To think that the election results don't add up?

In a way they do - they are called pencils.

Why do we use pencils?

I believe it dates back to when ink took longer to dry and the use of blotting paper etc.

If the ink isn't dry and the ballot paper is folded over, you can end up with inky blots across the ballot paper and it becomes difficult to know who the vote was actually for, and the ballot paper is classed as spoilt

You can take your own pen if you want to, or use lipstick if that floats your boat, but the risk is yours if it smudges and spoils your ballot paper.

Argh. This type of thing sounds like a good argument for people having to do a competence test before voting (and a course if they fail). Some countries do implement this - I think Spain does.

Remember all the frantic social media posts before the EU referendum, from people who didn't know how to vote? I recall it being covered in junior school. Perhaps a lot of kids skipped that class.

It adds up if we consider that reform uk is a bunch of right wing extremists led by Nigel Farage, who probably wouldn’t hit water if he jumped out of a boat. They just ran for all the wrong seats in such a way that they finished a strong second in scores of seats without being the favorite candidate anywhere.

The Lib Dems of course have been at this for decades, as their survival as a third party depends on being able to extract the most seats out of a fairly low “ceiling” of votes. So basically, strategy + fptp = weird results.

It is possible to have PR & choose a person, see Ireland PR STV

there are many types of PR

It's the French elections round 2 this weekend.

They have an interesting system whereby you can only win on the first round if you fulfill certain criteria - or it's through to the second round if you fulfill a certain number of votes.

Certainly makes things interesting

Some countries with proportional representation have stronger local democracy. So the equivalent of their local councillors have much more power and act locally more like local MPs. So they do not have the issues we would have with proportional representation.

That is exactly why I agree with FPTP. I know it is imperfect, but my local MP is based on who votes locally. Our local MP lost their seat. He was hopeless and did not care about local issues. He was a backbencher but seemed a careerist. He was voted out I am sure because so many people were fed up how he ignored local people, refused to do anything about their concerns, or take up any individual issues. I think he thought he was safe as where I live have voted conservative for years. But local people voted labour, and I am surely partly because of national politics. But also because the local Labour candidate is a community activist and seems to go to everything and volunteer on lots of local issues. I think I would have voted for him whatever party he represented as he cares about our local area and tries to improve things.

yawn yawn yawn

any belief that Reform or Con would help women is fucking nuts. Absolutely fucking nuts.

starmer and team are going to be brilliant for the UK. So happy. Get over it.

With vote-counting systems, you're saying you vote for a national party and not a local representative. Your MP would be whichever person the national party allocated to your constituency.

You might not think it matters but parties already field unknown, non-local candidates in seats they can't win (small parties don't field any). Then, when you needed your MP's help or support with something - could be SEN provision, planning disputes, anything - you'd find they had no clue about the locality, and even less interest in local people.

All voting systems are imperfect but this way, we at least get someone whose main job is to represent our interests in Parliament.

This isn’t a representative democracy, if you ask me.

It literally is, @rumnraisins. We democratically elect our representatives.

The Lib Dems won't be changing their support for proportional representation. According to your chart, they got 12% of the vote but 11% of the seats. So even in this election PR is in their interests. In 2019 they got 11.5% of the vote and 1.7% of the seats. It's not really on to suggest that their seat share this time around is unfair, it's actually pretty proportional. It's unfair in relation to all the other parties. And it is their 'greatest result ever' in terms of their number of seats. I don't think it's possible to resent their achievement here as it's so similar to their vote share.

The people who can't are spoilt for choice because they have the Lib Dems and the Greens as well.

There are different versions of PR - you can have constituency representation AND PR - for example, Ireland's system of STV. No system is perfect, but FPTP is less means large swathes of the population end up unrepresented in parliament, which feels profoundly undemocratic to me.

I th ink the tactical voting was libdems and labour (like me)

the protest vote was reform

I don’t think every reform voter is racist, but I think that every racist voted reform.

It’s about swing areas, and swing seats. Google it.

I am in favour of democracy which is why I favour FPTP. We should be voting for an MP to represent us. I do not want an MP allocated to my area that the people living here have not voted for.

Not being in favour of PR because it would benefit people you disagree with isn't a particularly democratic stance. I am in favour of PR - even though it will give people like Farage more seats - mainly because I believe in democracy and people should have a say in how their country is run. I may not like their opinions and will endeavour to change them, but I believe they have the right to be represented. If not, it's not really democratic.

Which would have reduced the number of labour voters. Why go out when you know there will be a landslide?

“I know how it works…”

This was a little fib wasn’t it? 😆