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Topic: Single member plurality system

Related Topics

Single Member Plurality

Multi member plurality system

Single transferable vote

Supplementary Vote

Additional Member System

First past the post electoral system

British elections

Election

Politics of the United Kingdom

United Kingdom general elections

United Kingdom Independence Party

UK general election, 2001

Parliament of the United Kingdom

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Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

	Elections in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Almost all candidates are members of a political party and the majority of voters in the UK choose who to vote for based on the candidates' parties, rather than the personalities or opinions of the individual candidates.
		In Northern Ireland, the single transferable vote system is used, whilst in the whole of Scotland and some of England and Wales the single member plurality system is used.
		The remainder of England and Wales use the multi member plurality system, except for the regional and mayoral elections in London.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Elections_in_the_United_Kingdom (4074 words)

	Plurality electoral system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		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.
		Changes to the UK system have been proposed, and alternatives were examined by the Jenkins Committee in the late 1990s but no major changes have been implemented.
		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.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/First_Past_the_Post_electoral_system (3315 words)

	CV & D Factsheet I-C-1: Plurality voting sysytems using single-member districts
		Voters in a single member plurality election cast a vote for one candidate.
		The single member plurality voting system (SMP) is the most commonly used voting system in the United States.
		This system commonly works in a series of two elections, in which primaries are held to determine a nominee from each major party, followed by a general election that pits the primary winners against one another.
	www.fairvote.org /factshts/single.htm (837 words)

	Electoral Systems (BP334E) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		[a]ll plurality systems tend to exaggerate the parliamentary representation of the strongest party, to penalize the second party and to devastate third parties whose support is thinly spread across the breadth of the country.
		These systems combine some of the advantages of PR and plurality systems by ensuring that not only do multiple points of view within a constituency gain legislative representation (as is the case under PR), but also that those elected have significant levels of support from the electorate.
		While studies confirm that PR systems on average offer greater proportionality than majoritarian/plurality systems,(23) some researchers have discovered that it is still possible for a plurality system to produce a more proportional result than a PR system.
	www.parl.gc.ca /information/library/PRBpubs/bp334-e.htm (7242 words)

	In Favour of PR
		Proportional representation systems are explicitly designed to maximize the number of voters who are able to elect a representative.The central goal of these systems is fair representation: All voters should berepresented in proportion to their numbers, even those who constitute political minorities.
		Single member plurality arrangements tend to limit public access to legislators, who need not feel obligated to be available to a constituent from a different political party.
		So in a PR system it is in the self-interest of parties to include women on their slates in fair numbers and positions.
	www.umanitoba.ca /student/groups/DLC/pro-pr2.html (5059 words)

	Canadian Electoral Reform
		The single member plurality system used in all Canadian federal and provincial elections has many strengths but also reveals serious weaknesses in producing legislatures that reflect the choice of parties made by the voters.
		The recommendation to adopt a new electoral system was put to the voters in a referendum question at the May 2005 provincial election.
		The success with which a PR system provides parties with a share of the seats that is proportional to their vote share is dependent on several factors including the number of parties that fall short of the threshold and whether the votes and seats are counted up either nationally, provincially, or regionally.
	www.sfu.ca /~aheard/elections/reform.html (2630 words)

	5. BALLOTS OF "BLACK AND GOLD" Part 2
		The SNTV system gets still more obtuse because voters are asked by their parties to vote for specific candidates, when there may be perhaps 2 to 5 members from the same party on a single ballot.
		In that system, a voter votes once for an individual candidate (on the first list)--half the seats in the legislature--and once for a party (on the second list), the other half of the legislative seats.
		It has the advantage of encouraging diversity of parties and opinions (the multi-member-proportional system), which is very democratic, while not letting small parties and diversity of candidates get out of hand (the single-member plurality system), which enhances stability.
	www.scanews.com /collester/article5/article5.html (922 words)

	Encyclopedia: Single Member Plurality
		Changes to the UK system have been proposed, and alternatives were examined by the Jenkins Committee in the late 1980s but no major changes have been implemented.
		Recent examples of nations which have not adopted the FPTP system includes South Africa, almost all of the former east block nations, Russia and Afghanistan as well as Iraq.
		A Close election is one where the winner's majority is very small, or where third parties or independents hold the balance of power.
	www.nationmaster.com /encyclopedia/Single-Member-Plurality (1985 words)

	single-member-plurality system (SMP)
		Smith and Stewart analyze the single-member plurality system using a well-known measure of disproportionality...
		Single-member plurality (SMP) systems are commonly found in countries that have inherited elements of the British parliamentary system; it is this...
		The single member plurality system (SMP), which Canada employs to fabricate a democratic election, can cause representatives to be elected without the majority...
	www.jointctr.org /?Category=single-member-plurality+system+(SMP) (294 words)

