The United Kingdom's Electoral System: A Systematic Disenfranchisement of Students?
Democracy is merely an ideal - an abstraction that the preferences of citizens should be translated into representative institutions. Electoral systems are designed to most accurately align with the ideals of democracy and dependent on the public perception that these systems are fair and fulfill expectations. Like many others watching the exit polls, the December 2019 General Election results were unexpected to say the least, with the Conservatives securing their largest majority since 1987 while Labour faced their worst defeat since 1935. Unprecedented election results, such as this one, are understandably frustrating for many hopeful voters worried about the future of the UK and the fate of public services such as the NHS (a comprehensive article on this topic appears on the next page); however, understanding how the UK electoral system functions— whilst comparing its strengths and limitations to the systems employed by other democracies—offers a glimpse into how the 25.7 million votes cast actually translates into the formation of a government and what, if any, change is necessary going forward.
What are the options?
The importance of electoral systems is often overlooked. As the only form of political participation for most, the structure of these systems can have profound outcomes on the way a country is governed—such as by strengthening a national legislature over the sovereignty of regional lawmakers. The following will describe and compare the three main types of electoral systems currently used by democracies and will explore the consequences thereof.
The three main types of electoral systems are majoritarian, proportional and mixed. A majoritarian system defines winning candidates as those that gained the most votes in a given electoral district or constituency. Majoritarian systems can employ either single-member plurality systems —where every district only sends one representative to parliament—or multi-member plurality systems— where several candidates can be elected within a single district. The United Kingdom and many prior British colonies use the former, meaning that the candidate that wins the most votes within each district can become an MP. This is commonly referred to as firstpast- the-post.
The second type of electoral system, proportional representation, allocates seats—as the name implies—in proportion to the total number of votes for each party. There are many variants of this system with the most common using party lists. Party lists mean that the party defines the candidates which can assume office. Proportional representation systems are currently the most common system employed by democracies.
The third variant of electoral systems is a mixture of the majoritarian and proportional system. As such, voters have two choices on ballot papers: one for their most preferred party and a second for the candidate in their particular district. Thus, the party can influence the makeup of the parliament through party lists while candidates can also be elected directly by their constituency. The mixed system was developed (relatively) recently and is used in countries such as New Zealand and Germany. Although each of the three variations of electoral systems aim to achieve the same goal—to enable every citizen to have an equal voice in government— structural differences in systems have profound implications on the makeup of a legislature.
How do differences in electoral system structure affect policymaking?
The single-member district majoritarian system used in the UK was among the first to utilise the system of dividing a country into regions with each member of parliament representing their given region. Although this system has stood the test of time—still in use since the 13th century—it comes with numerous limitations, some of which contradict key democratic ideals. The primary limitation of a majoritarian system is that votes for non-mainstream parties are rendered nearly useless as these parties face tremendous obstacles to even gain a single seat in parliament.
For example, if a candidate of party A receives 40% of the vote in a constituency while candidate B only receives 35% and the remaining 25% to candidate C, candidate A will still be declared the winner, despite only receiving 40% of the constituency’s votes. This means that the remaining 60% of voters are represented by an MP whom they didn’t vote for. If democracy means that each person has an equal say in how a country is governed, then this system fails. In comparison, a proportional system does not suffer from this limitation as each party receives the same number of seats as the proportion of votes they received. Using the same example as above, assuming a legislature has 100 seats, party A would receive 40 seats, party B with 35 seats and party C with 25 seats. Hence, proportional systems better reflect the makeup of the electorate in parliament.
If proportional representation is ‘fairer’ than the majoritarian system, then why didn’t the UK adopt this system in the first place? The answer lies in the inexplicit strengths of the majoritarian system. Firstly, the majoritarian favours consensus within parliament by typically only enabling two parties to gain substantial seats with one representing the majority and the other the opposition. This contrasts with countries that use proportional representation, such as Italy, where many disagreeing parties with no clear majority cause a high degree of fragmentation and short-lived coalitions.
Without a clear majority, proportional systems struggle to effectively govern and develop policies. Moreover, as the party controls the list of candidates that can run for election, proportional systems allocate tremendous power to the individual parties themselves. Although parties can nominate candidates in each district in the majoritarian system, voters still have the ability to vote for an actual candidate.
The second strength of the majoritarian system is that it filters out extremes of belief. For example, if 5% of all voters favor an ultranationalistic, anti-immigrant party, in a proportional electoral system, that party would receive 5% of all seats in parliament. This is not the case in a majoritarian system. Only unless a party attain more votes than any other in a given district can they be able to send their candidate to parliament. Returning to the example of the ultra-nationalist party, only if the majority of voters in the constituency have an anti-immigrant, nationalistic mindset—an unlikely occurrence— could they overpower moderate voters and gain a seat in parliament. Thus, the structure of a majoritarian system favours more centrist, moderate parties whilst making it more difficult for extremist ones to gain representation. Whether favouring moderate parties conforms to the values of democracy is debatable, however, most accept this as a necessary compromise to ensure political tranquility.
Despite favouring moderate parties and filtering out those at the extremes of the political spectrum, the majoritarian system comes at a cost for newly established parties—often supported primarily by many young people— which have an increasingly more difficult ability to gain representation. This partly explains why the Green Party of England and Wales has experienced little electoral success whilst its European counterparts have made tremendous progress in recent years.
Even if the UK adopted a proportional representation for the December 2019 General Election—not compensating for changes in voter-favourability for smaller parties—the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green Party would have been able to secure dramatically more seats than they did under the current majoritarian system (see graphic). For this reason, an increasingly larger number of Labour MPs—led by the political pressure group the Electoral Reform Society—is lobbying to replace the first-past-the-post system with proportional representation.
Majoritarian System
Proportional System
What does this mean for student voters in the UK?
The structure of the majoritarian system has two key consequences for student voters. Firstly, because constituencies in the UK are determined based on both population and geographic area, this often disfavorus cities such as London, where the majority of voting students are found. Secondly, the majoritarian system favours moderate parties, hence preventing fringe parties primarily backed by student voters—such as the Green Party—from gaining representation in government. These two factors, often leading to student voters feeling disenfranchised, highlights the need for electoral system reform.
