Lesson video

Hi there, my name is Assistant Tomassi.

I'm here to work with you on your citizenship lesson today.

I hope you're doing well and I hope you've got everything that you need.

So if you're ready, let's get started.

So the title of today's lesson is, Are Elections Truly Fair? And that's part of the unit on the strengths and weaknesses of the UK democratic system.

Today's outcome, so by the end of this session, hopefully you'll be able to identify some different voting systems and analyse the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Key words for today.

We have election, the voting process to select a person for a public position.

General election, when the citizens of a country, the electorate, vote to elect a new government.

A general election in the UK happens at least every five years.

Constituency, the specific geographical area that is represented by each member of Parliament MP in the House of Commons.

First-past-the-post, the voting system used in the UK to elect members of some local councils and members of Parliament, whereby the candidate with the most votes in a constituency wins.

And proportional representation, an electoral system where political parties get a number of seats in Parliament that matches the percentage of votes they receive in an election.

If you keep an eye out for these key words, you'll see them in bold throughout the session.

So are elections truly fair? Our first outline we're gonna look through is what is the role of elections in a democracy? Elections are the voting process to select a person for a public position.

They link to the following key features of a democracy.

Multiparty system.

So a multiparty system, think multi, meaning many, is that there is more than one party.

There tends to be a choice or an option, and there are lots of different parties that exist.

Take an example in the UK here.

Can you think of any different political parties? Think obviously might have Labour in charge at the moment, but we've also got the Conservatives, the Lib Dems, the Green Party and the list goes on.

They link to protection of human rights, so we'll go through that.

It links to active citizenship and remembering what active citizenship means.

So this idea that the citizens get to be involved and participate in what's going on.

And then rule of law.

Do you remember what rule of law is? So that idea that nobody is above the law, not even the king or the monarch.

No one.

So let's make a start, multiparty system.

Obviously, you explained that it's the idea of different parties, and by having an election, it allows for these multiple political parties to exist because voters get to choose.

So if we didn't have a multiparty, what are the options gonna be for them to vote for? It means that it gives legitimacy to governments and politicians, this is because the fact that then when they've been elected in, it means that people have opted to choose and pick them out of a choice of different candidates.

So then people are more likely to go, okay, actually, I believe, or back in there's some ideas that they might agree with what they're doing.

We've got Andeep here, Andeep says, "How many candidates were there in the 2024 UK general election?" Alex says, "There were 4515 candidates from almost 100 different political parties." Yeah, so that's a lot.

So when we say multiparty system, even though I kind of only named about five or six earlier, there was over 100 different political parties just in the 2024 election.

Now, obviously, each time there's general election as well, there might be different political parties that come in and out, and we've even got the idea that people can be independent candidates as well.

So there's so much variety that allows for different voices to be heard.

So talking more about the independent candidates, these are people that don't belong to a political party, so they're not affiliated with the ideas of a party.

They might have their own ideas or their own manifestos that they wanna get through.

So in 2024 UK general election, there were 459 independent candidates, which is double the amount of the previous election in 2019, and of that, six were elected.

So just off of their own back in their constituencies, they managed to get elected.

Another idea in terms of the multiparty system, we have the Green Party as well, who won 6.

7% of the votes and they got four candidates who were elected.

So it's this idea that there are different types of both political parties and independent candidates that can come through in a democracy by having a multiparty system and having elections.

Moving on to this idea of protection of human rights.

So if you have free and fair elections, it helps to promote diversity.

We're allowing a representation from a range of people, and by doing that, it helps to ensure that we are protecting everyone's human rights because you have different voices that can be heard in Parliament rather than just one group from one background or only one set of ideas coming through.

So it helps to promote freedom of speech, freedom of association, individual minority rights.

An example there.

So in the UK, the cabinet that was formed just after the 2024 election had the most female and state educated ministers in history, and this is something that's still ongoing and evolving.

Like previously saying democracy evolves, actually, part of that and part of having the cabinets and the government is constantly evolving as well.

Here you've got a picture of Rachel Reeves, who was the first female chancellor of the Exchequer elected in 2024.

Again, so looking at the how everything's evolved, if we go back just approximately 100 years ago, where women were just getting the start to be able to vote to now, you've got a woman that's in charge of the budget and she's the main chief financial minister for the government.

So it just shows the change that can happen, and then obviously the different types of voices, et cetera, that can be heard.

Next, we've got active citizenship.

