To what extent do different electoral systems produce different outcomes?
In this essay I will assess the outcomes of Additional Member system, First Past the Post system and the Closed Party List system. The F-P-T-P system is used to elect the members of House of Commons and local government in England and Wales. Voters select candidates, and do so by marking his or her name with an ‘X’ on the ballot paper. This reflects the principle of ‘one person, one vote’. The Additional Members system is used in Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, and Northern Ireland Assembly and Greater London assembly. It is a mixed system made up of F-P-T-P and party-list elements. The Regional party list (or the closed party list) is used to elect the …show more content…
Thus Closed Party List system produces different outcome to other voting systems.
However, there is similarity between the outcomes of different electoral systems, as F-P-T-P can lead to coalition government. For example in 2010 general election a coalition was formed between the Conservatives (with 32.4% of the votes) and Liberal Democrats (with 22.0% of the votes). This suggests that coalition government still can be formed using F-P-T-P if neither of the two main parties have sufficient authority to run the government. Accordingly, third parties like liberal Democrats can in theory exert tremendous influence in such a situation since they can ally with one of the two main parties to form a coalition, which subsequently happened in 2010 elections. Thus, electoral systems do sometimes produce similar outcomes.
Moreover, all electoral system used in the UK provide geographical representation to varying degrees. For example in the 1974 election when Conservatives won 200,000 more votes than Labour but won fur fewer seats, as Labour had more concentrated support in certain degree. Furthermore, as AMS is a hybrid system which incorporates F-P-T-P system and closed party list system (which can be either regional or nationalists). Thus it can be said that electoral systems in the UK can have similar outcomes.
Furthermore, all the electoral