Is There a Case for Electoral Reform in the Uk

Is There a Case for Electoral Reform in the UK

In the UK the current electoral system used is the first past the post plurality system. Some believe that this system is not the right one for Government elections. So in order to answer the question of electoral reform, we need to know what the purpose of an election is. Well obviously it is to choose a government, but elections are also a key feature of democracy and is fundamental to pluralist democracy. Elections are also the biggest way in which the electorate participates. Not everyone is so interested in politics that they join pressure groups or think tanks, or join protests or sign petitions, most people vote for who they want in government and that is the extent of their participation. Elections also need to, therefore, be fair, because if there weren’t fair elections then there would be no point in participating in elections in the first place.

We also need to ask what type of effect do we want the elections to have? No electoral system is perfect, what first past the post lacks on in proportionality it makes up for in ease of use and MP-constituency link. So we have to decide what we want the electoral system to use. Different electoral systems produce different outcomes, majoritarian systems produce an absolute majority and therefore the views of over half the population will be heard, whereas proportional systems allow the share of the vote and the share of the seats to be as near to equal as possible.

I think at this point we can eliminate any majoritarian system from being a replacement to first past the post, due to the fact that first past the post produces a simple majority anyway, so using A.V or S.V would be pointless because it would only be tinkering the system and possibly not making many changes of that great significance in terms of outcome.

To assess what election system would be the best for the UK we need to look at the criteria for assessing electoral systems. Electoral...