European Multi Party PR & American Two Party FPTP Electoral Systems: Built on Coalitions

The European electoral system is based on Proportional Representation (PR) with multiple parties while the American electoral system is based on the First Past The Post (also known as Single Member Plurality (SMP)) with only two parties.

Interestingly the Canadian and United Kingdom systems feature an FPTP voting system with multiple parties.

However both systems depend on coalitions to elect a government, the difference being when the coalition is formed.

In Europe you vote for the candidate or party that best represents your views and elect a legislature that represents the views of all voters, proportional to their support. The parties then have to co-operate and negotiate a government that has the support of a majority of the legislature (which reflects a majority of voters because of the Proportional Representation system). These coalition governments may be a coalition of parties on the left or right or a coalition of centre left and centre right parties. The whole system encourages co-operation amongst parties.

In the United States the party structure is made up of two, what some call “big tent parties”, one party for everyone left of centre and one for everyone right of centre, in effect two coalitions of voters. Theoretically this should result in a centre left and centre right party but obviously it does not always work that way. Although the current American political situation is not what one would call historically normal, with the Republican Party being taken over by fascists.

Interestingly, historically in Canada we had two major parties, one centre left, the Liberals and one centre right, the Progressive Conservatives (PC) until the far right took over the PC Party, even changing it’s name to the Conservative Party.

The American right of centre “big tent” party (as well as the Canadian one) has silenced the voices of the moderate and progressive right while the American “big tent” left of centre party has marginalized the social democratic left.

The Fifth Column contends that a Proportional Representation system does a better job of electing legislatures that represent the views of all voters, and governments that represent the views of a majority of voters. For non-legislature single occupant posts (such as president or governors) direct election using ranked ballot voting is preferred.