To date, pure First Past the Post (FPTP) systems are found in the United Kingdom and those countries historically influenced by Britain. Along with the United Kingdom, the most analyzed cases are Canada, India, New Zealand, and the United States of America. However, New Zealand switched to a MMP system of Proportional Representation in 1993 (see New Zealand: A Westminster Democracy Switches to PR).
FPTP is also used by a dozen Caribbean nations; by Belize and formerly Guyana in Latin America; by ten Asian states (including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Malaysia); and by many of the small island nations of the South Pacific. Eighteen African nations, mostly former British colonies, use FPTP systems. In total, out of the 212 countries and related territories (see The Global Distribution of Electoral Systems) sixty-eight - just under one third - use FPTP systems.
In FPTP systems, the winning candidate is simply the person who wins most votes. In theory, a candidate could be elected with two votes, if every other candidate only secured a single vote. Alterations to this rule transform the system into the Block Vote, the Two-Round System, or the Single Non-Transferable Vote, and these systems are dealt with in more detail in Block Vote, Two-Round System and Single Non-Transferable Vote. However, one adaptation that can also be categorized as FPTP was used in Nepal in the early 1990s. There, due to the low level of literacy in much of the electorate, candidates ran under a party symbol, rather than as individuals. Voters chose between parties, rather than between candidates. Candidates for office were allowed to run in more than one district, if they wished. Any candidate elected in two or more seats would then have to choose which district they would represent. Partial elections were held to fill the vacated seats.
See the following case studies UK: Electoral System Experimentation in Cradle of FPTP, The Canadian Electoral System: A Case Study, India - First Past the Post on a Grand Scale and Papua New Guinea.
See also First Past the Post - Advantages and First Past the Post - Disadvantages.
Reproduced by permission of International IDEA from Electoral System Design: The New International IDEA Handbook © 2005 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance The electronic version of this publication is made available under a Creative Commons Attribute-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence. You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the publication, and to remix and adapt it, provided it is only for non-commercial purposes, that you appropriately attribute the publication and that you distribute it under an identical license. For more information on this licence see: