First-past-the-post voting has been praised for promoting political stability by producing two-party or nearly two-party systems. Yet, as the outcome of the United Kingdom's recent election shows, that supposed benefit comes at the price of a government in which a minority can ride roughshod over the interests and preferences of more than half of the population.
NEW YORK – On the most important issue in the United Kingdom’s modern history – whether to leave the European Union or remain – the UK’s electoral system produced an absurd result. A majority of the UK public wants to remain in the EU, and actually voted accordingly in the parliamentary election on December 12. Yet the election produced a large majority for the Conservative Party, which backs a quick Brexit. The reason is as simple as it is troubling: the failure of the first-past-the-post electoral systems to translate public sentiment into reasonably representative outcomes.
NEW YORK – On the most important issue in the United Kingdom’s modern history – whether to leave the European Union or remain – the UK’s electoral system produced an absurd result. A majority of the UK public wants to remain in the EU, and actually voted accordingly in the parliamentary election on December 12. Yet the election produced a large majority for the Conservative Party, which backs a quick Brexit. The reason is as simple as it is troubling: the failure of the first-past-the-post electoral systems to translate public sentiment into reasonably representative outcomes.