First-past-the-post voting in the context of "Politics of Northern Ireland"

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⭐ Core Definition: First-past-the-post voting

First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or first-preference, and the candidate with more first-preference votes than any other candidate (a plurality) is elected, even if they do not have more than half of votes (a majority).

FPP has been used to elect part of the British House of Commons since the Middle Ages before spreading throughout the British Empire. Throughout the 20th century, many countries that previously used FPP have abandoned it in favor of other electoral systems, including the former British colonies of Australia and New Zealand. FPP is still officially used in the majority of US states for most elections. However, the combination of partisan primaries and a two-party system in these jurisdictions means that most American elections behave effectively like two-round systems, in which the first round chooses two main contenders (of which one of them goes on to receive a majority of votes).

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First-past-the-post voting in the context of Single non-transferable vote

Single non-transferable vote or SNTV is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote. Being a semi-proportional parallel to first-past-the-post voting, under SNTV small parties, as well as large parties, have a chance to be represented. Under SNTV, a single party seldom will take all seats in a city or district. SNTV is a combination of multi-member districts and each voter casting just one vote.

SNTV can be considered a variant of dot voting where each voter has only one point to assign. It can also be seen as a variant of limited voting where each elector has one vote, or as a simple version of Single Transferable Voting where votes are not transferred. Unlike block voting or limited voting, where voters can cast multiple votes, under SNTV each voter casts just one.

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First-past-the-post voting in the context of Sangguniang Barangay

The Sangguniang Barangay, known in English as the Barangay Council is the local government of a barangay, the smallest administrative division in the Philippines. Each of the 42,004 barangays in the country has its respective Sangguniang Barangay. The term is coined from the Tagalog words sanggunian (lit.'advisory') and barangay.

Each Sangguniang Barangay is headed by a barangay chairperson as the chief executive, who is elected at-large by first-past-the-post voting. Meanwhile, the legislative body is composed of seven regular members all titled barangay kagawad (barangay councilor) who are elected at-large by multi-member plurality voting, in which voters may vote for as many candidates as the number of council seats. The chairperson of the Sangguniang Kabataan (barangay’s youth council) who is elected by voters aged 15 to 30 years old, is the ex officio eighth member. Some barangays with a population of indigenous people have an Indigenous Peoples Mandatory Representative (IPMR) as the ex officio ninth member albeit elected separately.

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First-past-the-post voting in the context of House of Commons of the United Kingdom

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs), who are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved.

The House of Commons of England began to evolve in the 13th and 14th centuries. In 1707 it became the House of Commons of Great Britain after the political union with Scotland, and from 1801 it also became the House of Commons for Ireland after the political union of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, the body became the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the independence of the Irish Free State. Under the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, the Lords' power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power. The government is solely responsible to the House of Commons and the prime minister stays in office only as long as they retain the confidence of a majority of the Commons.

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First-past-the-post voting in the context of Parliament of Ghana

The Parliament of Ghana is the unicameral legislature of Ghana. It consists of 276 members, who are elected for four-year terms in single-seat constituencies using a first-past-the-post voting system.

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First-past-the-post voting in the context of House of Assembly of Bermuda

The House of Assembly is the lower house of the Parliament of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda. The house has 36 Members of Parliament (MPs), elected for a term of five years in single seat constituencies using first-past-the-post voting. Bermuda now has universal voting with a voting age of 18 years. Voting is non-compulsory. The presiding officer of the House is called the Speaker.

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First-past-the-post voting in the context of Parliamentary opposition

Parliamentary opposition is a form of political opposition to a designated government, particularly in a Westminster-based parliamentary system. This article uses the term government as it is used in Parliamentary systems, i.e. meaning the administration or the cabinet rather than the state. In some countries, the title of "Official Opposition" is conferred upon the largest political party sitting in opposition in the legislature, with said party's leader being accorded the title "Leader of the Opposition".

In first-past-the-post assemblies, where the tendency to gravitate into two major parties or party groupings operates strongly, government and opposition roles can go to the two main groupings serially in alternation.

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First-past-the-post voting in the context of Plurality electoral system

Plurality voting is an electoral system in which the candidates in an electoral district who poll more than any other (that is, receive a plurality or relative majority) are elected.

Under single-winner plurality voting, and in systems based on single-member districts, plurality voting is called single member [district] plurality (SMP), which is occasionally known as "first-past-the-post". In plurality voting the leading candidate, whether or not they have a majority of votes, is elected. Under all but a few niche election systems, the most-popular are elected. But under systems that use ranked votes, vote tallies change and are compared at various times during the vote count process. Where votes are transferred, the system is not generally referred to as a plurality system.

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First-past-the-post voting in the context of Two-round system

The two-round system (TRS or 2RS), sometimes called ballotage, top-two runoff, or two-round plurality, is a single-winner electoral system which aims to elect a member who has support of the majority of voters. The two-round system involves two rounds of choose-one voting, where the voter marks a single favorite candidate in each round. The two candidates with the most votes in the first round move on to a second election (a second round of voting). The two-round system is in the family of plurality voting systems that also includes single-round plurality (FPP). Like instant-runoff (ranked-choice) voting and first past the post, it elects one winner.

The two-round system first emerged in France and has since become the most common single-winner electoral system worldwide. Despite this, runoff-based rules like the two-round system and RCV have faced criticism from social choice theorists as a result of their susceptibility to center squeeze (a kind of spoiler effect favoring extremists) and the no-show paradox. This has led to the rise of electoral reform movements which seek to replace the two-round system with other systems like rated voting, particularly in France.

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First-past-the-post voting in the context of Puerto Rico representative districts

The Puerto Rico representative districts (Spanish: distritos representativos) refers to the electoral districts in which Puerto Rico is divided for the purpose of electing 40 of the 51 members of the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico (with the other 11 being elected at-large). The island is currently divided into 40 representative districts, each based on a similar number of inhabitants, and comprising one or more precincts—an electoral division divided, in turn, into colleges (Spanish: colegios). A college usually is defined simply by the nearest public school to the voter's declared residence. American citizens (including Puerto Ricans) may vote only in the district in which they have declared their residence, and only for one candidate, for up to one member of the House per district by first-past-the-post. (As well, each voter may cast a vote for the election of an at-large member of the House of Representatives.)

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