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
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How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan,
Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
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—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)