Alternative Vote

[thedarkproject]

If we'd had the Alternative Vote system instead of the First Past The Post system, the Conservatives would have had roughly 38 fewer seats, which would have ended up split broadly between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party.

Disclaimer: I've only calculated this for constituencies where Lib/Lab/Con formed the top 3 parties, I've assumed the vote from the other parties is equally split across Lib/Lab/Con, and it's based on people's second-choice voting intentions from 2005.

I've not double checked my figures or anything, but they look broadly right. Where Labour have small majorities many of them tip over to the Lib Dems due to the typical Conservative voter's second choice favouring the Liberal Democrats, whereas mostly it's a case of the Conservatives losing to one of the other two parties.

                  Constituency -- Change of winner and their majority under AV
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                       Ipswich -- C (2079) => Lab (317)
                      Rochdale -- Lab (889) => LD (1851)
                  Chesterfield -- Lab (549) => LD (1832)
            Bristol North West -- C (3274) => LD (1558)
      Wolverhampton South West -- C (691) => Lab (1110)
               Edinburgh South -- Lab (316) => LD (2804)
                 Cardiff North -- C (194) => Lab (2248)
          Camborne and Redruth -- C (66) => LD (2504)
                  Newton Abbot -- C (523) => LD (730)
             Northampton North -- C (1936) => Lab (1214)
                    Gloucester -- C (2420) => Lab (315)
                      Ashfield -- Lab (192) => LD (3338)
                     St Albans -- C (2305) => LD (1131)
             Brighton Kemptown -- C (1328) => Lab (826)
                       Waveney -- C (769) => Lab (1138)
                  Colne Valley -- C (4837) => LD (561)
                   Weaver Vale -- C (991) => Lab (1304)
                        Hendon -- C (106) => Lab (1500)
                Stockton South -- C (332) => Lab (1796)
      Oxford West and Abingdon -- C (176) => LD (2044)
            Truro and Falmouth -- C (435) => LD (1303)
                      Dewsbury -- C (1526) => Lab (1036)
       Morecambe and Lunesdale -- C (866) => Lab (806)
                       Lincoln -- C (1058) => Lab (1534)
                  Swansea West -- Lab (504) => LD (1940)
                  Amber Valley -- C (536) => Lab (1322)
                      Broxtowe -- C (389) => Lab (2105)
                        Stroud -- C (1299) => Lab (1208)
       Lancaster and Fleetwood -- C (333) => Lab (1954)
 Plymouth Sutton and Devonport -- C (1149) => Lab (1883)
            Warwickshire North -- C (54) => Lab (1480)
             Sheffield Central -- Lab (165) => LD (1223)
                       Bedford -- C (1353) => Lab (1155)
   Oldham East and Saddleworth -- Lab (103) => LD (3782)
                    Hull North -- Lab (641) => LD (800)
                       Watford -- C (1425) => LD (4032)
                      Carlisle -- C (853) => Lab (986)
                      Sherwood -- C (214) => Lab (1825)
              Hastings and Rye -- C (1993) => Lab (198)
   Harrogate and Knaresborough -- C (1039) => LD (224)
                         Corby -- C (1895) => Lab (299)
       Brentford and Isleworth -- C (1958) => Lab (1603)
                        Pudsey -- C (1659) => Lab (1203)
     Edinburgh North and Leith -- Lab (1724) => LD (612)
              Warrington South -- C (1553) => Lab (2673)
                      Thurrock -- C (92) => Lab (1280)
                          Hove -- C (1868) => Lab (1279)
                  Newport East -- Lab (1650) => LD (963)
C  : 300 -> 262  (-38)
LD : 48 -> 67  (19)
Lab: 209 -> 228  (19)

Comments

[bloggerofdeath.livejournal.com]

It will be interesting to see how things work out. The Tories say they want another all party committee, despite already having had the Jenkins report in 1998, which recommended AV+. Labour mentioned AV+, and the libs prefer STV.

[thedarkproject]

AV+ would obviously be even more balanced than the corrections I predicted here. I just thought working it out for AV would be interesting. I'd be tempted to say it might get offered as a compromise, but I doubt the Liberals would want to settle for that.

[bloggerofdeath.livejournal.com]

well the liberals have said that they would be happy to settle for AV+, although their priority would be STV. what I will be shocked by though, is if they settle for an enquiry, since we already had the jenkins report in 1998, and that just got stuck in someone's sock drawer somewhere.

I am kind of conflicted as to what should be done with the voting system, as most have their advantages and disadvantages. Perhaps the most equal thing to do would be to have the queen pull a ball out of a bag with this round's election system on it.

[thedarkproject]

What I find interesting are the people on Facebook signing up to groups on one hand saying "we want PR for the UK" and on the other hand signing up to groups saying "stop the secret talks between parties" and "we didn't vote for Nick to get Dave"... don't they realise that with PR then this sort of thing has to happen every time?

[erishkigal.livejournal.com]

You might be interested in this FiveThirtyEight UK Forecast Model (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/04/how-our-uk-forecast-model-works.html) - it's very cleverly done.

[thedarkproject]

Yeah, I did actually do some of that sort of thinking when I worked out my first estimate, but I didn't have the sort of data available to me that they did.

[lost-in-moose.livejournal.com]

Good analysis, I don't think that the majority of people my constituency wanted a Conservative MP, most likely favouring either Labour or Lib Dem, but that's what we've ended up with.

It's a bit of a pain because there's two left-centre parties but only one right-centre group. So we end up cannibalising left votes from each other.

[thedarkproject]

Bear in mind though that quite a few of these changes disappear when you shift 80% of the UKIP, BNP, and English Democrat votes over to the Conservatives.

[lost-in-moose.livejournal.com]

I meant an equally large central-right party to counterbalance the central-left lib-dems rather than any of the right to far-right parties who thankfully most people realise are so mental :)