This electoral system is fucked

[florain]

Nevermind that the Lib Dems got more votes but less seats when compared to the previous election. Something weirder

Comments

[almosthonest]

I agree that we have a very lossy voting system. Thanks for putting up this analysis. The one wording change I would use is "discarded" - 70% of votes were discarded once the results were known.

(The discarded votes carry a bit of information to the electorate and the parties for next time round, so they are a tiny bit not pointless.)

[florain]

Thanks - I will keep it updated as more results are released.

I think I disagree about writing 'discarded' votes, but this may be a wording issue. It imples, to me, that had they not been discarded, there could have been a difference. But that is not so - all you need is 1 more than the next person and the rest is truly irrelevant/pointless from then on.

Of course an interesting point to investigate would be to work out had we had PR, would *more* people have voted and the current split would be still the same?

[helbling]

I'm kinda grateful we don't have PR - if we did, we'd have about 20 BNP MPs and 12 UKIP...

[same_difference]

So clearly we need something better. Any ideas? I hear tell some countries have a lower threshold for a seat with PR which helps keeps some of the more dangerous parties out.

[florain]

I know and thanks. I thought I'll come up with a number I haven't see on the news so far :)