Actual votes cast in the General Election: interesting numbers

[Zak33]

From BBC's website.. with only 4 final seats to be announced

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/

Conservative 304 99 3 +96 10,651,739 36.1 +3.8
Labour ____ 257 3 93 -90 8,570,331 29.0 -6.3
Lib Democrat 57 8 13 -5 6,793,432 23.0 +1.0

What's intriguing is the volume of ACTUAL VOTES taken by Liberals against the votes of labour..

not SEATS.. but votes.

So of 10.6 mill Cons votes and 8.5 mill Lab votes.. the Libs got neary 6.8 mill and yet only got 57 seats...

where the others got 304 and 257

This is a weird system.... it'll always be weird.

[rox0r]

Now you see why LibDems are keen for PR.

[Zak33]

oh I know they are.. its just always a shock, the sheer scale of the imbalance.

[TheAnimus]

Well is it really an imbalance?

You can have places like London which many feel already have too much influence exert even more without a system that has boroughs.

Once you've gone as far as borough then comparing the numbers in the way you are above is missleading....

[petercook7]

Well is it really an imbalance?

You can have places like London which many feel already have too much influence exert even more without a system that has boroughs.

Once you've gone as far as borough then comparing the numbers in the way you are above is missleading....

The point here is based on votes, you can see the unfairness, if the population is more dense in the south rarther than the north, but the north have a hight weight then you can see how un just the voting system is. You could say individual voting cant change the system, bit bias i think.

[dave87]

Go to here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/elect...ts/default.stm


And click on Proportional on the Flash diagram.


That shows why the votes are split the way they are - if you lose a seat then even though you were voted for, in a way, those votes mean Nada. Zip. Zilch. Same goes if you win a seat by a massive majority - those votes are effectively wasted.

So whilst the LibDems may have got a large number of votes, they couldn't beat the Conservatives or Labour in a large enough number of seats. Shame, but PR also has its problems....Weimar Germany anyone?

[Steve]

Go to here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/elect...ts/default.stm


And click on Proportional on the Flash diagram.

Good grief, Greater London is massively overrepresented, isn't it?

[JPreston]

~33,000 votes for Labour = 1 seat
~35,000 votes for tories = 1 seat

but

~120,000 votes for Lib Dem = 1 seat

It is a complete falsehood for anyone to claim they support both FPTP and democracy.

[oolon]

~120,000 votes for Lib Dem = 1 seat

It is a complete falsehood for anyone to claim they support both FPTP and democracy.

~81,897 votes for snp = 1 Seat
~285,616 votes for green = 1 Seat
~563,743 votes for BNP = No seats
~917,832 votes for UKIP = No seats!

One seat should be worth 29653638/359=82600 votes under PR

PR has advantages, however it also means other parties some people might not like will also be in power, on a list system the people at the top will NEVER be out of power. Also under PR coalition is the only way to govern and this normal means smaller parties get more power as they can make the government fall. PR also means you will not have a representative, just one of many so no one is really accountable for an area. It can also me Coalitions never get out of power as in 30+ years in Germany, how is that democratic. People are just rubberstamping.

First past the post is also unfair as the figures as well, personally I like having a representative, I however feel that over 50% of the people should prefer them, so for me the system should be single transferable vote, along with boundary reform to make all votes equal.

Choice your poison all of the systems have faults.

[Lucio]

There's a fascinating article in the New Scientist regarding voting systems, but mathmatically PR isn't all it's cracked up to be in terms of "fairness", because it gives the minority vote winners an unequal ability to influence the government decisions depending on whether you vote "for" or "against" the government.

For example, currently the Lib Dems have only 57 seats but can make or break a goverment, assuming all sides vote on party lines. So whilst they've only got 11% of the seats, they effectively wield a third of the voting power because whichever side they agree with wins (except in the rare and unlikely events where Labour and Conservitives agree)

[TooNice]

But if the number of seats scale with the votes, the Lib-Dem could arguably be said to have 33.3% of power through 23% of popular votes (and I do wonder how the landscape might be different without 'tactical voting' or people not voting Lib-Dem on the basis they have no chance). It's not the democratic travesty that we see under the current system.

[oolon]

I heard and interesting suggestion, what to do with then house of lord has not been decided, so you use the PR votes to pick the people in the house of lords for and 8 year period, half being changed each election. Then use the first past the post for the lower chamber. This plays well to the roles of both the houses.

[YorkieBen]

I think using Weimar Germany as an example as an arugment against PR is a bit false - the Nazi's were not a minority party, they won c. 37% of the vote in the last elections in Germany (and were the biggest party).

I'd like to see a mixed member propertional system - so you have 2 types of MP, those who represent a constituent and also a list system to ensure great parity between seats and votes - this is used in Scotland etc.