Pom and Australian elections

The investigation reported below arose through a discussion of voting systems and a question being asked about the number of candidates per constituency in the UK (with first past the post).

I initially contacted the UP Elections Commission.  They didn't have information about the number of candidates per constituency but gave me a link to the UK House of Commons Library (HOCL) who publish a mass of data online.  After a bit of fiddling I found a useful briefing which has the number of candidates for each constituency for all general elections since 1918.

The basic data from that shows the following for 2019:

Chorley is the seat with 2: this is the current Speaker's seat and by convention he stands as an independent and is usually unopposed.  In 2019 the Greens broke with convention (how unusual) and ran against him.

The seat with 8 candidates was Strangford in Northern Ireland.  This has a full array of the Irish parties (including NI Conservatives in the Wiki, which HOCL list as simply Conservative) and UKIP which is not listed by HOCL as a party: presumably these folk stayed as UKIP being flat out brownshirts rather than simply being Brexit (which was a Party).

A small amount of complexity was added by the use of an "other" code by HOCL.  This is quite reasonable since in some cases there are 2 independents (and the independent in seat A will probably be nothing to do with the independent in seat B).  335 seats (out of 650) have some votes (minimum 58, maximum - Chorley - 36270) for 'other'.  I have checked out some of the seats in Wikipedia to find out the affiliations of all the candidates, and thus gain a feeling for how well the distribution above matches the actual number of candidates.  

My feeling - which with $5 will buy you a cup of coffee - is that in the significant majority of cases 'Other' represents a single candidate, typically running as an Independent.  I came across a few examples of Other = 3 candidates and a somewhat larger number of Other =2.  So I think the distribution is pretty reasonable.  Perhaps someone with contacts in the Australian Electoral System (or the Parliamentary Library) can comment on the number of candidates per seat in Australia?  Some commentary on selected UK seats is below.

Selected seats with a high turnout for 'other'.

East Devon: (26,144 votes for Other) 2 Independents one of whom is a popular County Councillor and regular candidate. 2019 #candidates 6.

Beaconsfield: 2 Independents one of whom was a former MP suspended from the Conservative Party 2019 #candidates 5.

SW Hertfordshire: the former MP was not preselected so ran as the independent.  2019 #candidates 5.

Ashfield: a local Government politician ran as the independent.  2019 #candidates 5.

Belfast West. 2 independents one of whom is a local politician 2019 #candidates 6.

Birkenhead: former Labour member ran as the independent 2019 #candidates 6.

Selected seats with a Moderate turnout for 'other'

South Basildon and East Thurrock 1 independent 2019 #candidates 4.

Pontypridd 3 independents 2019 #candidates 7.

Runnymede and Weybridge 2 Independents and 1 UKIP (not listed as a Party, presumably as most of them ran as Brexit) 2019 #candidates 7.

South Suffolk: 1 independent (originally ran as Brexit, but changed his mind!) 2019 #candidates 5.

Mole Valley: how could one keep a straight face with a constituency called that! 2 Others, 1 independent and 1 UKIP see above. 2019 #candidates 6

Selected seats with a Low turnout for 'other'

East Hampshire 2 for very small 'parties'. 2019 #candidates 6

West Dunbartonshire 1 Independent. 2019 #candidates 6

Harwich and North_Essex 2 Independents.  2019 #candidates 6

Other matters

The information from HOCL also enables me to calculate the number of seats (421 of 650) in which the first past the post did so with a majority (in other words would also have won under a preferential system).  

It is impossible to predict exactly what would have happened in the remaining cases as the voting systems are so different.  However only 20 seats were won with <40% of the vote.  I suspect that even under an Australian system there would probably be enough leakage to the winner from lower placed candidates to the winner to keep the result the same where someone got 40% of the vote.

Possibly of more importance than the voting system is the turnout.  Here is the % turnout from HOCL.
In 600 of the seats turn out was less than 75% and in 215 seats less than 65%.  And this is a system where party workers doorknock in the afternoons to encourage people to vote and/or give them a lift to the booth.  (Or at least they used to in the 1960s.)   No wonder they end up with the crap governments they do!!

After I published this to a Facebook discussion I was given data showing the number of candidates (technically 'nominations') for each constituency (technically 'Division') in Australia.  The comparison is interesting (but I am not sure what it means for the outcome).   

The Poms do not elect their Upper House so I can't compare the bed-sheet Senate voting papers from Australia with what the UK might come up with.



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