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Topic: First past the post election system

	First Past the Post electoral system - Electowiki
		First Past the Post electoral system - Electowiki
		The term "first past the post" refers to a now seldom-used analogy with horse racing, where the winner is the first to pass a particular point (in this case a plurality of votes), upon which all other runners automatically and completely lose ("winner take all").
		The first past the post election system is used in the Republic of China on Taiwan for executive offices such as county magistrates, mayors, and the president, but not for legislative seats which used the single non-transferable vote system.
	wiki.electorama.com /wiki/First_past_the_post (2015 words)

	First Past the Post electoral system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		The First Past the Post electoral system, is a voting system for single-member districts.
		The term "first past the post" refers to a now seldom-used analogy with horse racing, where the winner is the first to pass a particular point (in this case a plurality of votes), upon which all other runners automatically and completely lose ("winner take all").
		The first past the post election system is used in the Republic of China on Taiwan for executive offices such as county magistrates, mayors, and the president, but not for legislative seats which used the single non-transferable vote system.
	www.hackettstown.us /project/wikipedia/index.php/First-past-the-post (2803 words)

	Plurality electoral system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The Plurality electoral system (or first past the post electoral system), is a voting system for single-member districts.
		The name "first past the post" (abbreviated FPTP or FPP) is an analogy to horse racing; the system is also variously called winner-take-all or relative majority.
		When this system is in use at all levels of politics it may result in a two-party system, based on single seat district voting systems.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/First_past_the_post (3241 words)

	First past the post: Canada's voting system
		The First past the post electoral system is a voting system for single-member districts.
		The term "first past the post", as stated above, refers to a now seldom-used analogy with horse racing, where the winner is the first to pass a particular point (in this case a plurality of votes), upon which all other runners automatically and completely lose ("winner take all").
		Although "first past the post" is the standard term in Canada, the term may have originally had a pejorative meaning, again based on the horse racing analogy: once a particular party achieves plurality ("passing the post") there is no point in counting any further votes.
	www.canadian-politics.com /elections/elections_fptp.shtml (2321 words)

	First Past the Post electoral system - FreeEncyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		The first past the post election system is used on Taiwan for executive offices such as county magistrates, mayors, and the president, but not for legislative seats which used the single non-transferable vote system.
		If the system has multiple areas, such as the states in the electoral college system for the US presidential elections, or the constituencies for the UK parliamentary elections, the system favors political parties with concentrated geographical support, as they can command the majority in that area.
		This facet of the system leads to the practice of gerrymandering, which is the drawing of electoral district boundaries for the purpose of influencing an election.
	openproxy.ath.cx /fi/First-past-the-post_election_system.html (718 words)

	fpp (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		The first-past-the-post electoral system is a voting system for single-member districts, variously called first-past-the-post (FPTP or FPP), winner-take-all, plurality voting, or relative majority.
		Imagine an election to choose the capital of Tennessee, a state in the United States that is over 500 miles east-to-west, and only 110 miles north-to-south.
		If enough voters vote using this tactic, the first-past-the-post system becomes a form of runoff voting where the first round is held in the court of public opinion.
	www.yourencyclopedia.net /FPP.html (560 words)

	First Past the Post - Disadvantages (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		In the Malawi multi-party elections of 1994, a history of colonial rule, missionary activity, and Hastings Banda's "Chewa-ization" of national culture combined to plant the seeds of regional conflict which both dovetailed with, and cut across, pre-conceived ethnic boundaries.
		Any system with single-member districts is susceptible to boundary manipulation, such as unfair gerrymandering or malapportionment of district boundaries (see Boundary Delimitation).
		This was particularly apparent in the Kenyan elections of 1993 when huge disparities between the sizes of electoral districts - the largest had 23 times the number of voters as the smallest - contributed to the ruling Kenyan African National Union party's winning a large parliamentary majority with only thirty percent of the popular vote.
	www.aceproject.org /main/english/es/esd01b.htm (827 words)

	wikien.info: Main_Page (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		It is a first-past-the-post election system, in terms of the number of MPs from a particular party.
		The system is not one of proportional representation (PR).
		On the other hand, supporters of the system cite it as a reason for the lack of extremist parties from mainstream UK politics, the infrequency of coalitions, and the direct connection between constituencies and their MP.
	www.alanaditescili.net /index.php?title=United_Kingdom_general_election (1177 words)

	First-past-the-post election system - Wikipedia
		This system is widely used at all levels of politics - famously in Great Britain and the United States.
		If the system has multiple areas, such as the states in the electoral college system for the US presidential elections, or constituencies for the UK parliamantary elections, the system favors political parties with concentrated geographical support, as they can command the majority in that area.
		This facet of the system, led to the practice of gerrymandering, which is the drawing of electoral district boundaries for the purpose of influencing an election.
	nostalgia.wikipedia.org /wiki/Relative_majority (443 words)

