An unfair landslide?

The past fortnight has shown us that our electoral system can appear fundamentally unfair.

- MIHIR S SHARMA

Constituency-based first-pastthe-post (FPTP) voting, the electoral process used for legislatures in India, England, and the United States (US), seems to be only marginally reflective of real preferences in countries with only two real parties, like the US. But the moment that you have a more fragmented polity, this begins to fall apart.

In the United Kingdom's general election, for example, the Labour Party won a historic majority of 412 seats out of 650. That's over 60 per cent, closing in on two-thirds. Yet they won only 33.8 per cent of the vote. In other words, their share of seats was 1.9 times their share of votes far more than is normal. Meanwhile, the new anti-immigrant Reform Party had an excellent night: Its leader Nigel Farage finally won entry to Parliament on his eighth try. But the party won only five seats in spite of getting over 14 per cent of the vote. Its predecessor in 2015, the United Kingdom Independence Party, had won over 12 per cent of the vote but won a single seat.