Explain and analyze the European elections system. Academic Help

Need help with my Political Science question – I’m studying for my class.

The essay mus contain one thousand words and stay relevant to the topic,

Electoral systems in Europe

–European democracies have many very different systems that influence how people’s votes determine the political outcomes. The different rules that vary from country to country affect political behavior among voters and party elites, the enactment of different policies, and differences in the length and survival of governments.

-Parliamentary election systems set the rules which elections of Parliament are organized. These elections rules as in rules, are never neutral.

-In Europe, the simple winner-take-all system with a single ballot (US) is used only in UK, where it is called the “first-past-the post”. This system may be also called single-member district (SDM) plurality.

-Other European countries use a wide variety of rules to elect their parliaments, but most use a form of proportional representation (PR) which allocates seats in proportion to popular votes.

-In general, European politicians depend for their Parliamentary electoral success on their political parties. Parliamentary elections in Europe are less costly than in the US, since there are more restrictions on campaign expenditures.

Great Britain: Winner-take-all with single ballot

-The British Parliament is composed of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. According to the House of Lords Act of 1999, 90 hereditary peers are to remain on a temporary basis. The House of Lords is an appointed, advisory body, which can hold up but not stop legislation passed in the Commons. It has 750 members.

The House of Commons is an elected body of 650 Members (MPs) each representing a constituency based on one person, one vote. It is the dominant chamber. The country is divided into as many electoral districts as there are parliamentary seats. The candidate who wins the most votes wins the seat.

-In British elections, third parties are numerically much stronger than in the US concretional elections, but they do not get representation.