Election Question

[Felix The Assassin]

Originally Posted by wellard so now we have gone from "it never happened" to arguing the details of what did happen .... my work here is done unless there are more people who still believe the world is flat or that no crimes against democracy have taken place .... goes off to look under more rocks for those still burying there head

JOB? You had a job, HERE? WOW! Z, HEY Z! it's time to counsel Choc!
This has already been covered in your other thread W, with complete resolution. However, if you must continue, then place your rhetoric towards me. I and my 49,999 brothers and sisters that voted absentee from the state of Florida demanded that recount. There was no way in hell Kerry was going to win with 50K known military voters against him! This also addresses the bean counter math that said Kerry could have pulled it with more votes per county. Wrong, absentee goes directly to the state, and carries with it state wide numbers, not county districts, thus debunking illogical (D) math!

This election shall not have those issues! Reason? The military absentee ballots did not make it to the ground units on time. If you want to question something, question that. How the frick can something like that happen? However, the voting officers did get a resolution and all troops on the ground have already voted!

[Papa Schlumpf]

Just to make sure, anyone claiming that Republicans have never participated in any kind of voter sabotage in the last decade is factually incorrect. In fact, one of those who did just that even wrote a book about it called 'How to rig an election', after he got out of prison.

"After ten full years inside the GOP, ninety days amongst honest criminals wasn't any great ordeal."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Raymond

Plus an interview with the guy regarding his book:
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=LnH8i1rQHdo

[Yorick]

Originally Posted by Lavindathar Obama has won?

When do we get confirmation Mr Clegg has won?

[Yorick]

Originally Posted by Lavindathar Ok, this lost me. In England, "counties" are our versions of states. lol.

Completely wrong Lav. The equivalent of American states in the UK are England, Scotland, Wales etc in the United Kingdom. Or even France Germany and Belgium in the E.U.

The American states are sovereign. Each state has it's own counties (or boroughs or parishes depending on where you are) themselves, just like England does.

I live in Kings county for example, which is in the State of New York.

The Union involved in the USA is similar to what's happening with your European Union.

Infringements on states rights are not what the founding fathers envisioned, just as no-one wants to see Germany running all over Czech rights for example.

[SpiritWarrior]

Originally Posted by Papa Schlumpf Just to make sure, anyone claiming that Republicans have never participated in any kind of voter sabotage in the last decade is factually incorrect. In fact, one of those who did just that even wrote a book about it called 'How to rig an election', after he got out of prison. "After ten full years inside the GOP, ninety days amongst honest criminals wasn't any great ordeal." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Raymond Plus an interview with the guy regarding his book: http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=LnH8i1rQHdo

Yes, I remember this guy. He was the one asked to jam the phonelines.

[Unglaublich Verwustung]

Originally Posted by Lavindathar So in England, the country votes, and its simply a matter of the most people wins. Counties don't matter.

Apologies to all if I get a little off-subject, but I may have to break your heart on this one, Lav. We may all get a vote in the UK but that ain't how it works.

Our current system for electing MPs to the House of Commons is First-Past-The-Post. There are 646 separate constituencies across the UK each electing one single Member of Parliament. In order to vote you simply put an 'X' next to the name of the candidate you support. The candidate who gets the most votes wins, regardless of the actual percentage of support. Once members have been individually elected, the party with the most seats in Parliament, regardless of whether or not it has a majority across the country, normally becomes the next government.

To put some numbers around this and give a clearer idea of how this actually works these are some of the numbers for the General Election in 2005:

The average number of votes per MP elected was 26,906 for Labour, 44,373 for Conservative and 96,539 for Liberal Democrats

Labour won 35.2% of the total vote cast, but got 55.1% of the seats in Parliament, giving them power to form a government.

The reality of this is that they did get the highest number of votes for any individual party, but 35.2% of voters hardly counts as popular government, even less so by taking into account the low turnout (61%) of eligible voters who actually voted for them, thus giving a rather pathetic 21.5% popularity. At best that means 33% didn't want them and the other 39% either felt that their vote wouldn't make any difference (hey, wake up out there, you should have an Apathy party and then you'd have the majority) or apparently don't care enough to vote.

And this doesn't account for strategic voting e.g. those who may have voted Labour to prevent yet another Conservative government, and vice versa, further distorting the poularity stakes.

So, if we base this on popularity i.e. number of votes cast per party gets % of seats in government we would have the following:

	Actual Seats	Seats by popular %
Labour	356	228
Conservative	198	209
Lib Dem	62	142
Other	30	67

So, the Labour party would still have the most seats, but not enough to form a Government, this could only have been done by an alliance of parties.

[Yorick]

Originally Posted by Lavindathar Plus you have all these pre-elections or w/e in states and polls and all this...we don't.