So active citizenship is promoted through elections because citizens can participate.

You know, an election doesn't work without the citizens because they're the ones that are voting and they're the ones that folks get counted to elect a member of parliament in.

So this helps to ensure that the will of the majority is made clear, and again, it's providing a choice, so it's allowing the citizens to have a choice and feel that they have a say in what is going on.

Sofia says here, "I'm not sure about voting.

Can my vote really make a difference?" So thinking about that, do you think an individual vote can really make a difference? Now, it actually can.

We have this thing called marginal seats.

Now, when a member of parliament gets elected in their constituency, all the votes are counted.

A marginal seat is the one that is won with a relatively small minority, so normally less than 5% of the votes they've won with.

In 2024, so the UK general election, nearly one in five seats were won by a margin of less than 5%.

So what that's saying is actually every vote really did count.

To give you an example, we've got in London, Hendon was won with only 0.

04%, which actually worked out to be just 15 votes.

So had 15 individuals voted differently, there would have been a different result in that constituency.

So it shows the importance of each individual person's vote.

And there you've got the map.

So when we said we've got one in five, here it's shown on the map.

So we see all the grey areas, they're tiny, they're little hexagons, they're each constituency, and each of the different colours there that are shining up, so we've got the blues, the reds, the oranges, the dark grey and the yellow and green, are all examples of seats that are won under 5%.

A check for understanding now.

So true or false? Individual votes cannot make a difference to overall results in elections.

That is false.

Why? Marginal seats mean that there is a win of less than 5%, which means that every vote could impact the result in that constituency.

Next, we've got rule of law.

Obviously, we're saying rule of law is this idea that nobody is above the law.

Now, free and fair elections help ensure that the rule of law is upheld because they take place regularly.

So they make sure that leaders are held accountable for their actions.

So actually, if there was a situation where it looks like somebody's trying to go above the law or trying to take too much control over it, then by having free and fair elections, it means that actually a new election would be coming up soon and it would be then unlikely maybe that they would get back in.

So in this system, leaders are chosen for a legal and transparent process, meaning they're elected in a way that follows the law and reflects the will of the people.

We've got Lucas here.

"Is the general election the only opportunity for people to vote in the UK?" Sam says."No, there are lots of different types of elections in the UK." Did you know this? So if you did, can you think of any other examples of elections that aren't just the general election? We have lots of different examples.

So we have the general election, but remember, the UK is devolved as well.

So actually, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales each have their own assemblies and parliaments and vote for that as well.

You have local governments and councils, some local mayors.

For example, in London, they've got their own London Assembly, a mayor of London, and you also have the police and crime commissioner who can be elected as well.

So there are lots of opportunities in the UK for citizens to take part and be active in the democracy by taking part in these different types of elections as well.

So which of the following are types of elections in the UK? A, general election, B, local government, C, European elections.

It is general election and local government.

Now, we've got Lucas here saying, "European elections are held by the European Union, EU, to select members of European Parliament, MEPs.

Since leaving the EU, UK citizens can no longer vote in EU elections." So previously, when the UK was part of the EU, they did take part in this, but they no longer can.

To help form a full democracy, elections need to reflect the free expression of the will of the people by ensuring they are, held regularly.

Obviously, it'd be great if you have an election and then you don't have another one again, then it's not gonna continue to be a democracy.

Having a secret ballot.

So ensuring that people can feel that they can vote for who they want to and they're not pressured to vote for others.

Offering universal suffrage.

So by universal suffrage, we mean that the right to vote is offered to as many people as possible.

The majority rule.

And obviously, you've got it, the universal suffrage is all adult citizens have the right to vote as long as they meet the requirements set by the government.

Moving on to the task now.

So the task is for what is the role of elections in a democracy? You have here.

Elections play different roles in supporting the key features of a democracy, which include multi-party system, protection of human rights, active citizenship, rule of law and separation of powers.

In your opinion, which key feature of a democracy do elections have the biggest impact on? The second part of the task is to give a reason for why you think this.

So if you take a bit of time now, you can pause and then come back and we can feed back on this one.

How did you find that? So your answer could have looked like this.

If you picked active citizenship, maybe because some elections have marginal seats and win by such a small amount of votes, this means elections help to promote political participation as citizen can take an active role in choosing who they want to represent them.

Obviously, again, yeah, you could have linked to any of them and looked at how elections have the big impact on them.

So we're moving on to the second lesson outline for today, and this is what different voting systems exist.

