How our voting system means not all our votes are equal

[stumbledin]

There is a huge difference between number of votes cast and seats won. So despite what is being said on mumsnet and msm the Lib Dems have actually done much better this time, but it doesn't translate into seats. And as always it is easier to get a seat in Scotland than else where.

So, I have calculated the number of seats each party would get if reflecting number of votes cast. (I do this every year for myself as it helps me see how badly the news reflects reality.)

Not sure if anyone else is interested!

       Con       Lab    LD  SNP Gr DUP SF Plaid Bxt UKIP Others

FPTP 364 203 11 48 1 8 7 4 0 0 3
PR 283 209 75 25 18 5 4 3 13 1 14

There is still one seat to be declared.

It’s well known OP. We had a referendum on changing the system in 2011, but people voted against it

They weren’t sure what they were voting for, so they said no. Shame we can’t say the same about Brexit.

Well there is a well know saying which is probably more accurate than the self important lefty one (whoever you vote for the Government gets in) and that is:

"We get the government's we deserve"

Lib Dems sold their souls to the Tories and sold out students to get the PR option voted on and didn't suceed.

I think it is because as a country (or maybe just the English parts) love to be the victim of what somebody else is doing to us (never our fault) and coming from a long line of dutiful forelock tuggers (propper up by endless sentimental costume drams on main stream tv) and put our trust in our "betters" to take care of us.

And one thing we cant stand is some pompous over educated metropolitan type lecturing us on what is better for us, and how we should work cooperatively across borders (with foreigners!!) and be a more equal society, when at heart we love having someone who dictates to us because in our heart of hearts that's what we would like to be.

OP I take it you got those numbers by dividing the votes between seats? To see what I mean you need to average the number of votes it took to win the seats.

Birdsfoottrefoil - okay - will try over the weekend to see if I have time to do that. Could be very time consuming!

Even if there is an online data sort giving number of potential voters in each constituency, would then have to match it to yesterday's election results.

Look at the difference in party representation in the Scottish parliament compared to Westminster.

SNP=62
Con=31
Lab=23
Green=6
Lib Dem=5
Independent =1

Westminster
SNP=48
Con=6
Labour=4
Lib Dem =1

There's a huge difference there, and I believe it gives better representation of what the people want and a less polarised political environment.

They weren’t sure what they were voting for, so they said no. Shame we can’t say the same about Brexit.

Isn't this the truth!

In the Canadian province where I live, we had a referendum on PR two years ago. This was our second one, and it was rejected again by a fairly sizeable margin. It was a ranked ballot with FPTP or two possible versions of PR- both of which seemed to have lots of unanswered questions surrounding them. Despite lots of public education around the options, which I paid attention to pretty seriously, at the end of the day I felt as if I couldn't make heads or tails of either option so I elected to stay with the current system. That seemed to be the general consensus of the electorate too. Just too much uncertainty.

I used to be very in favour of reform to PR, but I am much less sure now that it is a good thing. I feel like it can allow very extremist views t get into government and can legitimise them, and I am just not sure that in the general run of things it makes for much better governments.

In theory, I like the idea of a constituency electing one person, who is then expected to represent them, and their interests, in balance with the needs of the nation. A huge problem to me is that for the vast majority of representatives their ability to do that is limited, they are whipped and expected to follow the party line. It may not be quite the same n the UK, but certainly here in Canada there are fewer and fewer votes which allow for a free vote.

I think you just need to look at the last few months in Parliament to see that MPs do vote against the party on issues that concern them.

That;'s good - I think it's generally part of the move toward greater authoritarianism on the left here. But in general, I guess what I think is that if there was a stronger sense of the representative standing for his people rather than the party, it might have more effect.

Or to put it another way, as parties become more powerful in the system, we try to exert more control on some sort of abstract representation, like having MPs who aren't directly responsible to any community as a whole but instead come from a % who voted for them. And presumably not for other people in that community.

Wales has a (sort of) PR system for the assembly. I personally don't like it because it means there are career politicians who will always be voted on.

Also, if yesterday showed us anything, it's that there isn't really any such thing as a safe seat. Not long term.

Voted in, not voted on!

Oh, and about Labour needing more views than Tories - under FPTP the winning party almost inevitably has less votes per seat. So in this election the Tories have less votes per seat. However, I think it has been true in the past (things have now changed a lot so don't know if this still applies) that the Tories needed more votes overall to win than Labour did. So hypothetically if the votes were equal for each, Labour would win. This is because firstly the boundaries haven't changed in a while so there's some disparities in seat size which happen to benefit Labour, and secondly (I think) to do with how dispersed the vote is.

I think in the past Labour was able to win more seats with fewer votes because they had so many MPs voted in by Scottish constituencies.

In fact it is highly likely that if the SNP continue to be the dominant party in Scotland (for the UK Parliament) Labour will never get in power again. The Tories and Lib Dems have traditionally held the "English" seats and Labour relied on votes in cities.

I cant remember the propotion of "county" seats to city seats, but I think the cities loose out.

And until today I dont think that I had registered that it is not just Scotland where smaller constituencies, but also Wales and Northern Ireland.

I wonder is Sinn Fein will take up their seats. What the UK Parliament needs to break down the English county dominance is an alliance of the Celtic Nations.

(I think the boundary changes got dropped because it was assumed it was going to undo some perceived Labour benefit, but when they did the analysis realised that it would undo the Tory benefit.)

I thought the boundary changes got dropped because they'd tried to roll it together with reducing the number of MPs to 600, and MPs were not keen on reducing their own numbers! But I haven't been following it closely so I may be wrong.

What the UK Parliament needs to break down the English county dominance is an alliance of the Celtic Nations.

Up to a point - there are some issues where the 'west Lothian question' increasingly needs to be addressed.

There is a series of videos by cpg grey explaining the various voting systems and their pros and cons.
Hollyrood doens't strictly have PR, it has an additional member system.
I think most of the options are better than first past the post. Less susceptible to gerrymandering or tactical voting.

stumbledin

"For instance Labour's share of votes yesterday is higher than Blair's "landslide" victory!!"

I am not sure what the Indy is playing at, but Corbyn managed 32.1% of the vote this time and in 2005 Tony Blair managed 35.2%, with Michael Howard (Con) on 32.4% and Charles Kennedy (LibDem) on 22%.
I always double check what is printed in the media nowadays, because I don't believe any of them.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_United_Kingdom_general_election

"It’s well known OP. We had a referendum on changing the system in 2011, but people voted against it"

Probably because proportional representation was not included in the options?