A-Level Politics: Elections and Voting Systems

Every question here is descriptive. None asks which party is right, none names a real party, politician or result, and where people genuinely disagree about a system the disagreement is given as a disagreement rather than settled — which is also how the paper treats it.

The set begins with the arithmetic that makes the rest make sense. Four parties take forty-two, thirty-one, eighteen and nine per cent of a constituency's vote: the seat goes to the first of them, and fifty-eight per cent of the people who voted backed somebody else. Neither of those facts is a criticism; both are what a plurality count does, and the option saying nobody wins without half the vote is there because it is the answer students reach for.

The second question scales that up. A party takes three fifths of the seats on two fifths of the votes, and the answer has to be the mechanism — votes are counted seat by seat, votes for losing candidates count towards nothing, and votes piled onto a winner beyond what was needed count towards nothing either. Calling the result fraud, which is one of the options, mistakes a feature for a crime.

Four systems then get a question each, and each is described by what it gives the voter and what it takes away. A closed list buys proportionality with the voter's ability to choose or reject a particular name. The additional member system is described before it is named — two votes, a local member and a top-up — and the answer has to say both what it is for and what it produces, which is governments formed by agreement, because a more proportional count makes half the seats harder to win. The single transferable vote buys ranking and fewer wasted votes with larger constituencies. And the last question sets one set of votes against two ways of counting them, making an electoral system a choice between things people value rather than neutral machinery.

Three questions are about not overreading. A turnout figure among younger voters records behaviour and explains none of it, so apathy, obstacles and dissatisfaction all remain open. An advisory referendum result binds nobody in law where parliament is sovereign, and is nonetheless very hard to ignore in practice — two different statements that have to be held together. And two pressure groups, one with a seat at the consultation and one working through publicity, are classified by access rather than by size, with the point that success turns on what a group wants and whether the government of the day is listening.

Every constituency, party and figure described is invented. Nothing is reproduced from any exam board specification, past paper or mark scheme.

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• Work out a first-past-the-post result and state what share of voters backed somebody else
• Explain a majority of seats on a minority of votes by the seat-by-seat count
• Say what a closed list gives a voter and what it removes
• Describe the additional member system by its two votes, and say what it produces in government
• State the benefit and the cost of the single transferable vote
• Say what a turnout figure records and what it cannot explain
• Separate the legal and political standing of an advisory referendum
• Classify pressure groups by access, and say what decides whether one succeeds
• Treat an electoral system as a choice between values rather than as neutral machinery

Ten invented elections and arrangements: a constituency splitting forty-two, thirty-one, eighteen and nine; a party on three fifths of the seats and two fifths of the votes; a closed list; two votes and a top-up; preferences transferred in a multi-member seat; turnout of thirty-five per cent among the youngest voters against sixty-five overall; an advisory referendum carried by sixty per cent; a group at the consultation table and a group on the street; a legislature with two parties and one with four; and one set of votes counted two ways. Twelve flashcards carry the vocabulary — plurality, safe and marginal seats, proportional representation, closed list, additional member system, single transferable vote, turnout, advisory referendum, insider and outsider groups.