Perhaps a misunderstanding. In this case "majority" (or "majoritarianism") really means plurality. British (and US) democracy fetishizes winners, i.e. whoever comes first, whether or not they represent a majority of the electorate. In Britain you get all the power with 30% of the vote. Some might call that undemocratic.
As a Brit, I certainly think it’s a problem, because as you say, you can end up with a government with a large majority of seats based on a small proportion of electoral support.
I much prefer the ranked choice system here in Australia. I’m sure there are flaws, but you tend to end up with candidates who are more representative of the wishes of the electorate, and you eliminate that “I’d better vote for A in case B gets in” vote-splitting thing.
Then you push the coalitions forming outside of the party process to parliament where voters have no say compared to forming coalitions to within the party where party members have a say.
The big coalition in Australian politics, the LNP, has been integrated enough (in most states) to share a platform and field single candidates, giving people that choice ahead of time. We haven’t had a post-election coalition formed in some time.
But I think you might be thinking more of PR systems rather than preferential votes. In Preferential systems you still have a single winner of a given constituency, but the method of choosing that winner is more focused on a wide basis of support rather than on just who has the most votes.
I.E. if you have three parties for a seat, Centre-right gets 40% of the vote, Centre-left gets 35, “Legalise Everything Dudes!” get 25.
Under FPTP Centre-right takes it.
In a preference vote, we discard LED and count its voters’ second preference. Let’s say the split is 4:1 left/right. This leads us to Centre Right getting 45%, Centre left on 55% and the seat goes left. In this case we end up with a candidate acceptable to a larger part of the electorate. And the existence of LED didn’t split any votes, you can’t say a vote for a smaller party is wasted in this system, or blame smaller-party voters for Right getting in rather than left.
Under PR you’d split the seats in the parliament by national vote share (as in the Australian Senate)
[−]skippyboxedhero · 2026-08-30 Sun 13:08 UTC ·
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it isn't undemocratic, the purpose of the system is to produce governments that are able to govern
look at the last few governments, now imagine that we had a system that meant it was impossible to form a government if the government wasn't popular. there is no natural majority for any position that a political party in the UK can realistically take.
you don't end up with greater democracy, you end up handing unlimited power to unelected people working in government who end up being the only source of administrative stability
one of the main problems is that people in the UK who are in politics often disagree with voters at a fundamental level. changing the electoral system will not fix this. you will have elections, they will say they will fix problems they don't want to fix to win the election, and then their popularity will plummet shortly after as the insiders take over and do weird stuff that no-one voted for or wants. when you have governments that are repeatedly unable to perform very basic state functions, the problem is not the electoral system (or voters, one of the unusual aspects of politics in the UK is the blame and contempt that politicians have for voters, it is easy to see on this thread...perhaps you realise why they want proportional representation now).
I much prefer the ranked choice system here in Australia. I’m sure there are flaws, but you tend to end up with candidates who are more representative of the wishes of the electorate, and you eliminate that “I’d better vote for A in case B gets in” vote-splitting thing.
The big coalition in Australian politics, the LNP, has been integrated enough (in most states) to share a platform and field single candidates, giving people that choice ahead of time. We haven’t had a post-election coalition formed in some time.
But I think you might be thinking more of PR systems rather than preferential votes. In Preferential systems you still have a single winner of a given constituency, but the method of choosing that winner is more focused on a wide basis of support rather than on just who has the most votes.
I.E. if you have three parties for a seat, Centre-right gets 40% of the vote, Centre-left gets 35, “Legalise Everything Dudes!” get 25.
Under FPTP Centre-right takes it.
In a preference vote, we discard LED and count its voters’ second preference. Let’s say the split is 4:1 left/right. This leads us to Centre Right getting 45%, Centre left on 55% and the seat goes left. In this case we end up with a candidate acceptable to a larger part of the electorate. And the existence of LED didn’t split any votes, you can’t say a vote for a smaller party is wasted in this system, or blame smaller-party voters for Right getting in rather than left.
Under PR you’d split the seats in the parliament by national vote share (as in the Australian Senate)
look at the last few governments, now imagine that we had a system that meant it was impossible to form a government if the government wasn't popular. there is no natural majority for any position that a political party in the UK can realistically take.
you don't end up with greater democracy, you end up handing unlimited power to unelected people working in government who end up being the only source of administrative stability
one of the main problems is that people in the UK who are in politics often disagree with voters at a fundamental level. changing the electoral system will not fix this. you will have elections, they will say they will fix problems they don't want to fix to win the election, and then their popularity will plummet shortly after as the insiders take over and do weird stuff that no-one voted for or wants. when you have governments that are repeatedly unable to perform very basic state functions, the problem is not the electoral system (or voters, one of the unusual aspects of politics in the UK is the blame and contempt that politicians have for voters, it is easy to see on this thread...perhaps you realise why they want proportional representation now).