Facilitating Stable and Efficient Government
The prospects for a stable and efficient government are determined by many factors other than the electoral system, but the results a system produces can contribute to stability in a number of important respects. The key questions in this regard are whether people perceive the system to be fair, whether government can efficiently enact legislation and govern, and whether the system avoids discriminating against particular parties or interest groups. The perception of whether results are 'fair' or not varies widely from country to country. Twice in Britain - in 1951 and 1974 - the party winning the most votes in the country as a whole won fewer seats than their opponents, but this was considered more a quirk of a basically sound system, see First Past the Post (FPTP), than an outright unfairness which should be reversed. Conversely, in Mongolia in 1992 the system (the Block Vote - see Block Vote) allowed the ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party to win 92% of the seats with only 57% of the votes. This was considered by many to be not merely unfair but dangerous to democracy, and the electoral system was consequently changed for the elections of 1996.
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