Does Your Vote Count?
PR2 Report by E. Holdaway
In the 2005 UK General Election, just over 20%i of Britain's total electorate voted to keep Tony
Blair's Labour Government in power. People often vote in a constituency where they support neither
of the parties likely to win the seat, and therefore by voting for their first choice have little hope of
ending up with an MP who represents their personal political views.
In the recent European Elections, the party list system, which is one of many voting systems which
fall into the proportional representation category, was used. This system allocates MEPs (Members
of the European Parliament) within a multi-member constituency using a proportional system. For
example, at the last European Election, the South West elected 3 Conservative MEPs, 2 UKIP
MEPs, 1 Liberal Democrat MEP and 1 Labour MEPii. This system is deemed to be more
“representative” of the views of the electorate, as there is a greater likelihood that the voter will end
up with an MEP from the party they voted for. Does this mean that my vote “counts” more in a
European Parliamentary election than in a UK General Election?
In addition to the seeming “unrepresentativeness” of the first past the post system, there is also the
issue of falling voter turnout. In 2001, it fell to its lowest level since World War II, at just 59.4%. To
what level could it fall, and still produce a representative result?
In this project, I aim to investigate the following, to try and answer some of these questions:
1) How representative was the government elected at the 2005 election? (Using data from the
election will provide a direct comparison between the votes cast and members elected at the
time, whereas current MP numbers have been affected by by-elections and defections.)
2) Would different (proportional) voting systems make any difference to the representativeness
of the government?
3) How does voter turnout affect the representativeness of our government?
4) At what point does low turnout p