Really? So the Tory party and the Labour Party and the Liberal Dems don't all vote on who their leader is before they go to a public election? Wow? So how is the leader chosen? A boxing match?

The preselections are the internal votes of each party. The party memberships are just so large and publicly monitored. Not as many "back room deals" like you might find in the Westminster system.

[Yorick]

Originally Posted by Unglaublich Verwustung Apologies to all if I get a little off-subject, but I may have to break your heart on this one, Lav. We may all get a vote in the UK but that ain't how it works. Our current system for electing MPs to the House of Commons is First-Past-The-Post. There are 646 separate constituencies across the UK each electing one single Member of Parliament. In order to vote you simply put an 'X' next to the name of the candidate you support. The candidate who gets the most votes wins, regardless of the actual percentage of support. Once members have been individually elected, the party with the most seats in Parliament, regardless of whether or not it has a majority across the country, normally becomes the next government. To put some numbers around this and give a clearer idea of how this actually works these are some of the numbers for the General Election in 2005: The average number of votes per MP elected was 26,906 for Labour, 44,373 for Conservative and 96,539 for Liberal Democrats Labour won 35.2% of the total vote cast, but got 55.1% of the seats in Parliament, giving them power to form a government. The reality of this is that they did get the highest number of votes for any individual party, but 35.2% of voters hardly counts as popular government, even less so by taking into account the low turnout (61%) of eligible voters who actually voted for them, thus giving a rather pathetic 21.5% popularity. At best that means 33% didn't want them and the other 39% either felt that their vote wouldn't make any difference (hey, wake up out there, you should have an Apathy party and then you'd have the majority) or apparently don't care enough to vote. And this doesn't account for strategic voting e.g. those who may have voted Labour to prevent yet another Conservative government, and vice versa, further distorting the poularity stakes. So, if we base this on popularity i.e. number of votes cass per party gets % of seats in government we would have the following: Actual Seats Seats by popular % Labour 356 228 Conservative 198 209 Lib Dem 62 142 Other 30 67 So, the Labour would still have the most seats, but not enough to form a Government, this could only have been done by an alliance of parties.

Well done mate. Autralia has a Westminster system of Govt. too.

[ElfBane]

Originally Posted by Unglaublich Verwustung Apologies to all if I get a little off-subject, but I may have to break your heart on this one, Lav. We may all get a vote in the UK but that ain't how it works. Our current system for electing MPs to the House of Commons is First-Past-The-Post. There are 646 separate constituencies across the UK each electing one single Member of Parliament. In order to vote you simply put an 'X' next to the name of the candidate you support. The candidate who gets the most votes wins, regardless of the actual percentage of support. Once members have been individually elected, the party with the most seats in Parliament, regardless of whether or not it has a majority across the country, normally becomes the next government. To put some numbers around this and give a clearer idea of how this actually works these are some of the numbers for the General Election in 2005: The average number of votes per MP elected was 26,906 for Labour, 44,373 for Conservative and 96,539 for Liberal Democrats Labour won 35.2% of the total vote cast, but got 55.1% of the seats in Parliament, giving them power to form a government. The reality of this is that they did get the highest number of votes for any individual party, but 35.2% of voters hardly counts as popular government, even less so by taking into account the low turnout (61%) of eligible voters who actually voted for them, thus giving a rather pathetic 21.5% popularity. At best that means 33% didn't want them and the other 39% either felt that their vote wouldn't make any difference (hey, wake up out there, you should have an Apathy party and then you'd have the majority) or apparently don't care enough to vote. And this doesn't account for strategic voting e.g. those who may have voted Labour to prevent yet another Conservative government, and vice versa, further distorting the poularity stakes. So, if we base this on popularity i.e. number of votes cast per party gets % of seats in government we would have the following: Actual Seats Seats by popular % Labour 356 228 Conservative 198 209 Lib Dem 62 142 Other 30 67 So, the Labour party would still have the most seats, but not enough to form a Government, this could only have been done by an alliance of parties.

Is this a remnant of the "rotten borough" problem that plagued UK elections in the past?

[Lavindathar]

Originally Posted by Yorick Completely wrong Lav. The equivalent of American states in the UK are England, Scotland, Wales etc in the United Kingdom. Or even France Germany and Belgium in the E.U.

Firstly it's insulting to compare your states to our country.

So Don't.

We are countries, part of a bigger group of countries called Great Britain. We are not comparable to the State of Florida.

Originally Posted by Yorick Really? So the Tory party and the Labour Party and the Liberal Dems don't all vote on who their leader is before they go to a public election? Wow? So how is the leader chosen? A boxing match? .

They leaders are picked internally, by the partys themselves. That was my point. I beleived the American people voted on each partys leader.

We dont, AFAIK.

But im not very knowledagble on policitcs, im a bit out of my depth.