	::First Past the Post ::
		In the past, this system and the whole structure of elections, created absurd anomalies with the existence of "rotten boroughs" such as Old Sarum, Dunwich and Gatton.
		When the election takes place, for example a by-election for a constituency MP for Westminster, the person who wins the highest number of votes within that constituency, wins that election.
		In the 1997 election, the victorious Labour Party gained 43.2% of the total votes cast and won 63.6% of seats at Westminster.
	www.historylearningsite.co.uk /first_past_the_post.htm (1260 words)

	Arab2000.net - the first online Arabic news site in North America.
		FPTP is a plurality electoral system, not a majoritarian one.
		This system demands accountability from each and every MP to all the people of the riding, whether they elected him or her, or not.
		In the PR system, an MP is more a delegate of his or her party than a direct hands-on representative of the people.
	www.arab2000.net /wnewsDetails.asp?id=13717&cid=25 (1041 words)

	Democracy, Singapore style: editorial
		HE party in government had fought the election as one in which it needed a resounding mandate from the people to steer the country through perilous times.
		Before the election Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said 60 per cent of the vote would be a satisfactory mandate.
		Mr Goh's first task will be to attend the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Brunei, which aims, among other objectives, to create an ASEAN-China free-trade area that could become the biggest free-trade area in the world.
	www.singapore-window.org /sw01/011106ag.htm (472 words)

	The Sunday Leader Internet Edition (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		The government has proposed a new system of elections for the country according to which the number of parliamentarians will increase from the current 225 to 245, while 168 of these members, will be elected under the first past the post system.
		The electoral districts determined by the delimitation commission of 1976 will be the electoral districts for the purpose of electing the first category of 168 members at the first general election to be held after the commencement of the constitution, the minister told the committee.
		We can support a 50-50 system as stated in the PA manifesto where multi-member constituencies are also provided for in the first past the post election system Zuhair had said.
	www.lanka.net /sundayleader/1997/april/27th/news.html (1045 words)

	GOPUSA - Commentary
		Because under this system power is transferred to the minority parties whose second choice now becomes very important in the search for plurality in a large multi-party system where it is unlikely that any one party has a majority.
		The whole object of this voting system is to neutralize political positions and homogenize the political system thereby freezing the political system to change and raising the power and influence of the bureaucracy.
		When electoral systems are composed to further homogenize behavior then we have solidified the tyranny of the majority and the eventual fall of freedom.
	www.gopusa.com /alaska/commentary/0807_instantrunoffp.shtml (2430 words)

	The Canadian Electoral System: A Case Study (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		Ironically, the distorting effects of the FPTP electoral system on representation in the House of Commons - combined with Canadians' tendency to identify politically along regional lines - have probably never been greater than in the last two federal elections.
		Electoral reform toward a more proportional system was proposed by a number of columnists and editorialists in the wake of the two elections, and raised by the leaders of the Progressive Conservative Party, but only wistfully.
		And in November 1997, a private member's bill was submitted by a leading member of the NDP proposing Parliament endorse PR and appoint an all-party committee to conduct public consultation on the question and report back with a concrete proposal which would then be put to Canadians for their approval a national referendum.
	www.aceproject.org /main/english/es/esy_ca.htm (1001 words)

	The Advantages and Disadvantages of the First Past the Post Voting System
		It is also possible to win the election and become the government even though one of the other contenders got a larger share of the votes than you.
		This is exactly what happened in the 1951 General election, The Conservatives won the election with 48.0% of the vote yet Labour had 48.8% of the vote and lost.
		Another disadvantage of the First Past the Post system is that a party can win a seat by just one vote or by a small amount.
	www.coursework.info /i/4385.html (329 words)

	DUCKPOND: FIRST PAST THE POST (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		We do not usually think of Australia as having a winner take all, or first past the post electoral system, because the preferential system distributes the votes until one candidate has an absolute majority (50% + 1).
		With the Australian system, called sometimes Alternative Vote, and Run Off Voting it is possible, a point of difference, for a candidate trailling on first preferences to win with other candidates preferences, but this does not happen very often, so on that basis it can be included without single member constituency voting systems.
		Canada is well on the way to electoral reform with developments in Ontario, BC and PEI, and at least a promise by a former Liberal PM to introduce proportional representation.
	ian_westbrook.blogspot.com /2005/10/first-past-post.html (672 words)

	Articles - Spoiler effect (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		The spoiler effect is one of the components contributing to the effect known as Duverger's law, which states that the first-past-the-post election system creates and preserves a two-party system.
		However, different voting systems are affected to a greater or lesser extent by IIA failure.
		For example, instant runoff voting is considered to have less frequent IIA failure than First Past the Post, and Condorcet methods are considered to have less frequent IIA failure than instant runoff voting.
	www.lastring.com /articles/Spoiler_effect (537 words)

