  It is a method that tends to reinforce dominance of the system by two major parties.  An alternative method of conducting elections designed to mirror the broadest array of voting blocks in the public is called Proportional Representation, or PR.  Under a pure system of PR, seats in a national legislature are allocated in percentages that correspond to the percentage of the national vote won by all parties.

Four illustrations below (2005, 2001, 1997, 1992) show how the outcomes of recent British national elections (1) tend to reinforce the dominance of two major parties, Labour and Conservatives; and (2) illustrate how the hypothetical use of PR would undermine this dominance.  At the end of studying these illustrations, a student should be able to explain the differences between the Single Member District system and the Proportional Representation (P.R.) system of conducting democratic elections.  By the end of this section of the PolS 111 course that this webpage supports, the student should be able to comment intelligently on the impact of electoral forms on political party systems, legislative-executive relations, and political stability.

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Example 1: 2005

The 2005 U.K. election demonstrates why it is that major parties in Britain have an interest in favoring the existing election system there, an election system based on Single Member District elections based on the "first past the post" / "winner takes all" formula.

The rules:  General elections in Britain are actually 646 simultaneous elections in 646 separate districts.  Each is conducted by the "first past the post" method: the candidate with the most votes wins the Parliamentary seat for that district; second and third place finishers win nothing.  Voters understand that the candidate they choose is a member of a party, and that to have influence, their representative needs to be a member of the party that wins the most seats nationally.  But the individual voter votes for whoever he/she chooses, and in each of the 646 separate places a voter may choose any candidate among several candidates.

In 2005, as in 2001 and 1997, voters in most parliamentary districts chose candidates of the Labour Party.  (In 2005, the death of one member of parliament during the election season meant that a second or by-election needed to be held for his seat, only.  Thus, only 645 of the 646 seats were up for election on May 5, 2005). 

Distribution of the victories in elections for Parliamentary seats in 2005 went as follows (follow this link to view illustration):

Labour candidates finished first in 356 districts and thus won 356 seats.

Conservative candidates finished first in 197 districts and thus won 197 seats.

Liberal Democrat candidates finished first in 62 districts and thus won 62 seats.

Other parties' candidates did not do nearly as well:

The Democratic Unionist Party, a Protestant party in Northern Ireland, won 9 seats

The Scottish Nationalist Party, a Scotland-based party, won 6 seats

Sinn Fein, a Catholic party in Northern Ireland, won 5 seats

PC, a Welsh nationalist party, won 3 seats

Social Democratic and Labour Party, a largely Catholic party in Northern Ireland, won 3 seats

Several other small parties competed and won a total of four seats overall.

In this election, turnout was 61.3 percent.

Popular Vote:  The national popular vote was close (follow this link to illustration), and neither major party came close to winning support of a majority of voters.  Of all voters who voted for a candidate to the House of Commons, the nationwide percent voting for each candidates identified with a major party was:

Labour: 35.2 percent (37 percent if Northern Ireland is excluded)

Conservative: 32.3 percent (33 percent if Northern Ireland is excluded)

Liberal Democrats: 22.0 percent (22 percent if Northern Ireland is excluded)

various nationalist parties and others: 10.5 percent (8 percent if Northern Ireland is excluded)

Summarizing the 2005 election:

 

party	seats actually won in 2005	seats if PR had been used in 2005
Labour	356	227
Conservatives	197	208
Liberal Democrats	62	149

 

Criticisms of the system:

Many people find it unfair that so small a percent of British voters (35.2 percent) chose the winning party.  To more closely mirror public sentiments, several European countries use the system called "proportional representation" or PR.  Under PR, seats in a nation's parliament are allotted not by separate races in separate local geographic districts but by the national vote percentage received by a party. 

Britain has never used PR, nor have ruling parties ever introduced legislation to do away with district elections and replace the system with one using PR.  This is because the existing system benefits the interests of the major parties.   Fairness  is a value less central than is the value British political leaders have placed on stable government.

To remain in office, a U.K. Government needs ultimately the support of a majority of the members of the House of Commons, or 324 MPs (i.e.: 646 divided by 2, plus one).  If seats after the 2005 voting were to have been allotted according to proportional representation (PR), no party would have had a majority in Parliament.  Seats under PR would have numbered:

 Labour: 227 seats

Conservative:208 seats

Liberal Democrats: 149 seats

Other: 68 seats

Summary: In order to govern under P.R., Labour would have been forced to rely on forming a coalition with another party, either the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats.  But, under the existing rules for elections, Labour won sufficient seats to govern alone.  This example should have demonstrated how it is that the system of election laws helps to sustain a two party dominant system in Great Britain.

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source for further results about the 2005 election in Britain: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/vote_2005/constituencies/default.stm

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Example 2: 2001

Lest the reader find 2005 to be exceptional (which it isn't), a further illustration based on the June 2001 British General Election will prove the same point.  This time we will use the actual results again.

Basic Facts: U.K. Population 59 million (1998), 659 electoral districts at the time, thus the population per district was 89,377.  In this election, nationwide Labour won 40.8% of all votes; Conservatives won 31.8%; Liberal Democrats won 18.3 percent.

Assume that 60% of pop. is of voting age, or 53,628 voters.

Assume voting turnout is 80%, or 42,904 voters per seat.

If only two parties are in a race, then 21,453 elect an MP.

