The parliamentary vote is where you get to choose your local MP to represent your views and interests in Westminster. Elections for 650 members of the UK Parliament are held every five years. You vote for one candidate to become your Member of Parliament (MP). Most people choose a political party but you can also vote for an independent.
If no single political party gains a majority of seats, the Monarch asks the leader of the largest party to form a government. This is known as a hung parliament. Then, the leader of the winning party negotiates with other parties to form a coalition or leads alone for a short time before calling a general election.
In many parliamentary systems, laws can be challenged in court if they are found to be unconstitutional. But in other countries, the only check on a legislative body is to vote its members out of office at the next election. This is a powerful incentive for politicians to avoid passing bad law.
Many parliamentary systems use plurality voting to elect their parliaments, but other countries, including New Zealand and Ireland, employ proportional representation by single transferable vote (STV). With this system, voters rank all candidates in order of preference. Then ‘surplus votes’ are re-assigned to other candidates (those ranked second and beyond) until a winner is declared. This ensures that the most diverse group of voters are represented in a parliament. The system also guarantees minority rights to specific groups of voters.
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