[NEW] Essay plans for elections (3C)

This is long overdue, my apologies. This site boasts on average 6,00 views a day and approximately 13,000 per month and everyone has been asking me to upload more essay plans and whatnot, so here they are.

I did not create these essay plans myself, one of my tutees did. There are a range of new examples from this year and last year as my previous essays are too out-dated apparently and I have people complaining about an example from 2014 which I still think is very relevant. Some of these plans are fully completed, others have information missing.

More essay plans and notes to come.

To what extent is the system of nominating Presidential candidates in need of reform? (45)

PARTY DIVISIONS. Primaries are lengthy and have a tendency to create party divisions because they become really intense and as seen this year, toxic (NY Times). Personal attacks are increasingly likely; “You are the single biggest liar. You probably are worse than Jeb Bush,” (Trump to Ted Cruz) “Donald Trump’s consistently disgraceful” (Cruz to Trump) Trump completely divides the GOP.	Divisions can be easily repaired because of how long the actual process is, almost all fights during elections and divisions are healed by the end as seen through endorsements. Bernie fully endorsed Hillary Clinton Cruz, although initially refusing, endorsed Trump.
SUPER TUESDAY. Primaries are meant to be a lengthy process with consistency in debate, it should not be easy to predict a winner so early on as is enabled through the Super Tuesday which gives away over 50% of delegates in one day. This disenfranchises other states. 2016 has 4 super Tuesdays. Marco Rubio forced to drop out before Florida - his home state - even votes.	2016 is arguably an exception and an anomaly due to how radical the candidates are. Front loading was barely a problem in 2012. The last state can still have a large impact on the primaries and frontloading does not always allow an easy prediction of who the winner will be. 11 in 2012, 19 2016.
LOW TURNOUT. The turnout is generally low showing that the system is not appealing to the electorate and questions the mandate and democratic legitimacy of candidates nominated. Participation is needed for democracy to flourish. 2016 - 28% 2012 - 17% 2008 - 30%	Low turnouts show correlation rather than causation. Does not suggest why they are voting and cannot prove that the system is to blame. Could be disillusioned with Congress or Washington politics. Voters still use the primaries as a way of judging the candidates even if they aren’t voting in the primary.
LACK OF PEER REVIEW. Primaries test candidate campaigning skills rather than their governing skills. Voters lack peer review as they may be ill informed or may just vote out of emotion. Prior 1970s reform party bosses in smoke filled rooms made educated decisions.	In a media dominated 21st century, campaigning skills are just as important as governing skills. Weeds out weak candidates like Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina.
NEW HAMPSHIRE MYTH. It has been argued that the candidates that win the first primary and caucus in New Hampshire and Iowa will in the primaries. Eliminate the usefulness of state primaries.	This hasn’t occurred for the last three presidents (Clinton, Obama and Bush). Sanders won New Hampshire and lost overall.

Who votes for who and why?

• Republicans: Middle and upper class wealthy people because republicans tend to be fiscally conservative and cut back on taxation, which is something that appeals to the rich. Paul Ryan – Tax cuts grow the economy and create more jobs.
• Gun owners because republicans support the 2nd amendment. John McCain – prosecute criminals not citizens for gun ownership.
• Religious people because the Republicans tend to hold more conservative beliefs such as anti-gay marriage, anti-marijuana, pro family values and against gun control.
• Nativists who oppose immigration as seen through Donald Trump who even won the Republican bid for presidency.

Democrats

• African Americans  As the democrats are the party of the minority
• Immigrants and Hispanics
• Gay people
• Women – Lilyledbetter act, fair pay act and abortion.

