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The Fatal Flaws in “First-Past-the Post" Electoral
Systems INTRODUCTION: The First-past-the-post Concept: The term first-past-the-post
is synonymous with the terms relative
majority and plurality. It
refers to the basis on which votes are counted in order to determine who is
elected by those votes. Such systems can be used for the filling of a single
vacancy, or the filling of a number of vacancies as a group. A first-past-the-post electoral system
is one where ballots are not valid unless they have been marked by the voter
to indicate the candidate or candidates that the voter wishes to have
elected, but no more candidates can be indicated than the number of vacancies
to be filled, and the votes are counted as described under "Counting of
the Votes" below. The English common law electoral system is a first-past-the-post system, but it
allows ballots to indicate votes for fewer candidates than the number to be
elected if the voter so chooses, which allows for the traditional plumping by voters. More recent variants of that system are: (a) the single non-transferable vote,
which was used for Japan’s Lower House until it was replaced by a hybrid party-list
PR and single-member system (not the
same as New Zealand’s Mixed Member Proportional system) at the end
of the 20th Century, (b) the limited vote, and (c) the now discredited multiple plurality system
used for Australian Senate elections from 1903-17, which is referred to below
and arbitrarily required that a valid ballot had to show exactly the same number
of votes for candidates as there are vacancies to fill, which thus prevented plumping. Form of
Ballot-papers: Traditionally,
ballot-papers for first-past-the-post
elections invite the voter to indicate his or her votes by means of marking a
cross (X) alongside the name of each of the candidates voted for, but more
recent practice in some jurisdictions, such as certain Queensland local government
polls and elections in certain Australian unions, has allowed the voter
to mark his or her preferences among the candidates in order by marking the
numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc. against their respective names. In a country like Counting of the
Votes: Where there are multiple vacancies to be
filled, the votes on each ballot-paper are counted as being of equal value to
each other, even though a voter might have a distinct order of preference
among the candidates, as there is no mechanism for such preferences to be
given effect to. Candidates are elected consecutively according to who receives
the largest number of votes. There is no pre-determined percentage of the
overall vote required to be gained before a candidate is elected (hence the
description "relative
majority"), so a candidate can be elected with a very much smaller
percentage of the vote than under any other electoral system if the votes are
spread very evenly among the candidates. In elections to fill a single
vacancy or elections by the plurality bloc
vote referred to below, all the successful candidates can be elected by the votes
of very much less than 50% of the voters, with well over 50% of the voters
having no effect on the outcome whatsoever, unlike preferential voting, which
ensures that a majority, or quota, as the case may be, of voters decides the
outcome for each vacancy. First-past-the-post voting systems for filling a single vacancy: These systems, for parliamentary and congressional elections,
are now largely confined to parts of the former British Empire such as the
United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, India and Pakistan,
although Australia, New Zealand, Eire, South Africa, Malta and Sri Lanka have
changed to other systems. These plurality systems are badly flawed as they allow
members to be elected in each electorate with well below 50% of the vote, and
allow splitting of the vote among candidates of similar views to the benefit
of more isolated candidates. Such systems are also used for electing single
office-bearers, such as the President of France. The
non-transferable nature of the votes cast is the main fault there. Multiple First-past-the-post voting systems:
The PRSA History page mentions the quite unfair
and unreasonable electoral system used for the election of the Australian
Senate from 1903 to 1917. The system also applied, by default, to
the first election in South Australia for members
of the House of Representatives in 1901. It is variously referred
to as a multiple "X" voting, a multiple relative majority, a
multiple or bloc first-past-the-post, a plurality at large, a plurality bloc vote, or a multiple plurality system.
If an electoral system is not specified in a constitution, the multiple plurality system is unfortunately the common law
default system. Under it a voter traditionally marked an "X"
against the name of each candidate voted for, with the proviso that the
ballot would be invalid if an "X" appeared against the names of
more candidates than there were vacancies to be filled. A later, even less
democratic variant, used for those 1903-17 Senate elections, arbitrarily
specified that the ballot would be invalid if the number of candidates voted
for was not equal to the number of vacancies, thus forestalling the traditional
option in plurality elections of plumping. The term plurality refers to
the largest vote gained by a candidate or candidate, even if that candidate
or candidates have failed to gain an absolute majority of votes. The
3 systems used for Senate polls: For Australian
Senate elections, that unsatisfactory non-preferential voting system was
replaced by a multiple, or bloc, majority-preferential
electoral system in 1919, which was in turn replaced by the present quota-preferential
system of proportional representation (PR) in 1948. Use of that
unfortunate 1919-47 system is now confined to certain municipal polls in the Northern Territory.
