The Impact of the Use of Proportional Systems in the UK :: Papers Government Voting

The Impact of the Use of Proportional Systems in the UK There are three main proportional representation systems that have been developed that try to ensure that party’s seats are earned more proportionally. The use of the Single Transferable Vote, List and Additional Member systems has changed UK politics, effecting representation, governance, policy and parties alike. The Single Transferable Vote system, which is very complex, is used in Northern Ireland for all but the UK election. It has helped widen representation and improve democracy. It has long worked with on the whole beneficial results in the Republic of Ireland (as we have seen), a country which had previously shared at least a part of the British parliamentary tradition. The Additional Members System (AMS) came about in 1998 as so did the Scottish Parliament due to the 1998 referendum which led to the Devolution Act. In 1999 and 2003 the conservatives received 18 seats through the List vote under AMS, giving them a much fairer representation of their support nationally in Scotland. The AMS in the welsh assembly has enabled more choice and consequently 50% of the welsh assembly’s members are female, the first democratically elected legislature to be able to say that. These results in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have reduced the probability of a single party gaining complete control of the legislative organizations which use these proportionally representative systems, therefore avoiding the single party dominance or even electoral dictatorship linked with first past the post system. Labour won 28 seats in the Welsh assembly in 1999, 3 short of an overall majority, meaning they had to form a coalition government with the Lib Dems, much to the Lib Dems satisfaction, as they support AMS for this very reason – it means a much less dominant party and so a government for the people and not the party. In Scotland a very similar case occurred with again falling short of a majority and again forming a coalition government with the lid Dems. The use of AMS & the resultant coalitions in Scotland & in Wales