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First-past-the-post_voting.txt Plurality_voting_system.txt
First-past-the-post voting Plurality voting system
A first-past-the-post (abbreviated FPTP, 1stP, 1PTP or FPP) voting system is one in which voters are required to indicate on the ballot the candidate of their choice, and the candidate who receives more votes than any other candidate wins. The first-past-the-post voting method is one of the several plurality voting systems. It is a common, but not universal, feature of voting systems with single member electoral divisions. The system is widely used in the United Kingdom and United States, most of their current and former colonies and protectorates, and a few other countries.

Overview

There is some confusion between highest vote, majority vote and plurality voting systems. All three use a first-past-the-post voting method, but there are subtle differences in the method of execution.  First-past-the-post voting is also used in two-round systems and some exhaustive ballots.

First-past-the-post voting methods can be used for single and multiple member electoral divisions. In a single member election the candidate with the highest number, not necessarily a majority, of votes is elected. The two-round ("runoff") voting system uses a first-past-the-post voting method in each of the two rounds. The first round determines which two candidates will progress to the second, final round ballot.

In a multiple member first-past-the-post ballot, the first number of candidates, in order of highest vote, corresponding to the number of positions to be filled are elected. If there are six vacancies then the first six candidates with the highest vote are elected. A multiple selection ballot where more than one candidate can be voted for is also a form of first-past-the-post voting in which voters are allowed to cast a vote for as many candidates as there are vacant positions; the candidate(s) with the highest number of votes is elected.

The Electoral Reform Society is a political pressure group based in the United Kingdom which advocates abolishing the first-past-the-post system (FPTP) for all national and local elections. It argues FPTP is "bad for voters, bad for government and bad for democracy". It is the oldest organisation concerned with electoral systems in the world. 

, all U.S. States other than Maine and Nebraska use a winner-take-all form of simple plurality, first-past-the-post voting, to appoint the electors of the Electoral College. Under the typical system, the presidential candidate gaining the greatest number of votes wins all of the state's available electors, regardless of the number or share of votes won, or the difference separating the leading candidate and the first runner-up. 

Example

Under a first-past-the-post voting system the highest polling candidate (or a group of candidates for some cases) is elected. In this real-life example, Tony Tan obtained a greater number than the other candidates, and so was declared the winner.

Effects

The effect of a system based on single seat constituencies is that the larger parties gain a disproportionately large share of seats, while smaller parties are left with a disproportionately small share of seats. It is more likely that a single party will hold a majority of legislative seats. In the United Kingdom, 18 out of 23 general elections since 1922 have produced a single party majority government. For example, the 2005 UK General election results in Great Britain are as follows:

Summary of the 5 May 2005 House of Commons of the United Kingdom election results (parties with more than one seat; not incl. N. Ireland)
|-
!colspan=2|SeatsThis table indicates those parties with over one seat, Great Britain only
!Seats %
!Votes %
!Votes
|-
|align=center |Labour Party
|355||56.5||36.1||9,552,436
|-
|align=center |Conservative Party
|198||31.5||33.2||8,782,192
|-
|align=center |Liberal Democrats
|62||9.9||22.6||5,985,454
|-
|align=center |Scottish National Party
|6||1.0||1.6||412,267
|-
|align=center |Plaid Cymru
|3||0.5||0.7||174,838
|-
|align=center |Others
|4||0.6||5.7||1,523,716
|-
!colspan=2|628!! !! !!26,430,908
|}

It can be seen that Labour took a majority of seats, 57%, with only 36% of the vote. The largest two parties took 69% of votes and 88% of seats. Meanwhile, the smaller Liberal Democrat party took more than a fifth of votes but only about a tenth of the seats in parliament.

Another example would be the UK General Election held on 7 May 2015:

Here, the Conservatives took 51% of the seats with only 37% of the vote. More significantly, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP together had fewer votes than UKIP but both gained more seats; with fewer votes, they together managed to win 64 times the number of UKIP seats in parliament. It should be noted that the Liberal Democrats also suffered under first-past-the-post, by winning only 1% of the seats on 8% of the national popular vote.

Benefits 

The benefits of FPTP are that its concept is very easy to understand, and ballots can be easily counted and processed. Alternative systems such as rank-based voting require far more work or processing power to tabulate results than a single choice.

