Alternative Voting Versus First Past The Post: A Simple Explanation

This week and last week I have been engaged in discussions about voting systems, specifically alternative voting and first past the post. These discussions highlighted the confusions and suspicions around the two voting systems. Although I found the differences straight forward I felt there was need to explain the two to the wider public. In this article I will give a simplistic explanation of these systems without being political.

First Past the Post.

Under this voting system Voters choose a candidate they want to vote for and they mainly do so by putting a cross or a tick in the box. The candidate who gets more votes than any others is elected, even if they only get one or two votes more than their rival.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantage of first past the post is that a candidate with less than 50% of the votes or the unpopular candidate can win the election. For example an election with three candidates: Tom, Dick and Harry. If Tom gets 40%, Dick 30% and Tom 30% of the votes, Tom will be declared the winner of the election. However a closer look at the votes shows that 60% of the voters did not want Tom. The example shows that even the majority did not vote for Tom, first past the post will reward him victory.

Another disadvantage of first past the post is that there some constituencies which are regarded as fully secured by certain political parties (Safe seats). Under first past the post voters and political oppositions are less motivated and this impacts on voter turnout and political participation. In the long run this impacts on democracy.

Alternative Voting

Under this system voters rank the candidates in the order of their preference. This is done by placing numbers, for example “1” on the first choice and “2” on the second choice and so on depending on the number of candidates. An important point to note is that voters can vote for one candidate. More importantly a candidate needs an absolute majority to be elected which is over 50% of the votes. Where there is no candidate with more than 50%, the least voted for candidate is eliminated and the votes are then passed on to the next candidate. This continues until there is a winner with more than 50% of the cast votes.

Disadvantages

Constituency literacy is very important when using Alternative Voting. Under the Alternative Voting system people need to be familiar with simple numerical numbers.
Smaller parties may be under represented under the Alternative Voting system because the voters are likely rank candidates whom they don’t know more about low.
Hopefully this has helped explain alternative voting and first past the post.