Do propositions, referendums and recall elections enhance or weaken democracy.
Increase participation. Propositions and referendums could provide a specific issue that is attractive to a specific group of voters, which would perhaps encourage them to go and vote for the proposition as well as for a presidential election/mid term election. Additionally, propositions offer another form of political participation, something that is necessary for democracy to flourish. For example, the issue of marijuana legalisation has got a lot of young voters voting – this year in total (2016) there have been too many propositions for the legislation of marijuana (California 12m voted, Nevada). Political participation in the US is especially important because the turnouts at election time have been low in recent years.	However, despite them increasing participation, it is not always successful, some issues are more important than others to voters and therefore some issues will obviously gain much more attention by the electorate while others will be completely neglected. So, propositions rarely ever bump up the turnout. Less than 50% - Washington State Init. 1433
Knowledge and education. Gives a lot of people the opportunity to become a lot more engaged in politics as many pressure groups and parties will be campaigning, many views will be around propelled through the news. In a democracy it is important for a population to be educated on the issues. The electorate must be informed and educated on candidates and the general political climate of their country so that they may be able to make informed decisions on elections. Propositions and initiatives help to educate the public on such matters, informing them of what the current political agenda is. During the run up to the California propositions in 2016 such as Prop 66 many newspaper were pu3blishing guides entitled with something along the lines of “What is Proposition 66: Voter Guide” to educate the population about the proposition	Wedge politics. Many people already have engraved beliefs such as through religious principles like on abortion, the death penalty or gay marriage. The media may have a weak impact. Many issues like the death penalty, gay marriage or abortion are subject to wedge politics which splits apart a country which could lead to general disorder within a country through protests or even riots.
Forces issues to the debate. Propositions force certain political issues to be put on the agenda for political debate. Many issues may be neglected by politicians and they may not be sympathetic to such issues and therefore may not be acting on them, propositions allow for ignored issues or issues not being well tackled to be forced straight into the political debate and allow for people to decide on them for themselves. This is a form of direct democracy, some issues may be too sensitive or too controversial to be decided on by just politicians and so the people get a say in them as well.	However, this arguably does not enhance democracy simply because many of the issues which are put on the ballot are issues pushed forward by a small minority of wealthy pressure groups, hinting at an elitist society. So this means that only a narrow number of political issues are actually put on the ballot and many others are excluded because smaller groups are unable to meet the requirements to put their issue on the ballot. For example:  With just weeks to gather more than 61,000 signatures, the campaign to authorize a casino in southern Maine reportedly offered circulators up to $10 per signature. 2016
Accountability. Through initiatives and propositions, the people are able to hold their elected officials to account. They can bring up an issue that the representative promised to commit to during their election, making them campaign for it, or generally implement it/work towards it. Recall of an election allows them to hold a politician to account where they essentially hold a re-election which they could use to disapprove or approve of their candidate by voting out or in the candidate. The Colorado recall election of 2013 was a successful effort to recall two Democratic members of the Colorado Senate following their support of new gun control legislation. Initially four politicians were targeted, John Morse and State Senator Angela Giron. Replaced by two Republicans.

Why are US presidential election campaigns so long?

1. The invisible primary lasts a minimum of a year which allows the candidates to collect money, donors and supporters. Preparations are made so early in fact that some candidates have announced that they are running 2 years before the election even takes place. Jeb Bush announced his that he would be running for president in 2014 and his invisible primary had technically begun since then.
2. Frontloading means that the invisible primary must start even earlier to allow for a greater deal for money to be raised as if the primaries are shortened by heavy frontloading, there is less time to raise money unless the invisible primary is prolonged. Hence Jeb Bush starting two years prior while this year there was a huge level of frontloading in the form of 4 super tuesdays and a super saturday.
3. The electoral college could lead to battles in the supreme court or in politics in general as was seen in 2000 when Al Gore took it to the Supreme Court due to him winning the popular vote but not the electoral college. This happened again this year but there was little to no backlash over it and no supreme court cases.
4. There are useless events such as the National Convention where a winner emerges, a vice president is selected and a party starts. This happens despite the winner having already been announced and the Vice President is now rarely actually even selected during the National Convention. It usually occurs long before the national convention begins.

Analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the Electoral College

1. It suppresses the popular will, allowing a candidate to win despite losing the popular vote. It is therefore democratic as the winner is not winning by a majority of the vote as was seen in 2016 when Donald Trump won despite having around 2 million less votes than Hillary Clinton.
2. It requires candidates to campaign for all regions in America and to focus on key group of voters meaning that they are able to assess  their distinct issues. Such as how Hillary has been able to focus heavily on minority rights, while Donald Trump has focused heavily on immigration.
3. Some states are heavily democrat and heavily republican meaning that some candidates would pay less attention to some specific states such as how Democrats would hardly try to get Texas to vote for them and the Republicans would rarely attempt to win in California.
4. Candidates from minor parties have almost no ability to win unless they have very high levels of support in specific states when in truth they only have a small amount of support in every state.
5. Rogue electors

