The Dorset County Council elections on Thursday 2nd May once more reveal distortions arising from the use of the current First Past The Post system. It took an average of 815 votes to elect each Conservative Councillor, 1,936 to elect each Liberal Democrat, 3,015 for each Labour and a massive 29,284 to elect the only UKIP Councillor! They call it democracy. Look at it another way: The Conservatives won 60% of the seats for only 39% of the votes. The Liberal Democrats got 27% of the seats for 18% of the votes. By chance, Labour’s result was about right with 11% of the seats for 12% of the votes, but UKIP ended with only 2% of the seats (actually one seat) for 23% of the votes! They call it democracy!
Although Labour’s seats were approximately proportionate to their votes, one of their candidates was lucky enough to be elected by only 22% of the voters. In other words, nearly four out of five people voted against the lucky Councillor who “represents” them! They call it democracy!
It is interesting that the Liberal Democrats did disproportionately well out of the First Past The Post system in Dorset. They got 6,051 fewer votes than UKIP but twelve Councillors to UKIP’s one! The call to change to Single Transferable Vote (STV) is not, as some of its opponents say, a conspiracy to give more power to the Liberal Democrats. In Dorset, it would reduce their power. The purpose of the campaign for STV is to make elections fair for voters of all views and to improve voter choice. For more on this see https://www.stvaction.org.uk/
David Smith, Weymouth
