Voting systems are the methods we use to elect representatives, like MPs or local councillors. They lay out rules about the way votes are cast and counted.
Which system do we use in general elections in the UK?
In Britain, we use the First Past the Post voting system for general elections for Westminster. In general elections, people across the UK vote to elect a representative for their local area to the House of Commons. Winning candidates become MPs.
How does First Past the Post work?
When voting under First Past the Post, you’ll receive one ballot paper.
Only one MP can represent each constituency, and parties can only have one candidate for you to choose from per constituency. You get one vote, and must put an ‘X’ next to your single chosen candidate on a ballot paper.
The winner is whichever candidate receives more votes than any other candidate. The rest of the candidates don’t get a place in Parliament – it’s a winner-takes-all system. In fact, under First Past the Post, a candidate could win by just a single vote.
If enough MPs from a single party secure a majority of the 650 seats across the UK, they then are able to form a government.
Unfortunately, this system means that votes end up ‘wasted’, because votes for losing candidates in each seat don’t impact the election result. Shockingly, this can apply to millions of voters: in the 2024 General Election, 57.8% of votes were cast for candidates that weren’t elected.
Westminster’s broken system delivers unfair results
A real problem with First Past the Post is that it delivers parliaments which are not proportional. This means we get parliaments where the seats don’t closely match votes cast. And that means that thousands of people end up without someone representing their interests in Parliament.
To understand how this happens, it can be useful to think back to past election results.
In the 2024 General Election, in the constituency of Godalming & Ash, 23,293 people voted for the winning Conservative candidate. As they received the single highest number of votes, they won the election because of the rules of First Past the Post.
But 22,402 people voted for the second-place candidate. 9,001 voters combined voted for the other candidates. That’s 31,403 people who did not vote for the winning candidate – over half of all voters in the constituency – but whose votes made no difference to the results of the election.
Those 31,403 voices are now not reflected in the make-up of Parliament.
Under First Past the Post, seats simply don’t match votes.
First Past the Post makes voters reluctant to vote with their hearts
Many voters who understand that First Past the Post is a winner-takes-all system will turn to ‘tactical voting’. This is when you vote for a candidate other than your preferred candidate, to reduce the chance of your least favourite candidate from winning.
There are even websites that will tell voters whether they should vote tactically or not in order to keep out a particular party.
This isn’t how it should be. A fair voting system should empower us to vote with our hearts for candidates that we actually want to win. Instead, we’re forced to try to make a broken system work for us by voting tactically.
What is the alternative to First Past the Post?
Unfair results and disempowered voters are just two of several problems with Britain’s voting system.
To address them, we need a system that delivers proportional representation: the idea that the seats in parliament should be in proportion to the votes cast.
That’s why we’re campaigning for Westminster elections to adopt the Single Transferable Vote, a system which achieves proportional representation. We’d have a parliament that more accurately matches the make-up of votes cast, and voters wouldn’t feel forced to make tactical decisions.
Do you think it’s time for a fair voting system? Add your name.