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by wpietri 1277 days ago
> Isn't a parliamentary system effectively proportional representation?

Not necessarily. Imagine a country with four parties. In each constituency, they respectively get 40%, 30%, 20%, and 10% of the vote. Under FPTP, parliament is made up of all reps from the 40% party, shutting out other voters. Under PR, depending on variety you'd get results closer to the distribution of the votes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
1 comments
mjfl 1277 days ago
But I don't think that's how it works? I think parliament works proportionally?

See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_the_United_Kingd...

It is not the case that the conservative party got all the seats.

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tragomaskhalos 1277 days ago
Imagine there were 100 constituencies, and in every one party A secured 51% of the vote and party B got 49%. Under our current system, party A would have all 100 seats, and party B would have no representation at all; whereas under PR, A and B would (simpisticly speaking)split seats 51-49.
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scatters 1277 days ago
Worse, imagine that in 51 constituencies A gets 51% of the vote, and in 49 it gets 0% of the vote. This gives A a majority in parliament even though voters as a whole prefer B nearly 3-to-1.
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Tycho 1277 days ago
Why do people criticise FPTP using these hypothetical scenarios that do not resemble the actual outcomes.
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scatters 1277 days ago
Because they do resemble the actual outcomes. The 2 major parties in the UK regularly get majorities in Parliament on far less than 50% of the vote. In the USA gerrymandering has been brought to a fine art. How can this not contribute to discontent, when the majority of people get a government they didn't vote for?
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wpietri 1276 days ago
Exactly. A good example in the US is Wisconsin, where FPTP has been exploited heavily. See the top graph here: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-most-serious-c...
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Tycho 1275 days ago
It’s not like they’d be content with a deadlocked parliament where the ‘government’ they voted for can’t enact any policies. It’s good that there’s two dominant parties, both fairly central, who continually moderate their policies to keep high levels of support, and after an election, one of them gets to actually govern.
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phatfish 1277 days ago
First past the post means that everyone who didn't vote for the "winner" is ignored. No representation in their democracy.

As the other comment said, a party can in theory get 100% of the seats/power with 51% of the vote.

FPTP was more relevant when local politics mattered and local MPs actually made a difference to lives in their local area.

Post-war the only decision making that matters is at the national level which FPTP cannot represent fairly.

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