andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2010-04-19 01:26 pm

Why I'm in favour of Proportional Representation

According to the BBC, the current polls show Lib Dems on 33%, Conservatives on 32%, Labour on 26%.
Which would give a seat allocation of Conservatives: 246, Labour 241, Lib Dems: 134.
Or, in a more easily digestible table format:
Party Percentage Seats
Lib Dems 33% 134
Conservatives 32% 246
Labour 26% 241

It should be pretty fucking obvious that this is an electoral system that is fucked in the head.
ext_8559: Cartoon me  (Default)

[identity profile] the-magician.livejournal.com 2010-04-20 02:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Grin, actually I knew that, as I seem to recall there was an interesting episode of Boston Legal where one of the electoral college had stated they weren't going to follow the winner-take-all and there was a constitutional question about whether the state had the power to compel that person to do so.

[identity profile] interactiveleaf.livejournal.com 2010-04-20 03:01 pm (UTC)(link)
There's actually a whole Wikipedia article on what are called "faithless electors"--people who didn't vote for the same person or party that their state did.

That happened en masse once, in 1836, and ,a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector">the whole article is kind of fun reading.

Um, if you're a big ol' geek, anyway. :)