Supporters of FPTP argue that it is the electoral system providing the best governance. It trades fairness in representation for more responsible government. Its tendency to produce majority rule allows the government to pursue a consistent strategy for its term in office and to make decisions that may be both correct and unpopular. It is also more responsible than other systems to the electorate, as at the next election a party that is viewed poorly by the electoral will have complete power handed to one of its rivals. 

Tony Blair, defending FPTP, argued that other systems give small parties the balance of power, and influence disproportionate to their votes.  

Allowing people into parliament who did not finish first in their district was described by David Cameron as creating a "Parliament full of second-choices who no one really wanted but didn’t really object to either.  Winston Churchill criticized the alternative vote system as "determined by the most worthless votes given for the most worthless candidates." 

Criticisms

Tactical voting

To a greater extent than many other electoral methods, the first-past-the-post system encourages tactical voting.  Voters have an incentive to vote for one of candidates they predict are most likely to win, even if they would prefer neither candidate to win.  A vote for any other candidate is considered to be likely wasted and bear no impact or benefit on the final result they would prefer.

The position is sometimes summarized, in an extreme form, as "all votes for anyone other than the runner up are votes for the winner".  This is because by voting for other candidates, they have denied those potential votes to the second place candidate who could have won had they received them. Following the extremely close 2000 U.S. presidential election, some supporters of Democratic candidate Al Gore believe that one reason he lost the election to Republican George W. Bush is because a portion of the electorate (2.7%) voted for Ralph Nader of the Green Party, and exit polls indicated that more of these voters would have preferred Gore (45%) to Bush (27%), with the rest not voting in Nader's absence.   The argument for this case is even more pronounced because the election was ultimately decided on the basis of the election results in Florida where Bush prevailed over Gore by a margin of only 537 votes (0.009%), which was far exceeded by the number of votes, 97488 (0.293%), that Nader received.

In Puerto Rico, there are three principal voter groups: the Independentistas (pro-independence), the Populares (pro-commonwealth), and the Estadistas (pro-statehood). Historically, there has been a tendency for Independentista voters to elect Popular candidates and policies. This phenomenon is responsible for some Popular victories, even though the Estadistas have the most voters on the island. It is so widely recognised that the Puerto Ricans sometimes call the Independentistas who vote for the Populares "melons", because the fruit is green on the outside but red on the inside (in reference to the party colors).

Because voters have to predict in advance who the top two candidates will be, results can be significantly distorted:

* In general, some voters will vote based on the sense that they not only need to think about how they will vote, but how all other voters will vote as well, which will influence and possibly change their originally intended vote (tactical voting).
* Substantial power is given to the media.  Some voters will tend to believe the media's assertions as to who the leading contenders are likely to be in the election.  Even voters who distrust the media will know that other voters do believe the media, and therefore that those candidates who receive the most media attention will probably be the most popular and thus most likely to be the top two.
* A new candidate with no track record, who might otherwise be supported by the majority of voters, may be considered unlikely to be one of the top two candidates; thus they will receive fewer votes, which will then give them a reputation as a low poller in future elections, perpetuating the position.
* The system may promote votes against as opposed to votes for.  In the UK, entire campaigns have been organised with the aim of voting against the Conservative party by voting either Labour or Liberal Democrat. For example, in a constituency held by the Conservatives, with the Liberal Democrats as the second-place party and the Labour Party in third, Labour supporters might be urged to vote for the Liberal Democrat candidate (who has a smaller shortfall of votes to make up and more support in the constituency) rather than their own candidate, on the basis that Labour supporters would prefer an MP from a competing left/liberal party to a Conservative one. However this is a subjective interpretation of the election, as it cannot be objectively measured.
* If enough voters use this tactic, the first-past-the-post system effectively becomes runoff voting – a completely different system – in which the first round is held in the court of public opinion. A good example of this is believed to be the Winchester by-election, 1997.

Proponents of other single-winner voting systems argue that their proposals would reduce the need for tactical voting and reduce the spoiler effect. Examples include the commonly used two-round system of runoffs and instant runoff voting, along with less tested systems such as approval voting and Condorcet methods.

Effect on political parties

Duverger's law is an idea in political science which says that constituencies that use first-past-the-post systems will become two-party systems, given enough time. Economist Jeffrey Sachs explains:

Duverger's Law is rarely seen in reality, with most first-past-the-post elections resulting in multiparty legislatures, the United States being the major exception.   There is a counter force to Duverger's Law, that while on the national level a plurality system encourages two parties, but in the individual constituencies supermajorities will lead to the vote fracturing. 