Reforming the presidential primaries system

Reforming the presidential primaries system (essay plan)

Reform needed	Not needed	Conclusion
PARTY DIVISIONS. The nomination process produces a civil war mentality within each party; mutual disagreements can turn to insults and intensify to a point where it truly appears that the party is divided. The most notable example would be the rivalry between Hilary Clinton and Barrack Obama in the 2008 primaries, such divisions destroy party morale, take a while to heal and discourage people from politics.	Even if divisions do arise they can easily be ‘healed’ after the election as Obama did by appointing Clinton as Secretary of State. Or through the later stages of the election process, such as the National Party Conventions, which once again enthuse the party faithfuls and allow for wounds to be healed, for instance, Bill Clinton’s speech at the Dem NPC reassured everyone that he and Hilary will be glad to have Obama as President.	Party wounds are healed too late which can lead to candidates losing elections, though this has not happened in recent years it is very well likely.
TOO LONG. The primary process is far too long, on average the incumbent president and the challenging candidates spend at least 10 months campaigning for the nomination. The 2016 nomination process began in 2015 with Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Hilary Clinton announcing their intentions to run. Critics argue that by the time this long process ends, voters become apathetic, bored and unwilling to engage in issues since they’ve been over-exposed to them through the long campaigning.	The fact that it is long process is a good thing as it emphasises the fact that the nomination process is a grueling process for a grueling office. This ensures that the primaries are an effective weeding-out process in which weaker candidates stand no chance (as was the case with Jimmy Carter). Rick Perry, for instance, in 2012 was a top-tier candidate when he announced his candidacy (Aug ’11), but as the campaigning began he was revealed to be a weak and clearly unprepared for high national office and was forced to pull out of the race less than 6 months later.	Primaries have got exceptionally low turnouts (15.9%) nation wide, highest was in Wisconsin at 30.9% and lowest in Maine at 5.6%, evidently voters become disinterested in politics during this long process.
FRONT LOADING. Primaries are supposed to be a lengthy process but as a result of frontloading this is no longer the case. In the 2008 primaries a total of 20 states frontloaded to the first week of February. Candidates who are less known don’t have much time to build up their campaign teams nor raise enough money and are thus, more likely to lose. Also, the last states may feel disenfranchised, as arguably the winner will already be announced in the frontloaded primaries.	The frontloading tend reversed in 2012 in which significantly less portion of states frontloaded. The U.S is a large country and it is inevitable the primary process is going to be long regardless of frontloading. Also, by cutting the primary season shorter the presidential candidates are selected faster, thus allowing them to campaign as presidential candidates rather than nominees.	Regardless, frontloading disenfranchises states and eliminates lesser known candidates from the process and only allows the political elite to prosper through endorsement by political patrons like the Koch Brothers who pledged to spend $889 in 2016 endorsing certain candidates.
PEER REVIEW. Primaries lack peer review, prior to reform in the 1970s party bosses in smoke filled rooms selected nominees and these bosses knew the qualities required to make a good presidential candidate. However, today this no longer happens and voters are unaware of the characteristics and qualities required, instead of judging governing skills voters arguably look more at campaigning skills.	However, professional politicians do still have a say in the nomination process as seen by the introduction of superdelegates who amount of 20% of the total vote. Also, it is less elitist this way. And arguably, campaigning skills are just as vital in time when everything is dominated by the media. Ordinary voters understand that it is a race for a very demanding job and so, judge governing skills as seen by the fact that many voters perceived Obama as being the stronger candidate than Clinton in 2008. It also allows for unknown candidates like Obama to have a shot at presidency rather than Washington insiders like H. Clinton.	The vote of the superdelegates isn’t very significant and there is still a lack of peer review from professional politicians who know of the qualities required to make a good president, under the current system there is a risk of a weak candidate being selected.
TOO EXPENSIVE. The primary system runs on for so long that as a result they’re very expensive, in 2012 Romney raised $156m and Obama $300m. Their nomination came at a time of economic austerity, which is ironic; proves that American elections are all about paying to play. This makes elections disproportionate to opposition as well as minor party candidates who are excluded from the process and thus, further deepening the two-party system.	It is not the nomination system that is at fault here but the various Supreme Court decisions and the power of the First Amendment. Through rulings in the Citizens United and SpeechNow.org case Super PACs have been formed allowing for an unlimited flow of money to candidates. The McCutchen v. FEC decision illustrates that the cost of elections are just a problem that cannot be solved without inflicting on the Bill of Rights and thus, the primary system is not at fault here.	However, the primary system is at fault given the fact that it is dominated by the media too much and thus, people have to resort to Super PACs in order to support their candidate.
MEDIA DOMINATED. Disproportionate influence of the media have contributed to the impression that the system is flawed. The partisan nature of radio and TV debates and the modern day emphasis on personality politics has led to a significant increase in TV debates during the nomination process, personality-based politics rather than principled discussion.	However, the primary process being dominated by the media is also an advantage as it encourages voter participation if voters are continuously hearing and seeing campaigns on TV and the radio, and as demonstrated earlier, turnouts at primaries are low.	Regardless of the media turnouts remain considerably low and seem to be decreasing each time. The media has got a disproportionate amount of influence.

