<P> The' winner - takes - all' nature of FPTP leads to distorted patterns of representation, since party support is commonly correlated with geography . For example, in the UK the Conservative Party represents most of the rural seats, and most of the south of the country, and the Labour Party most of the cities, and most of the north . This means that even popular parties can find themselves without elected politicians in significant parts of the country, leaving their supporters (who may nevertheless be a significant minority) unrepresented . </P> <P> It has been suggested that the distortions in geographical representation provide incentives for parties to ignore the interests of areas in which they are too weak to stand much chance of gaining representation, leading to governments that do not govern in the national interest . Further, during election campaigns the campaigning activity of parties tends to focus on' marginal' seats where there is a prospect of a change in representation, leaving safer areas excluded from participation in an active campaign . Political parties operate' targeting', directing their activists and policy proposals toward those areas considered to be marginal, where each additional vote has more value . </P> <P> Scholars rate voting methods using mathematically derived voting method criteria, which describe desirable features of a method . No ranked preference method can meet all of the criteria, because some of them are mutually exclusive, as shown by results such as Arrow's impossibility theorem and the Gibbard--Satterthwaite theorem . </P> <P> Y The majority criterion states that "if one candidate is preferred by a majority (more than 50%) of voters, then that candidate must win". First - past - the - post meets this criterion (though not the converse: a candidate does not need 50% of the votes in order to win). Although the criterion is met for each constituency vote, it is not met when adding up the total votes for a winning party in a parliament . </P>

Explain 3 criticisms of first past the post