Election 2024: the performance of the electoral system 

The overall election has raised many questions on the functioning of the UK’s electoral system. On this publish, Alan Renwick focuses on two major areas: the First Previous the Publish guidelines that type the core of that system; and the standard of democratic discourse in the course of the marketing campaign. The election end result illustrates the arguments each for and towards First Previous the Publish; change on this space is unlikely. However, he argues, the necessity to enhance democratic discourse is extra urgent than ever. 

The 2024 normal election having concluded, we are able to start to evaluate how the voting system carried out. On one degree, the electoral course of was a convincing success. Nowhere did the system collapse. Nowhere are the outcomes contested. Dropping candidates up and down the nation accepted their fates – usually, although sadly not at all times, with good grace. As outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak mentioned in his concession speech on election night time, ‘As we speak, energy will change palms in a peaceable and orderly method, with good will on all sides. That’s one thing that ought to give us all confidence in our nation’s stability and future.’ 

Different points of electoral administration will take longer to assemble proof on. There have been quite a few experiences in the course of the marketing campaign of voters not receiving their postal ballots on time, and a few councils took emergency measures in response. The Electoral Fee will now accumulate thorough proof on the extent of the issues, and should advocate reforms. That is no trifling matter: over a fifth of voters now solid their ballots by publish, they usually want to have the ability to take part with confidence. Equally, the affect of recent voter ID guidelines can even want cautious examination. 

This blogpost focuses on two different points of the election course of: the efficiency of the core of the voting system itself; and the character of political discourse in the course of the marketing campaign.  

The efficiency of First Previous the Publish 

UK normal elections use the First Previous the Publish electoral system. At the least at first sight, the election end result completely illustrated the instances each for and towards that system. 

The best advantage of First Previous the Publish – a minimum of based on its advocates – is that it permits the voters, somewhat than post-election negotiations between political events, to determine who will govern. It does this by, sometimes, giving a single social gathering a majority of parliamentary seats, so voters can throw out a authorities they dislike and set up one other. In reality, such clear transitions are rarer than the system’s cheerleaders would have us imagine: till final week, a safe governing majority for one social gathering had been changed by a safe governing majority for an additional solely as soon as since 1945 – in 1970. However the election simply concluded has delivered probably the most decisive transition of the postwar period: a Conservative authorities initially elected with a majority of 80 has been changed by a Labour authorities with a majority of 172. 

First Previous the Publish’s critics, in the meantime, focus totally on the disproportionality of the outcomes that it generates. Parliament is meant to signify the nation. It can’t adequately try this if the seat shares of the assorted political events are markedly out of kilter with these events’ shares of the votes solid. Precisely how electoral disproportionality must be measured is debated. By any cheap measure, nonetheless, the 2024 election was – by a protracted stretch – probably the most disproportional since 1945. Determine 1 exhibits two such measures. The Gallagher index is probably the most extensively used, whereas the Sainte Laguë index, I’ve argued beforehand, higher captures the underlying idea. 

The main think about that sample was the over-representation of the Labour Celebration, which secured 63.4% of the seats on simply 33.7% of the votes. In absolute phrases, this was the most important over-representation for any social gathering in postwar historical past. As Determine 2 exhibits, it was additionally probably the most beneficial ratio of seats to votes obtained by both of the primary events over the identical interval. Reform UK and, to a lesser extent, the Conservatives had been in the meantime under-represented. For as soon as, the Liberal Democrats secured virtually their proportional seat share. 

The arguments each for and towards reform of the First Previous the Publish system thus appear to be strengthened by the end result. However now we have seemed to this point solely on the headlines. If we scratch additional beneath the floor, the election additionally illustrates these arguments’ weaknesses.  

As regards the case for First Previous the Publish, there may be clearly a problem in saying that the end result illustrates voter management over authorities formation when the profitable social gathering secured solely a fraction greater than a 3rd of the votes solid. Certainly, after we additionally take account of turnout – which, at 59.7%, was solely simply above the post-1945 low reached in 2001 – Labour’s declare to a governing mandate is, as Determine 3 exhibits, weaker nonetheless. Simply 20.1% of eligible electors solid a poll in Labour’s favour, beating the earlier post-1945 file of 21.6% reached in 2005. 

As to the pro-reform argument, the declare that seat shares should equal vote shares asks us to imagine that there are discrete viewpoints within the citizens that the assorted events signify, and that voters select the social gathering that’s closest to them. But the 2024 election has illustrated maybe higher than any earlier one which this image is simply too simplistic. Many electors voted tactically, casting their poll not for his or her first choice, however for a candidate they might tolerate who was higher positioned to defeat one other. Moreover, a number of events – notably Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens – ran very efficient focused campaigns, additional skewing the outcomes. We can’t learn off from the general vote totals what the events’ seat shares in a ‘truthful’ contest should have been.  