Wasted votes

Wasted votes are votes cast for losing candidates or votes cast for winning candidates in excess of the number required for victory. For example, in the UK general election of 2005, 52% of votes were cast for losing candidates and 18% were excess votes – a total of 70% wasted votes. This is perhaps the most fundamental criticism of FPTP, that a large majority of votes may play no part in determining the outcome. This "winner-takes-all" system may be one of the reasons why "voter participation tends to be lower in countries with FPTP than elsewhere." 

Gerrymandering

Because FPTP permits many wasted votes, an election under FPTP is easily gerrymandered. Through gerrymandering, constituencies are deliberately designed to unfairly increase the number of seats won by one party at the expense of another.

One example includes a hypothetical pair of parties called "Red-dot" and "Blue-dot".  In this example, the governing Blue-dot party wishes to reduce the seats that will be won by opposition Red-dot party in the next election. It creates a number of constituencies in each of which the Red-dot party has an overwhelming majority of votes (such as the district in the lower left hand corner.) The Red-dot party will win these seats, but a large number of its voters will waste their votes. Then the rest of the constituencies are designed with small majorities for the Blue-dot party. Few Blue-dot votes are wasted, and the Blue-dot party will win a large number of seats by small margins. As a result of the gerrymander, the Red-dot party's seats have cost it more votes than the Blue-dot party's seats. In the diagram, after the gerrymander, the Blue-dot party will win three seats and the Red-dot party only one seat, despite the existence of an equal number of voters overall for both parties.

Manipulation charges

The presence of spoilers often gives rise to suspicions that manipulation of the slate has taken place.  The spoiler may have received incentives to run.  A spoiler may also drop out at the last moment, inducing charges that such an act was intended from the beginning.

Smaller parties may reduce the success of the largest similar party

Under the first-past-the-post voting system, small parties may draw votes away from larger parties that they are most similar to and therefore give an advantage to another large party that they are least similar to.

In comparison, for electoral systems using proportional representation small groups win only their proportional share of representation. However, in PR systems, small parties can become decisive in Parliament, thus gaining a power of blackmail against the Government—a problem which is generally reduced by the FPTP system.  

Voting system criteria

Scholars rate voting systems using mathematically derived voting system criteria, which describe desirable features of a system. No ranked preference method can meet all of the criteria, because some of them are mutually exclusive, as shown by results such as Arrow's impossibility theorem and the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem. 

Majority criterion

 The majority criterion states that "if one candidate is preferred by a majority (more than 50%) of voters, then that candidate must win".  First-past-the-post meets this criterion (though not the converse: a candidate does not need 50% of the votes in order to win).  Although the criterion is met for each constituency vote, it is not met when adding up the total votes for a winning party in a parliament.

Condorcet winner criterion

 The Condorcet winner criterion states that "if a candidate would win a head-to-head competition against every other candidate, then that candidate must win the overall election". First-past-the-post does not  meet this criterion.

Condorcet loser criterion

 The Condorcet loser criterion states that "if a candidate would lose a head-to-head competition against every other candidate, then that candidate must not win the overall election". First-past-the-post does not meet this criterion.

Independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion

 The independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion states that "the election outcome remains the same even if a candidate who cannot win decides to run." First-past-the-post does not meet this criterion.

Independence of clones criterion

 The independence of clones criterion states that "the election outcome remains the same even if an identical candidate who is equally-preferred decides to run." First-past-the-post does not meet this criterion.

List of current FPTP countries

The following is a list of the countries currently following the first-past-the-post voting system.  

