Many nations around the world use a parliamentary system of government that shapes the way countries run and develop. Although the United States is known for its presidential system, the vast majority of the world’s people live in parliamentary democracies.
Parliamentary systems have a legislature that votes for laws. The legislative body may have a bicameral system where there are two chambers or a unicameral system where there is only one chamber. In most parliamentary systems the head of state (monarch or governor general) has a veto power that they can exercise by returning a bill to the legislative body signifying their disagreement with it. However, the legislature can override this veto with a vote.
At a general election voters choose a candidate to represent their constituency in the House of Commons. The candidate that receives the most votes becomes the Member of Parliament (MP) for that area until a new election is held. MPs are normally members of a political party but there can be independent MPs as well.
The House of Lords, the upper chamber of the UK Parliament, is chosen by a separate system. Before 1999 the House of Lords was mostly made up of hereditary peers but since then most of the Lords are ‘life’ peers who have been appointed for their knowledge or experience rather than for their title.
Most parliamentary systems employ a first past the post voting system but there are also some that have proportional representation and closed party list voting. In these systems additional seats are allocated to a party based on the percentage of votes it gets in each region. Voters rank candidates in order of preference and a candidate must have more than 50 per cent of the first preference votes to win. In the case of a tie the seat is decided by drawing lots (a random method such as tossing a coin).