Am I being a bit thick here?

[Bugeyeandy]

There are 650 seats and the conservatives have won 305 of them, that makes 47% - why does the beeb show 36.1?

Also the Lib Dems only got a mere 57 out of 305 seats yet the BBC is showing they have 23%

What are they working out their percentage on?

[TankRizzo]

Share of vote, not share of seats.

[bp1]

percentage of people who voted, not on number of seats won.

[TedMaul]

36% is percentage of total vote, i.e what would have happened if used a PR system. I think.

[Tiggsy]

is that not vote percentage which has sod all to do with seats? Some places torys get 20,000 votes and labour get 1,000....another place labour get 2,000 and torys get 1,000.

equals a seat each but torys got far more votes.

[Bugeyeandy]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

In English please

[Bugeyeandy]

Thanks to the other more eloquent answers , doesn't seem much point in showing the % of votes on the main page of BBC news if it doesn't actually matter

[elster]

Bugeyeandy said:

Thanks to the other more eloquent answers , doesn't seem much point in showing the % of votes on the main page of BBC news if it doesn't actually matter

No need for showing you the percentage of the seats of the house when the numbers are in front of you either.

[The real Apache]

So how does PR work and why is it a bad thing for Cameron

[Bugeyeandy]

Quite true Elster, at least they haven't done that!

[Mojooo]

The real Apache said:

So how does PR work and why is it a bad thing for Cameron

Votes are done nationally.

As I understand it Tories had the most votes so would be the ruling party.

The problem is that it takes away people doing things on the more local level

I imagien it would be impossible for someone to stand as an independent in their own local area.

[elster]

The real Apache said:

So how does PR work and why is it a bad thing for Cameron

It means we will be in 3 party politics from now on. There will unlikely ever be a majority again.

He would get less seats, Labour would get less seats and LibDems would gain....a huge amount.

As they are 3rd or 2nd place in almost all seats. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride comes to mind. However this way they don't get to have the wedding, but still get all the good bits without the effort.

[Mojooo]

The current system does screw over the ib Dems big time.

Also in the current system all those votes are 'wasted' once the top person wins and becomes the MP.

[Soovy]

Here are the actuall ballots cast. When PR comes in the BNP would have got 17 MP's.

Think about that.





Conservative 304 99 3 +96 10,651,739 36.1 +3.8
Labour 257 3 93 -90 8,570,331 29.0 -6.3
Liberal Democrat 57 8 13 -5 6,793,432 23.0 +1.0
Democratic Unionist Party 8 0 1 -1 168,216 0.6 -0.3
Scottish National Party 6 0 0 0 491,386 1.7 +0.1
Sinn Fein 5 0 0 0 171,942 0.6 -0.1
Plaid Cymru 3 1 0 +1 165,394 0.6 -0.1
Social Democratic & Labour Party 3 0 0 0 110,970 0.4 -0.1
Green 1 1 0 +1 282,678 1.0 -0.1
Alliance Party 1 1 0 +1 42,762 0.1 +0.0
UK Independence Party 0 0 0 0 910,524 3.1 +0.9
British National Party 0 0 0 0 560,140 1.9 +1.2
Ulster Conservatives and Unionists - New Force 0 0 1 -1 102,361 0.3 -0.1
English Democrats 0 0 0 0 64,826 0.2 +0.2
Respect-Unity Coalition 0 0 1 -1 33,251 0.1 -0.1
Traditional Unionist Voice 0 0 0 0 26,300 0.1
Christian Party 0 0 0 0 18,623 0.1
Independent Community and Health Concern 0 0 1 -1 16,150 0.1 +0.0
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition 0 0 0 0 12,275 0.0
Scottish Socialist Party 0 0 0 0 3,157 0.0 -0.2
Others 1 1 1 0 319,505 1.1 0.0


Turnout 29,515,962 65.1 4.0

[FourWheelDrift]

I still think it should be one MP per county. All the votes in the county are counted for one representative. That person can have a team of 8 deputies who work with them and also take up junior positions in the house of commons.

48 counties in the UK + 1 for London + 6 in NI + 1 for Belfast = 56 MPs
+ their 448 deputies

= 504 members of the House of Commons. Over 100 less than current.


Any reason why that wouldn't work? The US vote via states.

[FourWheelDrift]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Perhaps different numbers of deputies based on size.

[Eric Mc]

The real Apache said:

So how does PR work and why is it a bad thing for Cameron

There are differnt types of PR systems. Ireland uses a version called "The Single Transferrable Vote" or STV.

Other systems are based on average percentages.

[Eric Mc]

FourWheelDrift said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Perhaps different numbers of deputies based on size.

Counties are not very good bases for setting out seats as they vary hugely in population densities and numbers. Special parliamentary constituencies are better - provided they are set out fairly - which is not the case at the moment.

The Irish PR system allows three to five MPs per constituency - depending on the population size of the constituency. This means you can have, in theory, MPs from different parties being voted from the same constituency.
This does ensure that MPs in Ireland need to be on top of constiuency matters, as they have rival MPs who can provide competition within that constituency - and of course, this provides an element of choice for the constituents too.

[timlongs]

The Labour govt was promising electoral reform since 97. A report was published and recommended AV+ electoral system, which was conveniently misplaced after the 2005 elections. Electoral reform was in their manifesto for their 3 terms. All we got was a little bit of constitutional reform.

[king arthur]

Labour have reformed the electoral system. They've reformed it so they have massively more seats than they deserve.