	REAL CHOICES/NEW VOICES
		The books shows how our current single-member plurality system is responsible for many of the problems afflicting American elections, including the lack of competitive races, the under-representation of women and minorities, the two-party monopoly, wasted votes, spoiler candidates, gerrymandering, and low voter turnout.
		Electoral systems are the methods we use to elect officials — the basic procedural rules by which votes are cast and counted, and the winners determined.
		In this system, officials are elected in large, multimember districts according to the proportion of the vote their party receives.
	www.mtholyoke.edu /acad/polit/damy/OrderDesk/bookhtml.htm (4583 words)

	Freedom Party International - Consent 21 - August 1994
		This is known in political science as the single-member simple plurality system, or less formally as "first past the post." This electoral system reflects the philosophy of simple majority rule, and subordinates the individual voter and taxpayer to special-interest groups and political parties.
		In these systems, constituencies return as many as ten or twenty members, and the seats are divided among the parties in proportion to the constituency vote.
		The retiring member's votes are distributed as though he or she had not been elected, and the votes are recounted from that point.
	www.freedomparty.org /consent/cons21_2.htm (2486 words)

	An Electoral System for Scottish Local Government - Key Questions and Criteria
		Moreover, some critics of the single member plurality system suggest that in practice it fails to ensure that individual councillors are accountable to their electorates.
		A belief that electoral systems should not be complex or confusing to voters also informs the argument about our fourth question, that is how compatible should the electoral system for local government in Scotland be with other systems that voters may already be using.
		Thus whatever the merits of a particular system so far as local government in Scotland is concerned, utilising a system that is already in use in other elections in Scotland may be thought to have some advantage.
	www.scotland.gov.uk /library/kduff/elect-05.htm (1376 words)

	[No title]
		An electoral system is the set of rules that interpret the wishes of the citizens, expressed in votes, into seats in a parliament. In Canada, the system used is known as a single member plurality system, or first-past-the-post.
		This system, however, has been under increasing attack in favour of proportional representation, which seeks to distribute seats in accordance with the amount of votes gathered by the parties in an election.
		Canada’s single member plurality (SMP) system, also known as the first-past-the-post (FPTP), is one of a family of systems commonly known as Plurality/Majority systems.
	www.plum-blossom.net /blog/POLI_101_FPTP.doc (2068 words)

	Third Parties in America by Steven J. Rosenstone, Roy L. Behr, Edward H. Lazarus
		Unlike a proportional representation system where 20 percent of the votes usually yields some seats in the legislature, in a single-member-district plurality system a party can receive 20 percent of the votes in every state and yet not win a single seat.
		Any direct vote system that allows a party to win with less than a full majority of the popular vote would hinder third parties, though the larger the plurality required to elect a president, the lower the barrier becomes.
		The biases against third parties created by the single-member-district plurality system and ballot access restrictions, as well as their disadvantages in organization, resources, and media coverage, all effectively discourage qualified candidates from running under a third party label.
	www.thirdworldtraveler.com /Political_Reform/Third_Parties_America.html (7584 words)

	Nelson - Political Science-Government and Politics on the Web/Electoral Systems
		One problem with single member plurality systems is that there can be significant under-representation of social groups among those who win seats in the legislature.
		Voters mark their ballots preferentially, and several members are declared elected for each riding after they have reached a certain quota of the counted votes.
		In mixed systems, a portion of the legislature's seats are filled through single member plurality elections, while the rest are filled from party lists according to each party's share of the vote.
	www.nelson.com /nelson/polisci/electsys.html (1079 words)

	BC Eletion Results 1986-2001 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		BC provides excellent examples of the distortions of the single-member plurality electoral system (also known as first past the post).
		The system does a poor job in translating a party's overall share of the votes into a proportional share of the seats.
		For example in the 1986, 1991, and 1996 elections, the NDP share of the vote was steady at roughly 40%.
	www.sfu.ca /~aheard/bcvotes.html (139 words)

	New University Paper (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		With the single-member district plurality system the winner of the state receives all the delegates of that state—even if the candidate only receives the plurality, that is, less than the majority of voters but still the largest amount of votes.
		One major conflict with the single-member district plurality system is that a winner-take-all method of voting discourages third parties because they will remain eternally unable to receive enough votes to win an election.
		Unfortunately, because the proportional representation system is so uncommon in this country, the electoral system remains based around the two main parties, effectively leaving behind any other parties attempting to make their voices heard.
	horus.vcsa.uci.edu /article.php?id=2691 (603 words)

