Gavin’s Gaily Gigest

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Is First Past the Post Legal?

Tuesday 22nd January 2008 · 6 Comments

As any fool knows, we elect our MPs through a system commonly known as "first past the post", where the person with the most votes is declared the winner and sent off to Westminster to follow the orders of the party leadership like the sheep that they are. But is first past the post actually legal? Schedule 1, para. 18 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which a very helpful person at the Electoral Commission pointed me towards when I asked them, provides:

The votes at the poll shall be given by ballot, the result shall be ascertained by counting the votes given to each candidate and the candidate to whom the majority of votes have been given shall be declared to have been elected.

So the answer to my question then, is "no", first past the post is not legal. Majority means "50% or more" and it is quite normal for an MP to gain somewhere in the region of 30 to 40 per cent of the votes in his or her constituency and be declared the winner. If Parliament in 1983 meant to enshrine first past the post as the electoral system in this country, they should have swapped "majority" for "plurality".

So one final question: does this mean we can get the 2005 election annulled?

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Tags: Parliament



6 responses so far ↓

  • 1 James Schneider // Jan 22, 2008 at 6:37 pm

    STV it is then.

  • 2 Anonymous // Jan 22, 2008 at 8:57 pm

    Or AV, if the candidate must get a majority of the votes in order to be elected.

  • 3 Lee Griffin // Jan 22, 2008 at 11:00 pm

    Alas, if only this were true. Yet majority can also simply mean “most”

  • 4 Gavin Whenman // Jan 22, 2008 at 11:11 pm

    No, it doesn’t. For instance, if someone presented you with a statistic saying 34% of people liked green, 33% yellow and 33% purple, you wouldn’t say the majority like green, would you?

  • 5 Hywel // Jan 23, 2008 at 2:27 pm

    Sadly the OED defines majority as:
    1) The greater number or
    2) the number by which the votes cast for one party or candidate exceeds those for the next.

  • 6 No Proportional Representation under Brown // Jan 25, 2008 at 6:53 pm

    […] Is First Past the Post Legal? - 2 votes […]

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