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. For example, the 2005 UK General election results in Great Britain were as follows:
| Seats |
Seats % | Votes % | Votes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour Party | 355 | 56.5 | 36.1 | 9,552,436 |
| Conservative Party | 198 | 31.5 | 33.2 | 8,782,192 |
| Liberal Democrats | 62 | 9.9 | 22.6 | 5,985,454 |
| Scottish National Party | 6 | 1.0 | 1.6 | 412,267 |
| Plaid Cymru | 3 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 174,838 |
| Others | 4 | 0.6 | 5.7 | 1,523,716 |
| 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 over a fifth of votes but only about a tenth of the seats in parliament.
Read more about this topic: First-past-the-post Voting
Famous quotes containing the word effects:
“Each of us, even the lowliest and most insignificant among us, was uprooted from his innermost existence by the almost constant volcanic upheavals visited upon our European soil and, as one of countless human beings, I can’t claim any special place for myself except that, as an Austrian, a Jew, writer, humanist and pacifist, I have always been precisely in those places where the effects of the thrusts were most violent.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“I am fearful that the paper system ... will ruin the state. Its demoralizing effects are already seen and spoken of everywhere ... I therefore protest against receiving any of that trash.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.”
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)