	Third Parties - dKosopedia
		The reason for this is because the structure of the US Government encourages a two-party system and puts Democratic Intent at risk when a third party participates in an election.
		The "first past the post" voting system used in the United States (outside Louisiana) really only has a natural tendency to doom all but two parties in any one region.
		Likewise, in the United Kingdom which also has a "first past the post" voting system, Welsh, Scottish and Irish nationalist parties consistently receive seats in Parliament despite receiving tiny percentages of the total vote, because they have majority strength in their respective regions.
	www.dkosopedia.com /index.php/Third_Parties (551 words)

	BBC News \| UK Politics \| Voters 'want change in election system'
		British voters are likely to back a change in the first-past-the-post election system, according to the head of the commission examining electoral reform.
		One of the key issues is whether any new system should maintain the idea of a constituency based MP or to have a House of Commons made up of members chosen from a list by their party leaders.
		However, if the last British general election had been held under the same system it is likely the result would have given Labour an even bigger majority because many voters who did not select the party's candidates as their first choice, would have put them second.
	news.bbc.co.uk /1/hi/uk_politics/123911.stm (463 words)

	Canada and the World Backgrounder: peoples' voice: in a country of 30 million people, individuals often think they are ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		This system is a good deal more complicated that our current one and it comes in a variety of forms.
		The first country, to adopt PR for national elections was Belgium in 1899.
		In a national referendum, the people approved a German-style system in which electors cast one vote for their constituency MP and another for their party.
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_qa3695/is_199901/ai_n8843007 (1486 words)

	Electoral Reform Society
		The system tends to produce single party governments, which are strong enough to create legislation and tackle the country's problems, without relying on the support of any other party.
		Voters' first preferences are counted and if one candidate gets 50% of the vote, then he or she is elected.
		If a candidate receives a majority of first place votes, he or she would be elected just as under the present system.
	www.electoral-reform.org.uk /votingsystems/systems2.htm (1132 words)

	Democratic Audit - Issues - Electoral reform in Britain
		Democratic Audit believes that only a proportional system or a preferential system with broadly proportional results can satisfy the basic rule that elections should first of all satisfy the basic requirement that elections should be genuinely representative of people's votes; and that people should be given real choices when they come to vote.
		The Audit has published expert analysis of AV-Plus, the Lib-Lab compromise electoral system, which was to have been put to the electorate as the alternative to first-past-the-post in a referendum.
		We are currently preparing a report on experience of PR elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and for the Greater London Assembly, and also on comparable experience of STV and AMS in Australia, Germany, Ireland, and New Zealand, looking at their political influence as well as electoral impact.
	www.democraticaudit.com /issues/electreformbrit.php (906 words)

	First Past the Post electoral system : Plurality voting (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		First Past the Post electoral system : Plurality voting
		Note that this system doesn't require that the winner have a majority, but only a plurality.
		Another criticism of this system is that in some situations, the winner may not have a majority, and in fact often doesn't.
	www.termsdefined.net /pl/plurality-voting.html (822 words)

	The Hindu : Kerala News : Sharp fall in Congress vote share
		Election Department sources said that this might take at least two weeks.
		The Election Watch, Kerala, a civil society initiative for free and fair elections, came out with slightly varying figures today.
		According to it, the results clearly highlight the exaggerated nature of reward and punishment that the `first past the post' election system provides.
	www.hindu.com /2004/05/16/stories/2004051607110400.htm (635 words)

	LEADER ARTICLE<BR>Minority Rule: Pitfalls of First-past-the-post System- The Times of India (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		All this is a result of the electoral system that was outlined in the Representation of People Act in 1951.
		The urbanite has res-ponded to this by becoming largely aloof from the election process: It is not surprising that voting in urban areas is less than in rural areas.
		What the new electoral system ought to be, can be the subject of a nationwidedebate, but the time has come to actively think about it.
	timesofindia.indiatimes.com /articleshow/658986.cms (910 words)

	United Kingdom general elections - Wikipedia
		United Kingdom general elections are the times when the each Member of Parliament must seek re-election in the House of Commons.
		In the UK general elections are generally affairs in which public opinion changes gradually from general election from election.
		Currently the Labour party under Prime Minister Tony Blair has had two such landslides, giving him a strength in parliament that has rivalled the legacy of Lady Margaret Thatcher.
	nostalgia.wikipedia.org /wiki/United_Kingdom_general_elections (139 words)

	CNN.com - Analysis: Can Blair make it three in a row? - Apr 5, 2005
		Britain does not have a proportional representation election system but a 'first past the post' constituency election system which has to be revised periodically to allow for population shift.
		Thanks to the current bias in the system, if both major parties take around 35/36 per cent of the national vote, Labour will still be in government with a majority of around 100.
		In what is expected to be another a low turnout election -- turnout dropped to a record low of only 59 per cent in 2001 -- all parties will be seeking to run campaigns designed to bring out their core voters.
	www.cnn.com /2005/WORLD/europe/04/02/uk.election/index.html (1100 words)

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