Thursday 6th May

[fleetfootmike]

I'm sure someone's expecting this post, so...

Vote, folks. It's your right.

(readers from countries who do not have an election today need not apply; may contain nuts; candidates measured by volume, nit weight; the value of your vote may go up as well as down (but is worthless if you don't use it).)

Comments

[patoadam]

Could someone kindly explain to this American why Labour is expected to get about twice as many seats as the Liberal Democrats, even though they are expected to get about the same number of votes?

[keristor.livejournal.com]

OK, to explain "first past the post" (FPtP). It means that in each area the candidate with the most votes wins that seat. So in an extreme case with 3 candidates they could be distributed in proportions 34%/33%/33%, with the first getting in with only just over a third of the vote. The problem is that while Labour and Tory have a lot of geographical 'safe' seats (ones where they have a big majority) the LibDems tend to be more evenly distributed. This means that Labour and Tory are likely to divide up the majority of seats betwen them and LD left with only a few.

Take some hypothetical seats:

Tory  Labour  LibDem  Result
 40     30      30     Tory
 30     40      30    Labour
 45     20      35     Tory
===    ===     ===
115     90      95

As you can see from that, LibDem get more votes than Labour but no seats at all. Project that across 650 seats (and add a few minority parties who will take votes and not get any seats at all)...

[patoadam]

Thanks!