But, if three parties are in the race, and vote in this district is identical to 2001 national vote distribution of 40.8% (Labour), 31.8% (Conservative), 18.3% (Lib. Dem.), 9.1% for other parties, then district vote would be:

Labour MP candidate: 17,504

Conservative MP candidate: 13,643

Lib. Dem. MP candidate: 7,851

The combined non-Labour vote would be 21,494, i.e., much greater than the number received by the Labour candidate (17,504).  But it is the Labour candidate who won the seat with but 40.8% of the vote because his opponents divided their votes and did not unite to support a single candidate. No non-Labour MP would have been elected by the majority (50.1 percent) of voters overall who did not favor, and did not vote for Labour. This outcome is the logic that drives rational voters to choose one of the two largest parties' MP candidates.

Applied nation wide, the 40.8% to 31.8% to 18.3% distribution of voter preferences in 659 separate actual races, did yield (2001) this outcome (left below, in boldface), but under P.R. would have produced (right below):

party	seats actually won in 2001	seats if PR had been used
Labour	413	269
Conservatives	166	209
Liberal Democrats	52	121

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Example 3: 1997

With the major points established, we can move quickly through our illustrating evidence.  The same basic facts can be used: U.K. Population 59 million (1998), 659 electoral districts, thus the population per district is 89,377.

Assume that 60% of pop. is of voting age, or 53,628 voters.

Assume voting turnout is 80%, or 42,904 voters per seat.

If only two parties are in a race, then 21,453 elect an MP.

But, if three parties are in the race, and vote in this hypothetical district is identical to 1997 national vote distribution of 43.1% (Labour), 30.2% (Conservative), 16.7% (Lib.Dem.), then district vote would be:

Labour MP candidate: 18,491

Conservative MP candidate: 13,128

Lib.Dem. MP candidate: 7,165

 

The combined non-Labour vote would be 20,293, i.e., greater than the number received by the Labour candidate who won the seat with 43.1%.  But no non-Labour MP would have been elected by the 46.9% of voters who did not vote for Labour. Again, this outcome feeds the logic that drives rational voters to choose one of the two largest parties' MP candidates.

Let us now again compare the outcomes if the actual system (SMD) and the alternative, PR, had been used in 1997:

party	seats actually won in 1997	seats if PR had been used
Labour	418	284
Conservatives	165	202
Liberal Democrats	46	110

Is it any wonder, then, that while a 1997 candidate Tony Blair campaigned on a platform that committed Labour to submit a system of PR voting to the people in a popular referenda; but in nearly a decade as Prime Minister, Tony Blair has done no such thing?

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Example 4: 1992

The reader may by this point be inclined to conclude that this ardor for Single Member District, "first past the post" elections is confined to the Labour Party, which seems always to be advantaged by its logic.  This inference would be wrong.  Both major parties have benefited: in 1992, the Conservative Party led then by John Major won a fourth consecutive national general election (i.e., 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992) by riding the crest of a wave considerably shorter than majority public support. 

Basic Facts: U.K. Population 57.4 million, 650 electoral districts, population per district: 88,307

Assume that 60% of pop. is of voting age, or 52,984 voters.

Assume voting turnout is 80%, or 42,387 voters.

If only two parties are in a race, then 21,193 elect an MP.

But, if three parties are in the race, and vote in this district is identical to 1992 national vote distribution of 41.9% (Conservatives), 34.2% (Labour), 17.9% (Liberal Democrats), then our hypothetical district's vote would have been:

Conservative MP candidate: 17,760

Labour MP candidate: 14,496

Lib.Dem. MP candidate: 7,587

The combined anti-Conservative vote would be 22,083, but no non-Conservative MP would have been elected by this 52+% of voters.

This outcome again fuels the logic that drives rational voters to choose one of the two largest parties' MP candidates.

Let us once again compare the outcomes if the actual system (SMD) and the alternative, PR, had been used in 1992:

party	seats actually won in 1992	seats if PR had been used
Labour	332	272
Conservatives	271	222
Liberal Democrats	20	116

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Overall analytic Summary:  The four examples (above) show us more than just the way electoral rules can shape a political system, narrowing the set of which parties actually can win an election.  They also show us something about the rationality that surrounds individuals' voting behavior under the Single Member District system.  By voting for the party of one's greatest degree of ideological affinity, when that party is not one of the two largest parties, one deprives the major party that is closest to one's ideological views of a vote; and thus, in effect, makes more likely the victory of the party most ideologically distant from the voter.

Practical examples need not all be focused on the U.K.: consider the impact of the Ross Perot candidacy for President in 1992 on the electoral fortunes of Republican George H. W. Bush, or the impact of the Ralph Nader candidacy for President in 2000 on the electoral fortunes of Democratic candidate Al Gore.  Surely, Mr. Perot and Mr. Nader were aware of this.  Why do you think Republican activists worked openly in summer 2004 to get Nader's name on state presidential ballots?

It is on this basis that often it is said that under the Single Member District, two party dominant system, a rational voter must vote for the lesser evil among the two leading parties in order to maximize their influence through casting a vote. 

Of course, not all voters are rational.  Every individual in the privacy of the voting booth can choose to maximize the influence of his/her ballot, or to make a symbolic statement.  Since voting systems are more than mere symbols --they channel public support and select leaders-- it may be rational to look for other opportunities through which to make symbolic statements.  (E.g., bumper stickers).

Further applied Analysis: If a country changes its election laws from SMD to PR, this logic no longer exists; voters tend to respond to the messages of third (and fourth, and so on) parties, since no logic coerces them into voting for the two leading parties; and what once was a two party system, will tend to devolve into a multi-party system.  This, in turn usually results in no one party alone winning enough seats to have a majority to rule alone in the Parliament. Thus, PR tends to produce multi party systems, and coalition governments of several parties.  SMD system tends to produce two party systems, and one party governments.

 

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