Electoral College 45 marker plan

“The system for nominating a President should be replaced by a national popular vote.” Discuss.

Yes	No
The Electoral College suppresses the popular will. The EC allows a candidate to win the presidency despite winning a minority of votes across the country as a whole. Happened on three occasions, most notably though was in 2000 when Al Gore won more votes than George W. Bush but lost the presidency in the EC. The other way in which the EC suppresses the popular will is through the existence of ‘faithless’ or ‘rogue’ electors who refuses to vote for their state’s preferred presidential candidate. Typically, electors will vote for a candidate the majority of the state support, but there are cases when this does not happen. For example, in 2000, Barbara Lett Simmons, an elector from Washington D.C abstained from voting for Al Gore to protest about the lack of congressional representation for Washington D.C. Since the EC’s establishment, there have been 80 faithless electors, while they don’t exactly affect the outcome of an election; they collectively mean that the wishes of millions of US voters were not respected.	It’s very rare that the popular vote winner loses in the Electoral College. In the past 125 years, the 2000 election was the only liability, and even that was really close (0.5% of the popular vote difference between Gore and Bush). Other occasions where the popular vote winner lost the EC was in 1884, 1872 and 1836. But they’re not really relevant given the fact US democracy was not developed much back then. The current system delivers an Electoral Win for a candidate who wins the national popular vote substantially as seen from Obama. Obama had done so twice, most recently by 51% to 47%. Although rogue electors are indeed possible, they’re rare they do not effect the outcome of the election and if it does, it can be dealt with by state law.
The Electoral College results in some votes being counted more than others, or they’re worth more. This is due to the structure of the EC as the number of Electors for each state is based on each state’s representation in Congress. Every state regardless of size has 2 senators, so states with relatively small populations are over-represented in the Electoral College. In 2012 for example, the 6 least populated states combined had the same number of EC votes (18) as Ohio. But Ohio’s population in 2012 was 3x the combined population of the 6 smallest states. Meaning that a vote cast in Ohio effectively carried less than one-third of the weight of a vote in one of the six smallest states. This is unfair, unrepresentative and undemocratic.	However, the EC ensures decisive results through a two-party system that gives voters a clear choice of two candidates. The president will almost ALWAYS gain over half the votes in the country and be seen as the one with a strong mandate to govern. The EC achieves this by ensuring the winning candidate wins both a plurality of the vote at state level and is able to appeal to voters across the USA. This makes it difficult for third-party candidates to develop high levels of support, which could consequently produce a winner with only 1/3 of the popular vote. A national party vote would make it easy for third-party candidates to pick up votes. They would be unlikely to win but would deny a candidate an absolute majority of the popular vote and thus weaken the president’s mandate to govern.
All of the states aside from Maine and Nebraska award their Electoral College votes on a ‘winner=takes-all’ basis. The majority of these states can be relied on voting for a particular party’s candidate. For example, Alaska will vote Republican and Minnesota Democrat. This means that the outcome of the Presidential election is decided in a small number of ‘swing’ states. In the run-up to the 2012 election, Obama and Romney spent almost $100 together on TV ads in the swing state of Ohio. They spent no money on California despite it’s population being more than 3x the size of Ohio. No money was spent in California because they’ve always voted for Democrat candidates ever since 1988. The EC means candidates can effectively ignore a large majority of states in their campaigns. They don’t visit the states, don’t advertise in them and do not address issues specific to them.	Through the Electoral College it is the STATES that choose the president, not a narrow majority of the overall population. If this is changed then one of the most major constitutional planks which reflect shared sovereignty of the US system will be removed: protecting states’ rights and interests. Someone saying this federal system is undemocratic clearly misunderstands the USA’s federal democracy. Representation within the EC is broadly proportional but it ensures smaller states also get the voice by giving them a minimum of 3 EC votes. A national popular vote system would mean the voices of these small states would be singled out. For example, in 2012 New Hampshire, Iowa and Nevada (less populated states) were 3 of the key nine swing states that got a lot of attention.
Those who oppose the Electoral College claim it to be an anachronism. The US constitution was written over 200 years ago, back when US democracy was less developed and there were only 13 states. The founding fathers were reluctant to place too much power into the hands of the people. But the country has changed significantly since then and is seen by the 17th amendment (allowed each state’s senators to be elected directly by its voters). Also, 26 states passed legislation that requires electors to vote in accordance with the wishes of that state’s voters. These 2 changes are but a few which emphasise the importance of people being able to vote directly for their representatives.	The EC requires a president to win votes from a wide variety of states. A president elected this way is more likely to govern with the interests of all American’s in mind, a national popular vote system would allow big urban states to impose a president on the rest of the country. This greatly increases legitimacy for example in negotiating with Congress over legislation. This somewhat happened in 2008 and 2012 elections, Obama had to win not only states such as Michigan and Ohio, but also Nevada and Colorado in order to assemble a winning coalition in the EC.

