First Past the Post (FPTP) is the name for the electoral system used to elect Members of Parliament (MPs) to Westminster.
First Past the Post, often abreviated to FPTP, is used in British general elections and in many former British colonies, such as the United States, Canada, India, and many Caribbean and African countries. Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Cyprus, Malta and South Africa all used to use First Past the Post, but have since stopped.
Most countries around the world use proportional voting systems. But, as India has over 800 million voters, most individual voters use First Past the Post.
On election day, voters receive a ballot paper with a list of candidates. As only one MP will represent the area, each party has only one candidate to choose from.
Voters put a cross next to their favourite candidate. As there is only one candidate from each party, voters who support that party but don’t like their candidate have to either vote for a party they don’t support or a candidate they don’t like.
Voters who think their favourite has a low chance of winning may vote for one they like less who has a better chance of winning. This is called ‘tactical voting’.
During UK general elections, 650 constituencies across the country each hold separate contests. To become an MP, a candidate needs the largest number of votes in their constituency. This means every MP has a different level of local support. After the 2024 general election the majority of people ended up with an MP they didn’t vote for.
This system means parties with support spread thinly across the UK may only get the largest number of votes in a couple of these contests, so they only win a few MPs. Parties with fewer voters, who live near each other, could end up with more MPs.
With a geographical base, parties that are small UK-wide can still do very well. This tends to mean that Westminster’s electoral system benefits nationalist parties. For instance, half of Scottish voters voted for the SNP in 2015, but the SNP won 95 percent of Scotland’s seats.
This means the number of MPs a party has in parliament rarely matches their popularity with the public.
Westminster’s First Past the Post voting system usually allows one party to form a government on their own. But these governments may only have low support with the public. In 2024 Labour won 33.7% of the vote and won 63.2% of MPs. In recent years governments have been formed on 35% (Labour 2005) and 37% (Conservative 2015) of the vote.
Westminster’s voting system creates two sorts of areas. ‘Safe seats’, with such a low chance of changing hands that there is no point in campaigning, and ‘swing seats’, that could change hands.
As parties want to get as many MPs as possible, parties prioritise voters who might change their minds and who live in swing seats. Parties design their manifestos to appeal to voters in swing seats, and spend the majority of their funds campaigning in them.
But policies designed to appeal to voters in these seats may not help voters in the rest of the country. Voters who live in safe seats can feel ignored by politicians.
Many swing seats have two candidates where either could get elected. But some have more. The more candidates with a chance of getting elected, the fewer votes the winner needs. In 2015 a candidate won the Belfast South election with only 9,560 votes, or 24.5% of the total, a record low.
As the number of MPs a party gets doesn’t match their level of support with the public, it can be hard for the public to hold the government to account.
More people can vote for a party’s candidates compared to the last election, but they can lose MPs. The reverse can also happen.
In 1951 and 1974 the party had the most MPs wasn’t the party that got the most votes from the public.
In New Zealand, the Labour Party won more votes than the National Party in 1978 and 1981, but the National Party remained the largest party and formed the government on both occasions.
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