The Voting System for European Elections


The European Union uses proportional representation for the European Parliament, and it can take a bit of getting used to if it's unfamiliar, which it often is because so little attention is paid to European elections, but it's not as complicated as it looks. You can explain the whole thing in ten short points.
.
.
.
---1.--Each country of the EU is divided into several electoral regions, and each region is allocated a number of seats according to its population.
.
.
---2.--In the UK the three nations Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland comprise one region each, while England is divided into nine regions, made up of eight groups of counties plus Greater London.
.
.
---3.--England, Wales and Scotland elect MEPs using what's known as the d'Hont system which was invented by someone of that name. Northern Ireland, for local reasons, uses a transferable vote system.
.
.
---4.--Northern Ireland: Vote by listing the candidates in order of preference. In each round of counting, the candidate with the fewest votes drops out, and their ballots are then redistributed among the remaining candidates according to their second preference. This continues until there are three candidates left, and they are then allocated one seat each.
.
.
---5.--England, Scotland and Wales: Vote by d'Hont, thus: Each seat is allocated according to a calculated vote. The same formula is applied to each party in turn, and the calculation is:
.
.

..............................................................._V__  =  Calculated vote
...............................................................S + 1
.
.
 
V  =  Votes cast for that party
.
S  =  Seats won by that party in previous rounds
.
.
 
 
---6.--Each round of counting allocates one seat to the party with the highest calculated vote. After each seat is allocated, the calculation is done again to take account of that party now having one more seat than before.
.
.
---7.--Whenever a party wins a seat it goes to the candidate next in order of precedence on their official party list for that constituency.
.
.
---8.--Each party can submit as many candidates for each constituency as there are seats available in that constituency.
.
.
---9.--There are as many voting rounds as seats available in that constituency, one seat being awarded in each round until all the seats have been won and the election is complete.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Theresa May's Dates of Doom

  For about the last three hundred years I've been saying that Theresa May is going to resign because she can't get her withdrawal agreement through Parliament. Obviously she hasn't resigned, but that's only because she's in some kind of personal head butting contest with Jeremy Corbyn, these two stubborn donkeys stood there honking and hooting at each other. She has kept her job a lot longer than I thought she would, and yet she never achieves anything by keeping it. It's like we've all been dragged into the worst performance of Waiting for Godot. Nothing happens. No one comes, no one goes. It's awful.   But I keep telling everyone it can't last much longer. For the last two years there's been an empty diary, but eventually the outside world was bound to intrude. There are events beginning to unfold which Theresa May can do nothing about and which by the end of it she won't have a job. Dates of destiny and doom.   May 2nd Local ...
Read more

European Union constituencies for the United Kingdom

Image
European Union constituencies in the United Kingdom . Each constituency for the European parliament is made up of several counties, or in the case of the three nations, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, each one comprises a single constituency of itself. .   I've decided to make what I couldn't easily find anywhere else. A set of maps showing which counties belong to which constituency, and how many MEPs are allocated to it. So if you know where you live, you can easily see which European constituency you're in, and who else is in it with you. . . .   . . . . . . .   . .. .   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   . . . .   . . . .   . . . . . . .  
Read more