So the map here, it shows different voting systems across the world.

Now, the colours represent a type of voting system.

Red, we've got first-past-the post, blue, proportional representation, black, no elections.

Now, there are some other colours in there, but they are mainly a mix of the main voting systems or they take parts of it.

So the main focus that we want to focus on today is first-past-the-post and proportional representation.

So we're trying to aim to look at the red and the blue on the world map.

Now, we had there in red first-past-the-post.

Now, if you notice the little image of the UK there, obviously, that is because it follows the first-past-the-post system.

That is because we elect members of some councils and MPs.

The candidate with the most votes in a constituency wins.

Sometimes first-past-the-post is called a plurality system or winner takes all.

The candidate with the most votes wins, so even if they don't have the majority, so the idea of if you are in a race and you've got someone at the end, it is the first one to reach the end rather than trying to get the majority votes.

There are other countries that use first-past-the-post, and these are the United States of America, India and Jamaica.

How first-past-the-post works is, example here in Fruit Town, you've got a population of 100 people.

Now, with the votes, apples got 26, pears got 25, lemons have got 25 and oranges have got 24.

Can you think in first-past-the-post who the winner might be? It is apples, as they have the most votes.

Now, you might be looking at that going, but pears and lemons were only one behind.

And this is because it is this idea of a winner takes all system, so they were the first, they've got the highest number, therefore they win.

We have Sophia saying, "Only 26% of people voted for them.

That's not a lot of people." Izzy says, "Yes, but they only need the single most votes, not the majority." So this quite clearly shows you then how first-past-the-post works.

How does it work in the UK? Well, in the UK, we've got 650 constituencies and they each elect one MP.

So if you go back to when we looked at that map, each of those little hexagonals were a constituency.

So in that area, everyone gets to vote for an MP to represent them in Parliament.

Now, when the voters go to the polling station, they get to choose a candidate by marking a cross next to their name on the ballot.

The ballot paper will tell them which party each candidate belongs to or if they're independent, and all they do is just make one cross.

Those are then counted, all the votes are counted, and the one that's got the most votes wins.

Here shows you the number of seats each political party won during the 2024 UK general election.

So right there, obviously, you've got Labour with 411 seats, Conservatives 121, Lib Dems 72, the Scottish National Party 9, and then obviously it goes down for each seat.

This system then means it's quite simple, it's quite straightforward.

Everyone goes in, you tick one box, they count it, and then here the results are.

Now, Labour won 63.

2% of the seats, however, they only got 33.

7% of the votes when you look at the whole of the UK.

Whereas we've got Reform UK, who had 0.

007% of seats, and they won 14.

29% of the votes across the UK.

Some of these seats also might have been marginal seats.

So this is something to remember as we move on to, in a bit, looking at the advantages and disadvantages.

So the first-past-the-post voting system is also known as A, majority, B, plurality, or C, winner-takes-all.

It is B and C.

So if we move on to proportional representation, now this is a system in which parties are represented in Parliament according to the number of people who voted for them.

So the share of the seats matches the share of votes it receives.

So when we saw that last graph and we saw the difference between the percentage of votes and the percentage of seats, this wouldn't happen in proportional representation.

What happens instead is when they go to vote, parties will have a list of prospective candidates and they are, candidates are then allocated seats based on their popularity in the party.

So if that candidate received the most votes and they had a seat, it would be the candidate with the most votes that got that seat.

Some of the countries that use proportional representation include Denmark, Finland, Greece, and Norway.

So just to explain a little bit more how proportional representation works, if we go back to Fruit Town that we looked at earlier, and we had the apples with 26, pears 25, lemons 25, and oranges 24 votes.

Do you remember in first-past-the-post who won? So that was the apples.

Now, the difference with proportional representation here is there is not gonna be one winner.

If four seats were available rather than apples having all four seats, this time apples would get 26% of the seats, pears get 25%, lemons get 25%, and oranges get 24%.

So roughly, they would get a seat each, and it would be their most popular candidate that would get that seat.

So it works a little bit differently.

Here, just to kind of compare them and show you both systems and how they work, this table shows the top six vote shares from the UK 2024 general election.

Now, obviously, this isn't all of the votes, because if you remember, we had a lot of parties.

So I've just shown you the top six.

We've got the top there.

We had with the most seats one was Labour, and they had a vote share of 33.

7%.

Conservatives, then won the next amount of seats with 121 seats and 23.

7%.

