Editing Plurality voting (section)

=== General elections in the United Kingdom ===
The United Kingdom, like the United States and Canada, uses single-member districts as the base for [[UK general election|national elections]]. Each electoral district (constituency) chooses one [[member of parliament]], the candidate who gets the most votes, whether or not they get at least 50% of the votes cast ("first past the post"). In 1992, for example, a [[Scottish Liberal Democrats|Liberal Democrat in Scotland]] won a seat ([[Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (UK Parliament constituency)#Elections|Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber]]) with just 26% of the votes. The system of single-member districts with plurality winners tends to produce two large political parties. In countries with proportional representation there is not such a great incentive to vote for a large party, which contributes to [[multi-party system]]s.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland use the first-past-the-post system for UK general elections but versions of proportional representation for elections to their own assemblies and parliaments. All of the UK used one form or [[Party-list proportional representation|another of proportional representation]] for European Parliament elections.

The countries that inherited the British majoritarian system tend toward two large parties: one left and the other right, such as the U.S. Democrats and Republicans. Canada is an exception, with three major political parties consisting of the New Democratic Party, which is to the left; the Conservative Party, which is to the right; and the Liberal Party, which is slightly off-centre but to the left. A fourth party that no longer has major party status is the separatist Bloc Québécois party, which is territorial and runs only in Quebec. New Zealand once used the British system, which yielded two large parties as well. It also left many New Zealanders unhappy because other viewpoints were ignored, which made the [[New Zealand Parliament]] in 1993 adopt a new electoral law modelled on [[Elections in Germany#Election system|Germany's system]] of proportional representation (PR) with a partial selection by constituencies. New Zealand soon developed a more complex party system.<ref>[[Michael Roskin|Roskin, Michael]], ''Countries and Concepts'' (2007)</ref>

After the [[2015 United Kingdom general election|2015 UK general election]], there were calls from [[UKIP]] for a switch to the use of proportional representation after it received 3,881,129 votes that produced only one MP.<ref>{{cite web |title=Reckless Out Amid UKIP Frustration at System |work=Sky News |url=http://news.sky.com/story/1479845/reckless-out-amid-ukip-frustration-at-system |access-date=8 May 2015 |publisher=[[Sky News]]}}</ref> The Green Party was similarly underrepresented, which contrasted greatly with the SNP, a Scottish separatist party that received only 1,454,436 votes but won 56 seats because of more geographically concentrated support.

The United Kingdom continues to use the first-past-the-post electoral system for general elections, and for local government elections in England and Wales. Changes to the UK system have been proposed, and alternatives were examined by the [[Jenkins Commission (UK)|Jenkins Commission]] in the late 1990s. After the formation of a new [[Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition|coalition government]] in 2010, it was announced as part of the [[Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement|coalition agreement]] that a [[2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum|referendum]] would be held on switching to the [[Instant-runoff voting|alternative vote system]]. However the alternative vote system was rejected 2–1 by British voters in a [[2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum|referendum held on 5 May 2011]].