	Malta: Election of Women (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Footnote 1 Although scholars often classify STV systems differently from party-list systems of PR, the difference between them, particularly in respect to party control of nominations and district magnitude, is not significant in the Maltese context.
		Footnote 1 Under STV, voters have a single vote and are asked to give a preference ranking to as many candidates on the ballot as they wish, in numerical order: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc..
		Footnote 2 The aspects of the party-list system which are usually singled out as distinctive and significant are (a) the control that parties have over nominations and (b) the typically high district magnitudes.
	www.maltadata.com /m-women.htm (6365 words)

	[No title]
		Barriers Constitutional Biases The Single-Member-District Plurality System The single-member district plurality system restricts third party voting greatly.
		Small parties become discouraged by this lack of support and either fade away or merge together, this can also be precipitated when major parties absorb defectors who see third parties as a lost cause or when they co-opt their issues.
		Reform of this system would no help unless the single-member-district plurality system was reformed as well.
	www-personal.umd.umich.edu /~austinmj/rosenstoneoutline.doc (1247 words)

	Majority-Plurality Systems (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		In a First Past the Post system, sometimes known as a plurality single-member district system, the winner is the candidate with the most votes, but not necessarily an absolute majority of the votes (see First Past the Post (FPTP)).
		When this system is used in multi-member districts it becomes the Block Vote (see Block Vote).
		Each system, in essence, makes use of voters' second preferences to produce a majority winner, if one does not emerge from the first round of voting.
	www.aceproject.org /main/english/es/esd.htm (163 words)

	An Electoral System for Scottish Local Government - Estimates for 1995 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		In virtually all cases any of the alternative systems that we have modelled would have produced a markedly less one-sided outcome than was actually produced by the existing single member plurality system.
		Unsurprisingly counting the votes under an alternative system would have had least impact in the Western Isles, where all bar a handful of candidates stood and were elected under an Independent label.
		However, the figures for Glasgow indicate that where very substantial disproportionalities are thrown up by the outcome in single member constituencies, a quarter sized top-up may not in fact contain sufficient seats to produce a proportional outcome.
	www.scotland.gov.uk /cru/kduff/elect-09.htm (1185 words)

	Thomson Nelson - Political Science -Government and Politics on the Web/Introduction to International Politics
		In 2003, the government of British Columbia created a Citizens' Assembly, which met in 2004 to consider whether to change the electoral system used for provincial elections in BC.
		An explanation of the Hare-Clark system is provided by the Australian Capital Territory Electoral Commission; the Tasmanian Electoral Office also offers its own explanation of the Hare-Clark Electoral System.
		The sample NZ ballot is useful to look at in order to understand the two votes each elector now has. In 2001, the New Zealand Parliament released a report on the country's experience with the MMP system.
	polisci.nelson.com /electsys.html (1200 words)

	New Labour, New Tactical Voting?
		Evidently the Labour landslide and Liberal Democrat revival of 1997 were as much a product of the operation of the single member plurality electoral system as an indicator of the strength of their electoral support.
		Meanwhile, the publication of local opinion polls had already peaked in 1987 when at least 78 single constituency polls in 52 seats were commissioned.
		Second, there is a tendency in the study of electoral behaviour to make inferences about the motivations of voters on the basis of evidence of changes in their behaviour.
	www.strath.ac.uk /Other/CREST/p64.htm (6097 words)

	Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform - single member plurality system (SMP) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform - single member plurality system (SMP)
		This electoral system is based on single member districts, with successful candidates being elected if they win the most votes in their electoral districts.
		This electoral system is the one currently used in British Columbia to elect members to the legislative assembly.
	www.citizensassembly.bc.ca /public/learning_resources/glossary/2003/csharman-10_0312241129-714 (63 words)

	Political Parties and Electoral Systems
		multiparty systems often require political coalitions of parties to form governing majorities
		Party Government: a way of organizing representative democracy where political parties (ideally) offer electorate clear program; the winning party has a mandate for its policies; party discipline ensures cohesion and success in policy implementation; a loyal and uncorrupted bureaucracy (civil service) implements the program; elections keep the government accountable to the electorate
		impacted by horizontal division of power/ ideology/ social cleavages/ and electoral system
	home.earthlink.net /~tebrister/parties_elections.htm (270 words)

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