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Sunday, June 07, 2009

Still a lottery for tonights counts 

The basic thing to remember about First Past The Post is that it is a ‘party list system’ with the number on the list limited to one. The crude and rigid proportional system we enjoy for the Euro elections has a serious defect. When it comes to determining the last seat, one competitive name left on each list, it becomes in effect ‘first past the post’ with the winner being the party ahead relative to the others. By this stage normally nobody will have a full quota of votes so it will be the residues that decide it.

Something to remember if we are biting our nails as to whether one of our champions gets the last seat going in any electoral area. If there is a lot of scattering of votes including solid but not spectacular success ‘minor’ parties not quite making up a quota it could become as much of a lottery as a multi-competitive Westminster seat.

The last seat in a larger region could go to a party with a pretty low level of support.

Of course this could be mitigated if we had a transferable system…

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# posted by Edis @ 10:03 am
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