We spoke about earlier had 14.

29%.

They got five seats.

The Lib Dems, 12.

22%, with 72 seats.

Green Party, 6.

4%, with four seats.

And the SNP, Scottish National Party, with 2.

52%, and they got nine seats.

Now, if we have a look how that would look in proportional representation.

So if proportional representation was used, there would be a huge difference to the UK 2024 general election results.

So have a look at that next graph there.

Now, the plus or minus column at the end shows you how many seats they would have gained or lost if proportional representation was used.

If you take a little time, just have a look at that.

It shows that first-past-the-post and proportional representation, there is a very difference in the outcome that happens.

Again, we'll talk about the pros and cons of each as we move on, but at the moment, just have a look at them.

So proportional representation allows smaller parties to win seats in government as that matches the percentage of votes they receive.

Now, this ensures their share of power reflects their level of support.

So what it can offer is mean that there's a broader range of political views represented in decision making.

True or false? Proportional representation is when candidate with the most votes wins.

That is false.

Why? That describes the first-past-the-post system.

Proportional representation is when the share of votes matches the share of seats.

So we've got a task here, we've got Jun.

"We only have space to run one more after school club." And Laura says, "If we can only have one, we want to make sure it's one that people want to sign up to." Jun and Laura have decided to hold a vote to decide what club should run after school.

Their choices are football, STEM, art, debate or drama club.

First of all, pick a suitable voting system.

So remember, you've got first-past-the-post or proportional representation and create the ballot paper for the vote.

Second part, write instructions to explain how the winning club will be decided.

So you've got your clubs there, you've got your choices.

If you take some time now to pause, decide which system you wanna go with and get your ballot papers written.

How did you find that task? Hopefully you had a chance to come up with what the suitable system might be.

So if you picked first-past-the-post, your ballot paper might look like this.

So remember we were saying you just have to mark with an X with your favourite club, and your explanation could include, you will need to pick your favourite club.

Each vote will be counted and the club with the most votes will win and be the one we introduced.

In this scenario, it might be hard to do proportional representation because there is only one club that is allowed to win, so is why first-past-the-post might work better in this scenario.

But, if you did pick proportional representation, your ballot paper might look like this.

So it's this idea that you rank your choices in order of preference.

1 is your first choice, 2 is your second choice.

You can rank as many clubs as you like.

Now, your explanation could include, rank the clubs in order of preference, ranking as many or as few as you like.

If you don't want to vote for a club, leave it unmarked.

Each club will be assigned points based on the ranking, e.

g, first choice 5 points, second choice 4 points.

The club with the highest total points will be the winner.

Now, in this system, you might say it's more fair that people really want to go to, but it could take a lot more time and effort to put this system involved.

So you might decide this one's better for the choice, but it may take longer to implement.

So, we are moving on to our third and final outline for today.

And this is how fair are the different voting systems. We had a look at first-past-the-post.

What are the advantages of this? The idea, it produces a clear winner.

It's quite simple.

It is the first over that finish line.

So it's obvious to everyone who wins.

Now, that then leads on to the next point.

It's simple to understand.

It means that citizens can follow it because they can just quite clearly see this person's here, this person's here, and who's gonna win.

So, therefore, it doesn't cost as much to run.

Again, it goes back to that idea, there's one person in a box, tick the box, and we're moving up like that.

Which, therefore, means the results are calculated quickly and the vote can be announced hours after.

So there doesn't have to be that long period of waiting.

Quickly get the votes counted.

In goes the winner.

The advantages, also, it can create a closer bond with constituents and MPs, and it also tends to produce a two-party system, resulting in a single-party government.

So by that, then the government might be able to get more done because they're more likely to agree with each other on what they're putting through.

There are some disadvantages to first-past-the-post, though.

Now, these are that only the winning votes count.

So, actually, maybe, you know, like we saw in Fruit Town, 26% is the majority and has won, but actually, now we've got, trying to do quick maths, 74% who haven't got somebody in that they wanted.

So this means that we haven't got the majority of people's choice in there.

It can encourage tactical voting as well.

So this is the idea that if you know the candidate you really want isn't gonna win, you're gonna tactically vote for somebody else to get the person you really don't want to win in.

Which can get a little bit confusing, and also it could mean, then, that people still haven't got the person that they really wanted in.

Yeah, so that one can get a little bit messy.

We've got smaller parties with significant support can often be greatly disadvantaged.