British Electoral Systems

Elections

 

First Past The Post (FPTP)

Under FPTP, voting takes place in single member constituencies. FPTP is a plurality system, meaning a candidate is not required to obtain a majority of the vote, instead they require the most votes. Voters are given only one vote, the system is very simple, voters will place an ‘X’ in the box beside their preferred candidate and submit the ballot paper. Whichever candidate achieves the largest number of votes is elected. This is known as gaining a plurality or simple majority.

Hampstead and Kilburn Constituency – May 6^th 2010

Candidate	Party	Votes	% of Votes
Glenda Jackson	Labour	17,332	32.8
Chris Philp	Conservative	17,290	32.7
Edward Fordham	Liberal Democrat	16,491	31.2
Bea Campbell	Green	759	1.4

Glenda Jackson won her seat by a mere 42 votes (0.1%) and 32.8% of the total vote. All the other votes were not taken into account, meaning they were wasted. Although Chris Philp came close to second place, only Jackson won her seat. Smaller parties were completely squeezed out of the competition.

Advantages

·       Creates a strong single government which are stable and cohesive, rarely collapsing

·       It’s a fairly straight forward system and the electorate are very rarely confused

·       Winning party has a clear mandate to carry out its programme of reform

·       Easily prevents extremist parties such as BNP or UKIP (arguably not a FAR right party) are unlikely to obtain seats

·       MP’s have a strong constituency link because they have a clear role to take up constituents interests and grievances. One MP servers one constituency.

·       Results are announced quickly

Disadvantages

·       The majority of the votes are usually wasted. In 2010’s general election 15.7 million votes were wasted

·       It has the tendency to systematically discriminate in favour of large parties at the expense of smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats and Green’s, thus offering voters an artificially narrow choice of candidates because small parties are guaranteed to do bad

·       A higher number of safe seats exist. East Ham constituency = 70.4% safe seats. 382/650 seats in the Commons are safe. There is no guarantee an MP who sits in a safe seat will be a good, sympathetic representative because its unlikely their seat will ever change

·       A majority is not required. It’s become the norm for MP’s to win their seats with less than 40% of the votes and 2/3 MP’s lack the support of a majority. This puts their democratic legitimacy to a question. Also, arguably they don’t have a clear mandate

·       The 2010 general election produced a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition (which FPTP usually never does), the coalition has no mandate

FPTP is used in general elections in the United Kingdom (electing MP’s)

ALTERNATIVE VOTE (AV)

AV is a preferential system where the voters have the opportunity to rak candidates in order of preference. Voters simply order candidates in order of preference using numbers, a ‘1’ for their first choice, ‘2’ for their second and so on until there are no more candidates or the voter no longer wishes to express their views.

Candidates are elected if they gain a majority of the first preference votes. If not, the candidate with the least first preferences is eliminated and their voters are redistributed among the other candidates. This process continues until one candidate has a majority of the voters and is elected.

