The UK General Election
1. General
Of the various elections held in the UK, the general election is often the most highly anticipated
among the British electorate. The results of the general election greatly impact the UK's political course
over the ensuing five years. and that person will represent them in the House of Commons.
In a general election, each citizen votes for one MP candidate in their constituency using the first-
past-the-post system. At the end of the election, the party with the majority of elected MPs is invited by
the monarch to form a government.
When is the General Election?
The maximum term of a Parliament is five years from the day on which it first met. So as per the
Fixed-Term Parliaments Act of 2011, general elections are to be conducted every five years. However,
general elections can be held earlier under the following circumstances:
- When parliamentarians believe that the government is incompetent, they can issue a motion of no
confidence.
- The passing of a motion which is approved by two-thirds (66%) of Member of Parliament (MPs)
from the majority political party calling for a general election.
General Election of the UK made up of 650 individual election that take place on a single day
across England, Wales, Scotland and Northen Ireland. Every eligible resident who as least 18 years old
and be on the electoral register gets to go out and vote for the one of the would be representatives, call
candicates, in their constituency.
2. Voting system
The electoral system goes like this:
- The country divided into the number of areas of roughly equal population (about 90.000)
known as constituencies. And anyone who wants to be an Member of Parliament must
declare himself or herself as an candidate in one of these constituencies.
- On polling day(the day of election), voters do to polling stations and are given a single
piece of paper (the ballot paper) with the names of the candidate on it.Voter need to puts
a cross next to the name of candidate they chose.
- After the polls have closed and counted, the candidate with the largest number of cross is
the winner and become the MP for the Constituency.
In fact that is one of the most important features of the British electoral system, often referred to
as the Westminster model, known as the "first- past- the- post" system ( mean mvoters can only vote
for a single person from the list of candidates, and the candidate who receives the most votes will be
the winner, no matter how many votes it holds – NHĐ).
Often have 650 seats in Parliament for the parties to contest, of which the majority (533 seats)
belong to Great Britain (England), the largest and most populous territory of the United Kingdom.[1]
Scotland has 59 seats, Wales has 40 and Northern Ireland has 18. On average, each seat corresponds
to 92,000 people, or 68,000 voters.
3. The manner
The government is decide when to hold an general election. After the day of election has been
fixed, people who want be an candidate in a constitueny must get there name on ballot paper. And they
have to depoist ₤500 with the Returning Officer (the person responsible for the conduct of the election in
each constituency) to do this.
British elections are often comparatively quiet affairs. There is no tradition of large rallies or
parades as there is in the USA. Formally, a different campaign takes place in each constituency like hold
meeting, local newspaper coverage, spend time canvassing......But actually these activities do not usually
make much difference because have a few people attend candidates’ meeting, or read local newspaper.
Most of people vote for a candidate on the basis of the party which he or she represents.
It is at a national level that the real campaign take place. Not like as they do in USA – buy time
on television; instead they are each given a number of strictly timed ‘party election broadcasts’, extended
editions of the television news, and each party holds a daily news conference.
On polling day(the day of election), voters do to polling stations and are given a single piece of
paper (the ballot paper) with the names of the candidate on it. Voter need to puts a cross next to the name
of candidate they chose.
And after the polls close and the votes for each candidate are counted openly, the Returning
together with the cadidate gets on the stage and announces the result. Thí declaration is one of the few
occasions during the election process when shouting and cheering may be heard.
The period after voting is a TV extravanganza, both BBC and ITV start their programes as soon
as voting finishes. And the excitement of the night is the race to see which constituency can announce
first (the race to declare). This usually occurs around 11pm and about 2am, as least half of the
constituencies will have declare their resulf. However, some constituencies are not able to declare their
resulf until Friday, because they have to take a long time to bring all the ballot papers togethers or they
need to recounts. The record number of recounts is seven (and the record margin of victory is just one
vote).
