Urgent Help Politics Unit

OP

im on Aqa and yeah i understand the electoral systems now , it was hard but am i right to say alternative vote is a mix between both the proportional and majority system ?
it has been proposed by labour recently , however it is suggested to exclude smaller parties?

Reply 4

AyanJ

im on Aqa and yeah i understand the electoral systems now , it was hard but am i right to say alternative vote is a mix between both the proportional and majority system ?
it has been proposed by labour recently , however it is suggested to exclude smaller parties?

Because AV retains the link between constituency and parliament, votes for smaller parties aren't going to be totaled up from across the country, so they're still gonna get fewer votes. Most people would go something like this on the AV system;
1) Labour/Conservative
2) Lib Dems
3) Minor parties etc

So, you can still see how minor parties would miss out.

Reply 5

OP

Okay im getting the hang of this i have a mock exam tomorrow at sixth form and its a total killer cos my teacher never taught us half the syllabus!

Pluarility is basically the candidate who gets more votes than his opponent wins?

Majoritarain is a system which believes a candidate must achieve 50% or more votes to win
the seat . Example : Supplementary vote ....

Proportional : This is the number of votes = number of seats.
Example : STV ....
But am i right when saying a quota is calcuated when the votes cast divided by the seats +1 ?

this is abit confusing and im still quite confused with ATM , ...

And Gordon Brown has decided to bring this AV electoral system in , so his party gains more seats and become a majority party and become a government...

Reply 6

AyanJ

And Gordon Brown has decided to bring this AV electoral system in , so his party gains more seats and become a majority party and become a government...

I don't think that's right - Labour's popularity has sunk so much that there's no way they could win the next election. AV is one of the most beneficial systems for the Lib Dems, since most people would put them as a second choice after either Labour/Tories. I think what they're trying to do is minimise the Conservative majority in favour of the Lib Dems, and banking on the fact that in the event of a hung parliament, the Liberals are more likely to come to Labour for a coalition (being ideologically closer).

Reply 7

OP

So if im right to say , an Alternative vote could help excluded parties such as UKIP and LIB DEM .
Alternative Vote is A System used in welsh and scottish assemblies , however its not proportional , so would that not produce unfair justice to smaller parties.

Reply 8

AyanJ

So if im right to say , an Alternative vote could help excluded parties such as UKIP and LIB DEM .
Alternative Vote is A System used in welsh and scottish assemblies , however its not proportional , so would that not produce unfair justice to smaller parties.

AV leads to a winner which has an absolute majority of votes, so it's far more proportional than FPTP, which only requires a simple majority winner.

In the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, they actually use the Additional Member System (AMS) which works like FPTP, but has a set number of additional "top-up" MPs whose spots are allocated due to the overall percentage of votes.

EDIT: Woops - AMS casts two votes, one for an MP and one for a party - the MP wins via simple majority in that constituency, while the party's votes are tallied up from all the constiuencies where seats are allocated proportionally according to the percentages.

Reply 9

OP

okay this is slightly confusing .... can you please just outline the types of systems ie proportional which electoral system it includes im quite confused i still have voting behaviour , and more to do . but i cant get my head around this!

Reply 10

ByronicHero

20

Google is there for a reason my lover =]]

<3

Reply 11

OP

Dont you think i have tried google loool.

Reply 12