In May 2011, a referendum to switch FPTP for AV was held, but the electorate gave a clear NO

Advantages

·       Stronger/Higher democratic legitimacy for candidates as all MP’s are elected on the basis of them gaining a majority, not a plurality. In 2010, 2/3 of MP’s lacked a majority of votes, this was the highest figure since the 1920’s.

·       Keeps out extremists

·       Has a very low number of wasted votes compared to FPTP because votes are redistributed

·       Produces a majority government

·       Very low safe seats compared to FPTP

Disadvantages

·       Not proportional representation and thus, may be unlikely in increasing representation of smaller parties because smaller parties are required to gain a majority of the votes which is very difficult for them

·       Donkey Voting – when the electorate vote in order candidates appear on the ballot paper

·       Despite candidates requiring a majority, votes are still wasted, but not as much as they are wasted for FPTP

·       More complex than FPTP

·       Minor parties continue to be unfairly represented

The Alternative Vote is used in general election in Australia

SINGLE TRANSFERABLE VOTE (STV)

STV is a form of proportional representation that uses preferential voting in multi-member constituencies. Although its perhaps the most complex electoral system out there, its favoured by many for its fairness and the amount of choice it gives voters.

Candidates are not required to obtain a majority of votes to be elected, just a ‘quota’, or share of the votes, determined by the size of the electorate and the number of positions filled.

How it works:

1.     Constituencies return more than one member each. In Northern Ireland the normal number is 6

2.     In order to be elected, a candidate must achieve a ‘quota’. The quota is calculated by the total votes cast divide by the number of seats +1

3.     Voters may vote for all the candidates in order of preference. Its not compulsory to vote for all candidates

4.     Voters may vote for candidates from different parties and may show a preference between candidates of the same party

5.     Candidates who achieve the quota on their first preference are elected. When this happens, their second and subsequent preferences are redistributed among the other candidates

6.     When ore candidates achieve the quota by adding redistributed votes to their first preferences, their spare votes are also redistributed. This continues until no more candidates achieve the quota.

7.     When the required number of candidates have achieved the quota, counting ends

Advantages

·       More choice is given to the voters than any other voting system. This in turn, puts more power in the hands of the voters, rather than the party heads, who under other electoral systems can easily determine who is elected

·       Fewer votes are wasted

·       Most voters can identify a representative that they personally helped to elect. In turn, this strong link increases a representative’s democratic legitimacy and accountability. STV has the lowest amount of votes wasted

·       Under STV, has opposed to hybrid systems, all MP’s are elected on the same basis, thus lessening the chance of there being animosity between candidates.

·       No safe seats, candidates cannot be complacent

·       Giving voters the chance to rank candidates = most disliked candidates cannot win because they’re unlikely to pickup 2^nd or 3^rd preference

·       Strong constituency link

Disadvantages

·       In sparsley populated areas, STV could lead to massive constituencies

·       Process of counting results is long

·       Donkey voting

·       Voters only tend to come into contact with candidates at election times

·       Multi member constituency = Ballot paper huge and confused

·       Extremist parties do well than in FPTP

STV is used in elections in Northern Ireland

SUPPLEMENTARY VOTE (SV)

SV is a shortened version of AV. Under SV, there are 2 columns on the ballot paper, one for voters to mark their first choice and one to mark their second choice. How it works:

1.     Voters mark one ‘X’ in each column, voters are not required to make a 2^nd choice if they don’t wish to

2.     All first choices are counted. If a candidate has reached a majority, they are elected

3.     If no candidate receives a majority, the top 2 candidates continue to a second round and all other candidates are eliminated

4.     The second-choice votes of everyone whose first choice has been eliminated are then counted

5.     Any votes for the remaining candidates are then added to their first-round totals

6.     Whichever candidate has the most votes after the second preferences have been allocated is declared winner

London Mayor election – 3 May 2012

Candidate	1st Round Votes	%	2nd Round Votes
Boris Johnson (Con)	971,931	44.0	82.880
Ken Livingstone (Lab)	889,918	40.3	102,355
Jenny Jones (Green)	98,913	4.5	Eliminated
Brian Paddick (Lib Dem)	91,774	4.2	Eliminated
Siobhan Benita (Indept)	83,914	3.8	Eliminated
Lawrence Webb (UKIP)	43,274	2.0	Eliminated
Carlos Cortiglia (BNP)	28,751	1.3	Eliminated