*Antigua and Barbuda
*Azerbaijan
*Bahamas
*Barbados
*Bangladesh
*Belize
*Bermuda
*Botswana
*Canada
*Cayman Islands
*Cote d'Ivoire
*Cook Islands
*Dominica
*Eritrea
*Ethiopia
*Gabon
*Gambia
*Ghana
*Grenada
*India
*Jamaica
*Kenya
*Kuwait
*Lebanon
*Lao People's Democratic Republic
*Saint Lucia
*Liberia
*Marshall Islands
*Burma (Myanmar)
*Maldives
*Malawi
*Malaysia
*Micronesia
*Nigeria
*Niue
*Oman
*Pakistan
*Palau
*Philippines
*Saint Kitts and Nevis
*Saint Lucia
*Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
*Samoa
*Seychelles
*Singapore
*Sierra Leone
*Solomon Islands
*Swaziland
*Tanzania
*Tonga
*Trinidad and Tobago
*Tuvalu
*Uganda
*United Kingdom
*United States
*Virgin Islands
*Yemen
*Zambia

List of former FPTP countries

*Australia (replaced by IRV in 1918)
*Cyprus (replaced by proportional representation in 1981)
*Germany (replaced by proportional system in 1918)
*Lesotho (replaced by MMP Party list in 2002)
*Malta (replaced by STV in 1921)
*Nepal (replaced by a mix of Party list and FPTP) 
*New Zealand (replaced by MMP in 1996)
*Papua New Guinea (replaced by IRV in 2002) 
*South Africa (replaced by Party list PR in 1996)

Other Uses

The Bahá'í Faith uses a form of multiple member first past the post voting among adult members to elect its governing councils at local, national, and international levels. Campaigning is prohibited. A plurality voting system is a voting system in which each voter is allowed to vote for only one candidate, and the candidate who polls more votes (plurality) than any other candidate is elected. In a system based on single-member districts, it may be called first-past-the-post, single-choice voting, simple plurality or relative/simple majority.  In a system based on multi-member districts, it may be referred to as winner-takes-all or bloc voting. The system is often used to elect members of a legislative assembly or executive officers. It is the most common form of the system, used in Canada, the lower house (Lok Sabha) in India, the United Kingdom, and most elections in the United States.

Plural voting is distinguished from a majority voting system, in which, to win, a candidate must receive an absolute majority of votes — i.e., more votes than all other candidates combined. Both systems may use single-member or multi-member constituencies, in what is referred to as an exhaustive counting system where one member is elected at a time and the process repeated until the number of vacancies is filled.

In some countries such as France (as well as in some jurisdictions of the United States, such as Louisiana and Georgia) a "two-ballot" or "runoff election" plurality system is used. This may require two rounds of voting. If on the first round no candidate receives over 50% of the votes, then a second round takes place, consisting of the two highest-voted candidates in the first round. This ensures that the winner gains a majority of votes in the second round. Alternatively, all candidates above a certain threshold in the first round may compete in the second round. If there are more than two candidates standing, then a plurality vote may decide the result.

In political science, the use of the plurality voting system with multiple, single-winner constituencies to elect a multi-member body is often referred to as single-member district plurality or SMDP.  This combination is also variously referred to as winner-takes-all to contrast it with proportional representation systems. This term is sometimes also used to refer to elections for multiple winners in a particular constituency using bloc voting.

Plurality/Majority systems in the broader family of voting systems

Most experts group electoral systems into 3 general categories:
* Proportional Representation systems;
* Mixed Member systems; and
* Plurality/Majoritarian systems;     

Voting

Plurality voting is used for local and/or national elections in 43 of the 193 countries of the United Nations. Plurality voting is particularly prevalent in the United Kingdom and former British colonies, including the United States, Canada and India. 

In single winner plurality voting, each voter is allowed to vote for only one candidate, and the winner of the election is whichever candidate represents a plurality of voters, that is, whoever received the largest number of votes. This makes the plurality voting system among the simplest of all voting systems for voters and vote counting officials. (However the drawing of district boundary lines can be very contentious in this system.)

In an election for a legislative body, each voter in a given geographically-defined electoral district votes for one candidate from a list of candidates competing to represent that district. Under the plurality system, the winner of the election then becomes the representative of the entire electoral district, and serves with representatives of other electoral districts.

In an election for a single seat, such as president in a presidential system, the same style of ballot is used and the candidate who receives the largest number of votes represents the entire population.

In the two-round voting system, usually the two highest polling candidates in the first ballot progress to the second round Run-off ballot.

In a multiple member plurality election the counting of the ballot uses an exhaustive iteration process using the same ballot papers to elect one person each iteration for each vacant position.

Ballot types

Generally plurality ballots (single-mark ballots) can be categorized into two forms. The simplest form is a blank ballot where the name of a candidate is written in by hand. A more structured ballot will list all the candidates and allow a mark to be made next to the name of a single candidate; however a structured ballot can also include space for a write-in candidate.