In sum, supporters of electoral reform will see their case as strengthened by this election end result, and can push exhausting for change; however advocates of the established order can even discover a lot to consolidate their present view. Having secured a landslide majority, Labour’s leaders are hardly more likely to search change within the system that gave them victory. And, believing within the worth of clear authorities accountability to voters and robust majorities, they might really feel that they’ve proper in addition to self-interest on their facet. At the least within the brief time period, subsequently, any shift away from First Previous the Publish appears extremely unlikely.  

But the long run is much less sure. The mixed Labour and Conservative vote share, at 57.4%, was nicely under the earlier post-war low of 65.1%, reached in 2010. As Determine 4 exhibits, this matches with a gradual, although jagged, pattern in the direction of higher social gathering system fragmentation evident because the Nineteen Seventies.  

Such fragmentation tends to make election outcomes much less predictable and single-party majorities tougher to construct, thereby weakening each the democratic case for First Previous the Publish and the big events’ self-interest in sustaining it. Ought to such tendencies proceed, core electoral reform could stand up the agenda within the years to return. 

Discourse in the course of the marketing campaign 

When democracy campaigners communicate of electoral reform, they have a tendency to imply the alternative of First Previous the Publish with some various. However the electoral system encompasses far more than that (see latest posts on the Structure Unit’s weblog on rule modifications since 2019 and on manifesto pledges referring to elections in 2024). I discussed postal voting and voter ID above. Questions referring to wider election administration and to marketing campaign finance additionally matter, as mentioned in a Unit seminar held in April.  

Maybe most essential on the broader agenda, nonetheless, is the discourse of election campaigning. As our latest analysis into public attitudes to democracy has proven, the side of democratic course of that folks within the UK are most dissatisfied with is dishonesty. Repeatedly, the proof we gathered pointed to the significance folks connect to integrity, truthfulness, and respect.  

Sadly, the marketing campaign confirmed quite a few examples of dishonesty and disrespect. Labour MPs Shabana Mahmood and Jess Phillips – each narrowly re-elected of their Birmingham seats – spoke of the aggressive intimidation and abuse that they and their supporters endured. An alleged audio clip of fellow Labour candidate Wes Streeting by which a voice sounding like his mentioned he didn’t care concerning the deaths of harmless Palestinians was assessed to be false by the BBC. On the opposite facet of the political spectrum, investigations by ABC discovered Fb pages producing Islamophobic, anti-immigration content material that ‘had the hallmarks of a Russian affect operation’.  

Such examples would possibly recommend that the issue was confined to the fringes of politics. However mainstream events produced misleading content material too. Conservatives portrayed a declare {that a} Labour authorities must increase taxes by £2000 per working family as ready by civil servants, although it was not; they later repeated the determine although it was branded unreliable and deceptive. Likewise, a Labour declare concerning the affect of its insurance policies on electrical energy payments was discovered to be outdated and deceptive. 

Extra broadly, the Institute for Fiscal Research accused all the primary events of a ‘conspiracy of silence’ over the tough selections that, in its view, inevitably lie forward, between tax rises and spending cuts. And, whereas probably the most abusive behaviour could have come from the fringes, the primary events had been responsible of adverse campaigning too. Outgoing Conservative ministers had been praised for magnanimous messages to their Labour successors within the wake of defeat; however hours earlier their social gathering was suggesting a Starmer authorities would imperil the nation.  

As our analysis confirmed, when folks complain of dishonesty in politics, they’re referring not simply to outright lies. Additionally they need politicians to talk brazenly about tough choices, even when the information is unhealthy, to keep away from optimistic spin, and to apologise after they make errors. Most individuals additionally desire a discourse by which campaigners respect the opposite facet.  

Politicians could pretty reply that such honesty would render them unelectable: that, no matter folks might want within the summary, they won’t vote for candidates who confront them with such exhausting selections. There may be additionally some proof that adverse campaigning works.  

However the conclusion that we must always draw from this isn’t that striving for enchancment is hopeless, however somewhat that the issues, and subsequently the options, are systemic. Neither blaming politicians alone for the ills of our up to date political discourse, nor simply exhorting them to do higher, could be sufficient. Fairly, as I’ve argued elsewhere, deeper modifications are wanted that can shift expectations and incentive buildings. Working in the direction of such modifications – in schooling, within the media, in how members of the general public are included in coverage conversations, in addition to within the functioning of parliament and authorities – must be a significant focus for all who care about our democracy within the years forward. 

Elements of this publish will seem in shorter type in a quantity of snap election evaluation to be printed on 15 July. We’re grateful to the editors of that quantity for permission to publish this materials right here. 

This publish is the newest piece of research from the Unit concerning the 2024 normal election. To see an entire checklist of our output (comparable to blogposts and experiences), go to the 2024 election part of our web site.

In regards to the writer

Alan Renwick is Professor of Democratic Politics at UCL and Deputy Director of the Structure Unit.