Table of Contents

First Past the Post System

Elections to Lok Sabha & legislative Assemblies, are held in accordance with First-Past-the Post (FPTP) system
Elections to Rajya Sabha and Legislative Councils are under the system of proportional representation through single transferable vote

How First-Past-the Post System Works

Voters vote for one candidate => candidate polling highest number of votes is declared elected.

Advantages of First-Past-the Post system

It is easy to understand for electors.
Counting is simple.
Leads to stable governments in diverse country like India
There is an identified representative for each constituency, accountable to his electorate.
Makers of our Constitution also felt that Proportional Representation based election may not be suitable for giving a stable government in a parliamentary system

Disadvantages of First-Past-the Post system

Winner takes all approach
Parties having diffused base are not able to win even a single seat
Results in Minority Democracy ruling the country. Eg : Present NDA Government got 37.4 % Vote (17th Lok Sabha)

Why we adopted First-Past-the Post system

Simplicity – Low literacy levels at the time of independence, and unable to understand the complexity of the Proportional Representation SYSTEM.
Familiarity – Before independence several elections were held regularly on the basis of First-Past-the Post system
Proportional Representation SYSTEM establishes party as a major center of power whereas First-Past-the Post gives an individual as a representative of the people

Why Opposition now

Opponents of First Past-The-Post (FPTP) system advocate the introduction of Proportional Representation System because of issue like in diverse country like India all people don’t get their legitimate representation. Eg in the general election of 2014, party like the BSP ended up without a single representative despite over 20 per cent vote share in state.

First Past the Post versus Proportional Representation

Comparison of FPTP and PR system of election
FPTP
country is divided
into small geographicval
units called constituencies
or districts
Every constituency elects
one representative
Voter votes for a candidate
A party may get more seats
than votes in the legislature
Candidate who wins the
election may not get
majority l) votes
Examples: U.K., India
Large geographical areas
are demarcated as
constituencies. 'Ille entire
country may be a single
constituency
More than one
representative may be
elected from one
constituency
Voter votes for the party
Every party gets seats in the
legislature in proportion to
the percentage of votes
that it gets
Candidate who wins the
elections gets majority of
vo tes.
Examples: Israel,
Netherlands

Hybrid System

Hybrid System : two systems are merged into one combining the positive features from more than one electoral system.
- Total seats are divided into Halves . Half of the seats in Parliament are filled by First Past the Post and Half seats by Proportional Representation
- System is running successfully in Germany, New Zealand and Italy.
- In Germany, while voting, Person cast two votes, one to Candidate and other to the Party .

Need of this system
- Parties with even 20% share of votes in state don’t even get one seat (as happened in 2014 National Votes in UP with BSP)
- Law Commission’s 170th and 255th report also have suggested that 25% more seats should be added to the present Lok Sabha and be filled by Proportional Representation.
- System running successfully in many European nations
- Better compromise between FPTP System and PR System