Examples of plurality voting

General elections in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom, like the United States and Canada, uses single-member districts as the base for national elections. Each electoral district (constituency) chooses one member of parliament, i.e. the candidate that gets the most votes, whether he gets 50% of the votes cast or not ("first past the post"). In 1992, for example, a Liberal Democrat in Scotland won with just 26% of the votes. This system of single-member districts with plurality winners tends to produce two large political parties. (In countries with proportional representation there is not such a great incentive to vote for a large party, and that contributes to multi-party systems.)

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland use the first past the post system for general elections in the UK, but use versions of proportional representation for local elections and European elections.

The countries that inherited the British majoritarian system tend toward two large parties: one left, the other right, such as the U.S. Democrats and Republicans. Canada is an exception with three major political parties consisting of the New Democratic Party which is to the left, the Conservative Party which is to the right and the Liberal Party which is slightly off center to the left. A fourth party that no longer has major party status is the separatist Bloc Québécois party which is territorial and concentrated in Quebec .   New Zealand used the British system, and it too yielded two large parties. It also left many New Zealanders unhappy, because other viewpoints were ignored, so its parliament in 1993 adopted a new electoral law, modelled on Germany's system of proportional representation (PR) with a partial selection by constituencies. New Zealand soon developed a more complex party system. 

After the 2015 Elections in the United Kingdom, there were calls from UKIP to change to proportional representation after receiving 3,881,129 votes but only 1 MP.  The Green Party was similarly under-represented. This contrasted greatly with the SNP in Scotland who only received 1,454,436 votes but won 56 seats due to more concentrated support.

Example

If each voter in each city naively selects one city on the ballot (Memphis voters select Memphis, Nashville voters select Nashville, and so on), then Memphis will be selected, as it has the most votes (42%). Note that this system does not require that the winner have a majority but only a plurality. Memphis wins because it has the most votes, even though 58% of the voters in this example preferred Memphis least. Notice that this problem does not hold anymore in the two-round system, in which Nashville would have won. (In practice, with FPTP, many voters in Chattanooga and Knoxville are likely to vote tactically for Nashville: see below.)

Disadvantages

Tactical voting

To a much greater extent than many other electoral methods, plurality electoral systems encourage tactical voting techniques, like "compromising". Voters are pressured to vote for one of the two candidates they predict are most likely to win, even if their true preference is neither, because a vote for any other candidate will likely be wasted and have no impact on the final result.

In the Tennessee example, if all the voters for Chattanooga and Knoxville had instead voted for Nashville, then Nashville would have won (with 58% of the vote); this would only have been the 3rd choice for those voters, but voting for their respective 1st choices (their own cities) actually results in their 4th choice (Memphis) being elected.

The difficulty is sometimes summed up, in an extreme form, as "All votes for anyone other than the second place are votes for the winner", because by voting for other candidates, they have denied those votes to the second place candidate who could have won had they received them. It is often claimed by United States Democrats that Democrat Al Gore lost the 2000 Presidential Election to Republican George W. Bush because some voters on the left voted for Ralph Nader of the Green Party, who exit polls indicated would have preferred Gore at 45% to Bush at 27%, with the rest not voting in Nader's absence. 

Such a mentality is reflected by elections in Puerto Rico and its three principal voter groups: the Independentistas (pro-independence), the Populares (pro-commonwealth), and the Estadistas (pro-statehood). Historically, there has been a tendency for Independentista voters to elect Popular candidates and policies. This phenomenon is responsible for some Popular victories, even though the Estadistas have the most voters on the island. It is so widely recognised that the Puerto Ricans sometimes call the Independentistas who vote for the Populares "melons", because the fruit is green on the outside but red on the inside (in reference to the party colors).

