Positives and Negatives of the UK Electoral System Term Paper

Positives and Negatives of the UK Electoral System - Term Paper Example The timing of general elections and the fact that a Prime Minister whose party has lost majority status might attempt to remain the national leader; the most positive aspects are the theoretical involvement of every citizen of voting age and the regularity in which elections must legally be held. The premise of the general electoral system is fully democratic and meant to benefit the voters over the ambitions of politicians.   There are many legal checks put in place to ensure that the will of the voters is carried out; the problem is that the interpretation of voter will is often ambiguous.   Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the electoral system is known as first-past-the-post voting (or the plurality system); this is where the candidate or party with more votes than anyone else is given the leadership position (Judge 185).   During a general election, Members of Parliament (MP) are elected from each established riding to occupy the House of Commons; the political part y with the most MPs elected will take control of the federal government and be responsible for all federal legislation.   What concerns many voters is that given the first-past-the-post method of voting, a very large percentage of voters can be misrepresented by the outcome of their local elections.   If a high percentage of voters vote for the losing party in their riding and this happens all over the country, the representation of political parties within the House of Commons can be very different than the actual percentage of votes that went to each party.   Other countries, like France, have tried to deal with this issue by using a two-step plurality system that takes the two highest vote receivers from the preliminary round of voting and holds another round with only these two.   In the UK, the concern that actual voting percentages are misrepresented in Parliament persists.   Where the existing government is concerned, one of the primary negative aspects of electoral process includes the fact that the government is allowed to call an election at a time that best suits the party (Ware 300).