Conservative total: 1,054,811

Labour total: 992,273

The turnout was 38.1%, a decrease from 45.3% in the previous election

Advantages

•      Gives the voter more power because both first and second preferences are taken into account
•      Ensures the winner has a majority and thus enhances democratic legitimacy of all candidates
•      Strong constituency link
•     Ensures strong and stable government because candidate wins with a majority
•     Keeps out extremists out

Disadvantages

•     Winning candidate does not necessarily require an absolute majority
•     SV strongly promotes voting for only candidates from the 3 main parties
•     Minor parties do pretty crap

SV is used in London Mayor elections and Police and Crime Commissioner elections in England and Wales

REGIONAL LIST SYSTEMS

A closed list system is one where there are no individual candidates. Instead, voters are offered a choice of political parties. There are two types of list systems – CLOSED and OPEN. List systems normally include a threshold device. The threshold is a minimum proportion of the total votes that a party must receive to win any seats, if a party fails to gain the threshold, it is eliminated, and its seat distributed among the other parties. This is done so extremist parties don’t win. Keep in mind the UK is split into regions.

OPEN LISTS: Voters choose individual candidates from the list provided by each party and individual candidates are elected according to the popular vote – Here voters can show a preference.

CLOSED LISTS: Voters vote for the party and therefore the list as a whole. Candidates are elected in order they appear on the list (as decided by the party) until all seats are filled.

Voters are invited to vote for one list and the seats are awarded to each party in exact proportion to the votes cast in each region.

Advantages

•      Guarantees a high degree of party proportionality
•      Every vote has equal value
•      Tend to involve large multi-member constituencies which give more opportunity for wider                  representation
•      Proportional Representation
•      Less wasted votes
•      Extremists are screwed

Disadvantages

•      Closed party lists = Undemocratic because the party decide which candidate gains the seats, not the        voters.
•      Voters = Little power in terms of choice and leaders – likely to put ‘safe’ candidates at the top of the      list
•      Impossible to stand as an independent
•      High proportional systems with minimal thresholds can result in unstable multi-party governments
•      Extremists can do OK

Closed regional lists are used for British elections to the EU Parliament

ADDITIONAL MEMBERS SYSTEM (AMS)

AMS is a hybrid system. It combines FPTP and regional list systems. This helps to overcome the disproportionality often associated with FPTP.

A proportional of the seats are awarded through FPTP. The rest are awarded on a closed regional list system. This means that every voter has two votes. One is for a constituency candidate in the normal FPTP method; the other is for a choice of party lists. This system produces a more proportional result than FPTP.

1.     2/3 of seats are elected using FPTP, other 1/3 of seats are elected on the basis of a closed regional list system.

2.     The variable top up system (some complex calculation) adjusts the proportion of votes cast on the list system

3.     The seats are awarded from the list systems are adjusted to give a more proportional result

4.     Parties that do less well in the constituencies (Greens and Conseratives usually) have their proportion of list votes adjusted upwards. Those that do proportionally well under FPTP (Labour) have their list votes adjusted downwards.

The overall effect of variable top ups is to make the total result as close to proportional of total votes cast in both ways.

Advantages

•      Broadly proportional – better and fairer representation of parties
•      Each voter has at least one effective vote out of the 2
•      Each voter has a directly accountable single

Disadvantages

•      Not entirely proportional
•      Extremist parties have greater representation – there was a BNP member in the previous London Assembly (2008-2012 Nick Griffin)
•      Can be awfully complicated

AMS is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh and London Assembly

Electoral system	Benefits top two parties	Increase in nationalism	Turnout	Minor parties representation	Constituency link	Type of government produced
FPTP (Pluraity)	Yes	No	2010 – 65.2%	Poor representation	Strong	Single party
AV+SV (Majority)	Yes	No	SV – 2012 38.0%	Bad Representation	Strong for SV Weak for AV	Majority
Regional List + STV (PR)	Not necessarily	Yes/No Debatable	STV – 2011 54.9% 2009 – Regional – 34.4%	Fair because votes are transferred and its PR	Weak because quota is required and a lot of representatives exist	Multi party government
AMS (Hybrid)	Yes	Yes	2011 – Scotland 50.7% Wales 42.2%	Good representation	Strong	Minority government or two party coalition