Because voters have to predict in advance who the top two candidates will be, this can cause significant perturbation to the system:

*Substantial power is given to the media. Some voters will tend to believe the media's assertions as to who the leading contenders are likely to be in the election. Even voters who distrust the media will know that other voters do believe the media, and therefore those candidates who receive the most media attention will nonetheless be the most popular and thus most likely to be in one of the top two.
*A newly appointed candidate, who is in fact supported by the majority of voters, may be considered (due to the lack of a track record) to not be likely to become one of the top two candidates; thus, they will receive a reduced number of votes, which will then give them a reputation as a low poller in future elections, compounding the problem.
*The system may promote votes against more so than votes for. In the UK, entire campaigns have been organised with the aim of voting against the Conservative party by voting either Labour or Liberal Democrat. For example, in a constituency held by the Conservatives, with the Liberal Democrats as the second-place party and the Labour Party in third, Labour supporters might be urged to vote for the Liberal Democrat candidate (who has a smaller majority to close and more support in the constituency) than their own candidate on the basis that Labour supporters would prefer an MP from a competing left/liberal party than a Conservative one. Similarly in Labour/Lib Dem marginals where the Conservatives are third, Conservative voters may be encouraged or tempted to vote Lib Dem to keep defeat Labour.
*If enough voters use this tactic, the first-past-the-post system becomes, effectively, runoff voting—a completely different system—where the first round is held in the court of public opinion; a good example of this is the Winchester by-election, 1997.

Proponents of other single-winner voting systems argue that their proposals would reduce the need for tactical voting and reduce the spoiler effect. Examples include the commonly used two-round system of runoffs and instant runoff voting, along with less tested systems such as approval voting and Condorcet methods.

Fewer political parties

Duverger's law is a theory that constituencies that use first-past-the-post systems will have a two-party system, given enough time.

First-past-the-post tends to reduce the number of political parties to a greater extent than most other methods do, making it more likely that a single party will hold a majority of legislative seats. (In the United Kingdom, 21 out of 24 General Elections since 1922 have produced a single-party majority government.)

FPTP's tendency toward fewer parties and more frequent one-party rules can also produce government that may not consider as wide a range of perspectives and concerns. It is entirely possible that a voter finds all major parties to have similar views on issues and that a voter does not have a meaningful way of expressing a dissenting opinion through his vote.

As fewer choices are offered to voters, voters may vote for a candidate although they disagree with him, because they disagree even more with his opponents. Consequently, candidates will less closely reflect the viewpoints of those who vote for them.

Furthermore, one-party rule is more likely to lead to radical changes in government policy even though the changes are favoured only by a plurality or a bare majority of the voters, whereas a multi-party system usually require greater consensus in order to make dramatic changes in policy.

Wasted votes

Wasted votes are votes cast for losing candidates or votes cast for winning candidates in excess of the number required for victory. For example, in the UK General Election of 2005, 52% of votes were cast for losing candidates and 18% were excess votes—a total of 70% wasted votes. This is perhaps the most fundamental criticism of FPTP, that a large majority of votes may play no part in determining the outcome. Alternative electoral systems attempt to ensure that almost all votes are effective in influencing the result and the number of wasted votes is consequently minimised.

Gerrymandering

Because FPTP permits a high level of wasted vote, an election under FPTP is easily gerrymandered. Through gerrymandering, constituencies are deliberately designed to unfairly increase the number of seats won by one party at the expense of another.

In brief, suppose that governing party G wishes to reduce the seats that will be won by opposition party O in the next election. It creates a number of constituencies in each of which O has an overwhelming majority of votes. O will win these seats, but a large number of its voters will waste their votes. Then the rest of the constituencies are designed with small majorities for G. Few G votes are wasted, and G will win a large number of seats by small margins. As a result of the gerrymander, O's seats have cost it more votes than G's seats.

Manipulation charges

The presence of spoilers often gives rise to suspicions that manipulation of the slate has taken place. The spoiler may have received incentives to run. A spoiler may also drop out at the last moment, inducing charges that such an act was intended from the beginning.

Spoiler effect

The spoiler effect is the effect of vote splitting between candidates or ballot questions with similar ideologies. One spoiler candidate's presence in the election draws votes from a major candidate with similar politics thereby causing a strong opponent of both or several to win. Smaller parties can disproportionately change the outcome of an FPTP election by swinging what is called the 50-50% balance of two party systems, by creating a faction within one or both ends of the political spectrum which shifts the winner of the election from an absolute majority outcome to a simple majority outcome favouring the previously less favoured party. In comparison, for electoral systems using proportional representation small groups win only their proportional share of representation.