A routine outcome in Senate elections before 1949
was that candidates of a single party, or point of view, won all of the vacancies for a State, and regularly,
once in each of the first five decades of the Senate's existence, for the whole of Australia, as occurred in 1910, in 1917, in 1925, in 1934 and
finally in 1943. The
multiple plurality system in force prior to 1919 had similar effects, as the
1910 and 1917 examples show, except that it also occasionally filled all
vacancies for a State with candidates from the same party that had
collectively failed to gain even 50% of the votes for that State. Preferential
systems predominating: Preferential systems generally
replaced plurality systems in Flagging
Incumbent Candidates: The NRMA and the RACV compound the flaws of the first-past-the post electoral system
they use by having ballot rules that require that the names of candidates
that are retiring directors be singled out and highlighted on the
ballot-papers, and on the candidate statements, with an asterisk (*), rather than letting such
candidates include that fact in the candidate statements they lodge. That
institutionalized "helping hand" has the effect of concentrating
establishment votes on those candidates alone, and there are, by definition,
never more of such candidates than the number of positions to be filled. This
inequitable ballot rule can result in votes for other than incumbents being
dispersed among what is often a large field of non-incumbent candidates. No
means are provided for the voters to have their votes transferred, in
accordance with preferences they indicate, from poorly supported candidates
to better supported candidates of their choosing, so that their votes are not
wasted. DETAILS
OF THE FATAL FLAWS: Failure to ensure
representation of over 50%: The plurality, relative
majority, or "first-past-the-post" idea ignores the fact that the
candidate or candidates with the largest number of votes does not necessarily
gain the support of any predetermined percentage of the votes. All that is
required is that the winner's vote total be higher than the rival totals, yet
that total might be so low as to leave a majority of voters
completely unrepresented by any of the multiple candidates
elected. This objection applies even when only one vacancy is to be filled. A
majority-preferential voting system (Senate 1919-48) requires that the views
of an absolute majority of voters, which is a number exceeding 50%, must be
given effect to. A quota-preferential PR system (Senate 1948-) gives effect
to well beyond 50% of the votes cast (all but a small percentage of unusable
votes). Splitting
the votes of a group owing to a proliferation of similar extra candidates:
All plurality systems suffer by leaving voters in a quandary if there is a
relative abundance of candidates with a particular viewpoint compared with
those of opposing viewpoints. A recent example was the first round of the 2002 French presidential election,
which resulted in even the strongest-polling candidate, the outgoing
President, Jacques Chirac, from the right, gaining less than 20% of the vote.
The left was also split, but slightly more so, with the result that the
second round, to choose between the two highest-polling candidates, pitted the
right against Jean-Marie Le Pen, rather than its realistic opponents, the
left. The result was a sham poll, where Chirac took nearly all the votes,
owing to the lack of a realistic opponent. Wasting
the votes of many of those voting for very strongly supported candidates:
Plurality systems being used to fill more than one vacancy as a group,
whether by the multiple plurality system described above, by cumulative
voting, or by a limited non-transferable vote suffer the flaw that very
strongly supported candidates can gain far more votes than they need for
election, thus depriving their supporters of the ability to have the
magnitude of their vote translated into an appropriate number of seats won,
leaving many seats won by very small numbers of votes left after a single, or
a few winners have gained most of the votes, with no provision for
transferring those votes as happens in the transfer of surplus votes in a quota-preferential
PR election. Unfairly forcing
some voters to support candidates they oppose: The
non-preferential nature of the multiple plurality system used in the above
examples is grossly unfair to voters that find the number of candidates they
consider to be acceptable is fewer than the number of vacancies to be filled.
Such voters are required, in order to cast a valid vote, to mark the balance
of their vote for candidates they oppose. The multiple plurality system
prevents voters indicating the ranking of their preferences for the
individual candidates, and forces voters to give them all equal weight. The
example in the table below shows how voters' power to give effect to their
priorities by marking preferences is suppressed. Plumping:
The last flaw above does not apply when only one vacancy is to be filled, nor
does it apply to the traditional, common law, form of plurality voting, which
allows voters to vote for fewer than the number to be elected, a practice
known as "plumping", which allows voters to concentrate
their voting power on those they support, rather than being constrained to
also vote for those they oppose, in cases where those voters support fewer
candidates than the number to be elected. That traditional form was practised
in British elections prior to the general abolition of two-member
geographical electorates for the UK House of Commons in 1885, as it allowed a
crude form of representation of minority opinion where such minorities were
large enough. HOW AN 80% VOTE WINNER IS DEFEATED BY AN UNFAIR ELECTORAL SYSTEM Multiple first-past-the-post systems prevent voters implementing their priorities, by suppressing notional preference votes.
* NOTE: To calculate this line, each of the notional preferences (1-5) above has to be treated as just an "X". |
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