So that's the idea that, actually they've got a huge amount of the vote share across the country.

However, they're not getting it specifically in their area enough folks to cause them to win, and then they don't get any seats at all, which we saw if you look back at some of the general election results.

There's also this thing called safe seats and it's this idea that some constituents have seats where they know a certain political party or person is going to win, and then the other voters who do not want that person to win may feel that there's no point in voting or they may not just then turn up and vote, which can then cause obviously the results can be not representative, again likely to the other reasons why if we haven't got people voting and we've got tactics etc it's not representative of all the voices in the UK.

So, true or false? First-past-the-post produces a clear winner.

True.

Why? The candidate with the most votes wins therefore it's clear to see who the winner of an election is.

Moving on to proportional representation, so the advantages of this is there's fewer wasted votes.

Every vote counts towards the representation so this way it might feel that people vote or voters feel that their vote is counting and they feel like they want to vote and get involved.

It also offers more choice to voters because they get that choice to vote for the candidate they prefer in the party and they get to vote for the party that they prefer.

This can make it fairer to minority or independent candidates because it's not saying if you don't get enough votes you do not get a seat, all the votes count towards that end percentage of representation, which leads to that final point, it's ensuring fairer representation, it's making sure that each percentage matches the amount of seats available.

There are some disadvantages to proportional representation as well, now these are this idea of more coalition governments, so what we're saying with first-past-the-post you tend to get a majority, not always but more likely to, whereas with proportional representation again if we go back to fruit town where we had 26, 25, 25, 24, they're all very similar numbers and they would have similar amounts of seats which means there is not a majority government in charge, and there would either have to be a coalition or a hung parliament, so in that case it could be harder to get new laws agreed by all because there could be discrepancies between each party and what they would like, which can also mean it could be more time consuming to try and get new laws in place as well.

Because you're voting as well for the MP that you're most favourable for, they might not have any links to your constituency, whereas first-past-the-post, again not always, but they're more likely to possibly live in the area and know your local area and want change in that as well.

If you've got somebody that hasn't got experience with it, it might be hard to relate to the locals and what they would like as well.

Another disadvantage is it can allow extremist parties into the political mainstream because even if maybe they have 3% of the vote that still is allowing the voices in to the parliament.

Check for understanding.

What is an advantage to proportional representation? It ensures fair representation, produces a clear winner, results can be calculated and shared quickly.

It ensures fair representation.

Lucas says option B and C are advantages of first-past-the-post.

Our final task for today, so we've got Lucas and Sam and they've been discussing which type of voting system is fairer.

We've got Lucas who thinks first-past-the-post is fairer because it's quick and easy to see who's won.

I think this is a fairer system because it's simple for citizens to follow and get involved.

Whereas Sam is saying, "I think proportional representation is fairer because seats are awarded depending on the percentage of votes each party wins.

This means more parties would have the opportunity to gain seats and as a result would be more representative of the electorate's views." Decide who you agree with more and explain why you believe this voting system is fairer.

So give you a bit of time, pause it, have a think about it, decide which one you prefer and then explain why and then we will come back and feedback in a minute.

So how did you find that final task? Did you decide which one you preferred? Now if you preferred first-past-the-post and answered Lucas then you might have said, I agree because it's more engaging for the electorate as they can easily follow the votes so everyone can feel involved.

Whereas if you agreed with Sam and you prefer proportional representation you might have said, it means there is an equal share of votes to the seats and you prefer that system because it allows smaller parties an equal chance to have their voices heard.

Now as you saw in the advantages and disadvantages, there are lots for both, so it doesn't quite matter which one you picked as long as you can see why you believe that that system is fairer.

And there is no right or wrong in this, hence even if we go across the world, we've got different people using different systems at different times.

So yeah that brings us on to the summary for today.

We have here elections linked to the key features of democracy including multi-party system, protection of human rights, active citizenship, rule of law and separation of powers.

There are two main voting systems, we've got first past the post and proportional representation.

Advantages of first-past-the-post include it produces a clear winner and is easy to understand.

However winners might have little public support and smaller parties with significant support can often be greatly disadvantaged.

The advantages of proportional representation include there's fairer representation and fewer wasted votes.

However it can produce more coalition governments which can make it harder to pass laws.

Hopefully you've managed to grasp the concepts there, as there were a lot of different ideas in this session today and hopefully you've enjoyed it.

So have a lovely rest of whatever you're going to do and maybe we'll see you next time.

See you later.