Issues specific to particular countries

Solomon Islands

In August 2008, Sir Peter Kenilorea commented on what he perceived as the flaws of a first-past-the-post electoral system in the Solomon Islands:

Advantages

Preservation of "one person, one vote" principle

The arguments for a plurality voting system rely on the preservation of the "one person, one vote" principle (also "one man, one vote", or OMOV, or more recently "one member, one vote"), as cited by the Supreme Court of the United States, wherein each voter is only able to cast one vote in a given election, where that vote can only go to one candidate. Plurality voting systems elect the candidate who is preferred first by the largest number of voters, although this need not be an absolute majority. Other voting systems, such as instant-runoff voting, party-list proportional representation or single transferable vote also preserve OMOV, but it is not as obvious that they do so, because they rely on lower voter preference to enable a candidate to earn either an absolute majority (single member district) or a quota (multi-member district), respectively.

Moderation

Some other voting systems can end up giving a greater chance of victory to a candidate perceived as having extreme views. Under the first-past-the-post system, voters are often afraid of "wasting" their vote on a candidate unlikely to win, so they vote for the candidate they perceive as the least bad candidate who has a chance to win. Advocates of plurality voting suggest that this results in most serious candidates having to present a fairly moderate or centrist position. This is debated by advocates of other systems, who argue that ranked voting systems or cardinal voting systems, by getting more information from voters, allow a more rigorous definition of the word "moderate" and can be designed to explicitly favor candidates fitting that description.

Advantages compared to proportional representation

Plurality is often conflated with single-winner voting systems in general, in order to contrast it with proportional representation. In this context, it shares advantages, such as local accountability, with other single-winner systems.

International examples

The United Kingdom continues to use the first-past-the-post electoral system for general elections, and for local government elections in England and Wales. Changes to the UK system have been proposed, and alternatives were examined by the Jenkins Commission in the late 1990s. After the formation of a new coalition government in 2010, it was announced as part of the coalition agreement that a referendum would be held on switching to the alternative vote system. However the alternative vote system was rejected 2-1 by British voters in a referendum held on 5 May 2011.

Canada also uses FPTP for national and provincial elections. In May 2005 the Canadian province of British Columbia had a referendum on abolishing single-member district plurality in favour of multi-member districts with the Single Transferable Vote system after the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform made a recommendation for the reform. The referendum obtained 57% of the vote, but failed to meet the 60% requirement for passing. An October 2007 referendum in the Canadian province of Ontario on adopting a Mixed Member Proportional system, also requiring 60% approval, failed with only 36.9% voting in favour.

Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Republic of Ireland, Australia and New Zealand are notable examples of countries within the UK, or with previous links to it, that use non-FPTP electoral systems (Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales use FPTP in United Kingdom general elections, however).

Nations which have undergone democratic reforms since 1990 but have not adopted the FPTP system include South Africa, almost all of the former Eastern bloc nations, Russia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

List of countries

Countries that use a plurality voting system to elect the lower or only house of their legislature include: 

*Antigua and Barbuda
*Azerbaijan
*Bahamas
*Barbados
*Bangladesh
*Belize
*Bermuda
*Bhutan
*Botswana
*Canada
*Congo (Brazzaville)
*Cote d'Ivoire
*Cook Islands
*Comoros
*Dominica
*Eritrea
*Ethiopia
*Gabon
*Grenada
*Ghana
*Gambia
*India
*Iran
*Jamaica
*Kenya
*Kuwait
*Lebanon
*Lao People's Democratic Republic
*Saint Lucia
*Liberia
*Marshall Islands
*Burma (Myanmar)
*Maldives
*Malawi
*Malaysia
*Micronesia
*Nepal
*Nigeria
*Niue
*Oman
*Palau
*Saint Kitts and Nevis
*Saint Lucia
*Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
*Samoa
*Solomon Islands
*Seychelles
*Sierra Leone
*Singapore
*Swaziland
*Tanzania
*Tonga
*Trinidad and Tobago
*Tuvalu
*Uganda
*United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
*United States
*Yemen
*Zambia
First-past-the-post electoral system FPTP First-Past-The-Post First past the post First past the post electoral system Multiple member first-past-the-post voting First-past-the-post First Past The Post First-Past-The-Post Voting First Past the Post (FPTP) First Past the Post electoral system First past the post system First-Past-The-Post Method First Past the Post First-past-the-post election system First-past-the-post voting First pass the post Simple-majority
fptp simple majority multiple member first past post voting first pass post first past post election system first past post electoral system first past post method first past post system first past post voting first past post fptp first past post
first past post
WikipediaEntity
First past the post
 What is the more common name of this simple poultry system of voting? 

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