David Cameron Wins a Slim Majority in UK General Election
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Re: David Cameron Wins a Slim Majority in UK General Election
#2This makes no sense to me.
Ulster Unionist Party had 114,935 votes and got two seats. UKIP had 3,841,346 votes and got one seat. Conservative had 11,207,547 votes and received 326 seats.
Re: David Cameron Wins a Slim Majority in UK General Election
#3This makes no sense to me. Ulster Unionist Party had 114,935 votes and got two seats. UKIP had 3,841,346 votes and got one seat. Conservative had 11,207,547 votes and received 326 seats.
It's broked. The party in power rarely see it as broked. Ergo, no proportional representation.
Re: David Cameron Wins a Slim Majority in UK General Election
#4This makes no sense to me. Ulster Unionist Party had 114,935 votes and got two seats. UKIP had 3,841,346 votes and got one seat. Conservative had 11,207,547 votes and received 326 seats.
It's broked. The party in power rarely see it as broked. Ergo, no proportional representation.
It still does not make any sense though. How is it possible that the amount of seats a party get seem so pseudo random?
Re: David Cameron Wins a Slim Majority in UK General Election
#5This makes no sense to me. Ulster Unionist Party had 114,935 votes and got two seats. UKIP had 3,841,346 votes and got one seat. Conservative had 11,207,547 votes and received 326 seats.
That's the 'first-past-the-post' system at work here. Sadly it's unlikely to change anytime soon :(
Re: David Cameron Wins a Slim Majority in UK General Election
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's broked. The party in power rarely see it as broked. Ergo, no proportional representation.
It still does not make any sense though. How is it possible that the amount of seats a party get seem so pseudo random?
Because it depends on geography as voting in the UK is based on who you vote for your local MP.
If UKIP's four million votes were entirely within 20 or 30 constituencies, they'd have won them all. But because their votes are spread out across the entire country, other parties pick up those seats instead.
The parties that do best are either those that get a ton of votes everywhere, or those that dig in and solely focus on specific locations where they can get a majority (the Lib Dems used to be good at this).
Re: David Cameron Wins a Slim Majority in UK General Election
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's broked. The party in power rarely see it as broked. Ergo, no proportional representation.
It still does not make any sense though. How is it possible that the amount of seats a party get seem so pseudo random?
In short: The First Past the Post Voting system.
The Ulster Unionists will get that many votes but in a small number of seats in Northern Ireland. The Conservatives might just win by a small amount but in a large number of seats, each of which translates directly to an MP in Parliament.
For anyone who hasn't watched them , I can wholeheartedly recommend CGP Grey's "Politics in the Animal Kingdom"[0] videos for an brief overview of why FPTP voting is as bad as it seems.
Re: David Cameron Wins a Slim Majority in UK General Election
#8This makes no sense to me. Ulster Unionist Party had 114,935 votes and got two seats. UKIP had 3,841,346 votes and got one seat. Conservative had 11,207,547 votes and received 326 seats.
Unionists are in the majority in the geographical areas of those two seats (the Northern Irish population is still a little segregated). UKIPpers are not in the majority anywhere (except Clacton, maybe!) but are spread across the entire country.
Re: David Cameron Wins a Slim Majority in UK General Election
#9This makes no sense to me. Ulster Unionist Party had 114,935 votes and got two seats. UKIP had 3,841,346 votes and got one seat. Conservative had 11,207,547 votes and received 326 seats.
It's broked. The party in power rarely see it as broked. Ergo, no proportional representation.
We had a referendum on changing the voting system in 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vot...
The change was rejected 68% to 32%.
Re: David Cameron Wins a Slim Majority in UK General Election
#10Interesting that Liberal Democrats still have larger % of votes than Green Party after all that happened.