How can we say we have democracy when ....

[AngryVoterBird]

...if number of MPs corresponded to % of votes the electorate cast we'd have a Labour/Lib Dem majority of 246 MPs with 235 Tory. We'd have 25 Green MPs, not 1. SNP would have 32 MPs (not 56) - fewer than Lib Dems who would have 51 MPs . Open to correction as my own sums. Party politics aside, how can we call this democratic? Thought we are supposed to have every person has one equal vote as the starting point for democracy?

I don't think it's a sudden thing for 'people' - I've voted in more elections that I can remember and it's always been a concern. The difference this year (imo) is that the smaller parties (which have been on the ascent in recent years) have either been massively over or under represented - the votes cast bear no relation to the number of seats in many cases. It has to change - but funnily enough, none of the parties that have benefited seem in a rush to do anything about it.

So the conservative party would still win
it depends. Before this election the various scenarios were discussed. Essentially the party with the most seats gets first shot to try to form a government, as happened last time when the coalition with the libdems was formed. They have to be able to get enough support (either in coalition or other means) to pass their Queen's speech and then ongoing to get their legislation passed and to not lose any 'motion of no confidence'. The last time this happened was in 1979 when Callaghan's labour government (which had no overall majority) lost by one vote, forcing the general election which started the Thatcher era. It was all quite ugly, lots of horsetrading with the small parties, and probably is one of the things that colours some peoples views against PR. Although the current system is unfair, remembering back to that time part of me breaths a sigh of relief at an overall majority.

But why have you formed a hypothetical coalition between labour and lib dem, and not between conservatives and lib dem?

But 246 is not a majority. It might be the biggest likely combination the(Tories would have had a shot at a coalition with DUP/? first anyway) but we'd have been left with a hung parliament.

The PR referendum was opposed by all the main parties, who tacitly got together to stifle it. It was asking purely about one particular form of PR, a type which I'm not a fan of, it was advocated very badly, and it was snuck in as quickly as possible in the hope that not too many people would have time to get het up about it. Which succeeded.

Agree Alpaca.

The PR referendum was an utter farce. Agree completely they sneaked it in in a really underhand manner.

Having lived in both a labour stronghold and now a conservative stronghold if you support the minority it really does seem pointless in voting or you vote lib dems as in both cases they are usually second and your only chance of stopping a party you do not agree with.

Completely agree. It's not about whether Tories would still have won. It's about getting those who didn't vote Tory properly represented in Parliament.

Regardless of my unfavourable feelings about UKIP, roughly 10% of the country voted for them. Far more than voted SNP. It's therefore not democratic for UKIP to only hold one seat and for SNP to hold more than 50. Nor is it democratic that around 50% of Scots voted against SNP but only 3 Scottish seats are represented by any other party.

Scots who didn't vote SNP are barely represented in Parliament. The same's true for anyone who voted UKIP, Lib Dem, Green... It isn't democracy when so many voters are disregarded.

The system is the same that others have won and lost under; it wasn't a Tory conspiracy to defraud anyone. I don't recall the complaints with the Labour landslide in 1997.

Oh, and without their Coalition partners, I hope the unfairness of the distribution of seats, specifically, the over-representation of Scotland, is addressed.

spare I think John Major in 92 was the last PM to win the popular vote.

The Electoral Reform Society was founded in 1884.

And the vote in 2011 presented only one alternative to the current system IIRC. There are other fairer systems we could adopt if we were so inclined.

Really Two? I remember there were plenty of unhappy people in 1997. There was no social media then, so things were very different - but there were still people who felt very aggrieved.

Looking at the results in a different way:

UKIP :3881129 votes for 624 candidates = average 6219 votes per candidate

SNP : 1454436 votes for 59 candidates = average 24651 votes per candidate

The UKIP vote was spread more widely and thinly. In order to win seats under first past the post you need concentration of votes as well as sheer number. I think this rewards strong candidates and less extreme policies?

false, the system disregards the votes of anyone who doesn't align with the status quo in their area. It also promotes 'safe seats' that are extremely difficult to change, even when public opinion has a sizeable change. Safe seats prevent the even distribution of campaigning.

There's plenty more about the advantages and disadvantages of FPTP on the website for the Electoral Reform Society. In essence, the other two main systems are fairer and the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. But for FPTP, the main advantages are that it's cheap and quick and the list of disadvantages is lengthy.

The total number of votes cat for a party is hugely dependant on the number of candidates standing. If there was pr then everyone in the country should be able to vote for all parties. Which could of course result in there not being enough candidates to fill seats.

Also with pr how are individual MPs accountable to the electorate?

cupid agreed there are many advantages to PR.Totally unrepresented non- SNP voting Scot here!

Safe seats able to survive major changes in public opinion? Really? Tell that to the former Scottish Labour MPs.

There's more to the UKIP story than being shafted by a dodgy electoral system and robbed of 83 seats while the SNP have an undeserved glut - as Nigel Farage has stated and is being repeated here there and everywhere.

Well uk had a chance in 2011 and voted against proportional representation- so the people don't want it.

There was never a referendum on PR, it was on the Alternative Vote.

This election was a farce from start to finish, so much for democracy. We had thousands of people denied a vote because their postal forms weren't sent out in time, people who weren't on the lists even though they'd registered, candidates missed off of ballot papers etc etc. Milton Keynes even received four times the number of postal votes they should have (18 boxes instead of 4!) and didn't wonder where they all came from, just got extra help in to count them!

gin etc. .. first some or systems are constituency based so there's same level of accountability. you 2nd pt I'm lost.. It doesn't happen tho.

pr not or