Picture credit: DemocracyIntl
Electoral Systems
STV
How to vote in the Scottish Local Council Elections
The 2012 local election results in Scotland (using STV) demonstrate how proportional electoral systems like STV do not produce majority administrations. For example, out of 32 councils only 9 councils were won outright. For example, the SNP won outright control of Angus and Dundee. Labour controlled 4 councils - Glasgow, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, and West Dunbartonshire. While another 3 were controlled by independents. However, the vast majority of councils returned a No Overall Control result. This is in comparison to the local elections in England where they still use FPTP. Labour won 61 councils outright with the Conservatives in second place controlling 42 of the councils.
Scottish Council Election Results 2012
English Council Election Results 2012
Regional Party List
Britain uses the Regional Party List to elect Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Parties present lists of candidates and seats are awarded according to their party's share of the vote. In Britain, seats are allocated using the d'Hondt system of Proportional Representation (PR). This is the same way List MSPs are elected to the Scottish Parliamentary elections.
Advantages of PL
The Party List system is a pure form of proportional representation (PR) so it guarantees a high degree of party proportionality. This means the % of votes a party wins will be similar to the % seats it wins. For example, in the South East region in Britain there are 10 MEPs elected. In the 2009 European elections the Conservatives won 34.8% of the vote and won 4 seats (40%) and UKIP won 18.2% of the votes and was awarded 2 seats (20%).
More women and minorities are likely to be elected in using the Party List system. As the List system tends to have large multi-member constituencies it provides more opportunities for women and minority groups to gain representation. For example, in 2009 33% of UK MEPs were women in comparison to only 22% of women MPs in 2010.
Measures that can increase the representation of women can be more easily introduced using a system such as the Party List. With closed party lists 'zipping' can be used to increase the number of women MEPs elected. For example, the Liberal Democrats use 'zipping' in European elections where those selecting the candidates on the list are required to alternate male and female candidates.
Every vote has equal value when using a system like the Party List. Small constituencies lead to safe seats where the same party is all but guaranteed election each year (often due to the political leanings of the people living within a small area). As the PL system uses large constituencies, there are no safe seats. For example, for the European election the UK is split up into only 12 large regions for voting purposes.
Disadvantages of PL
The link between the representative and a regional area is lost using the PL system. This means people may not even know who their MEPs are or how to contact them to put forward their views. For example, Scotland is one constituency. The 6 MEPs elected in Scotland must represent over 5 million people.
There is little choice for voters to have a say in which candidate is elected. The power lies in the hands of the party leaders. For example, British elections to the European Parliament use closed party list votes. Voters vote for the list as a whole. Candidates are elected in the order they appear on the list (decided by the party leadership). This means the voter has very little voter choice except choosing a party.
The Party List system does not tend to produce socially representative candidates. As candidates are elected by party leaders they are likely to put 'safe' candidates near the top of the list at the expense of traditionally under-represented groups. For example, all MEPs from the Scotland region, bar one, are white and male.
The Party List system can lead to coalition government. Coalitions can lead to a fragmented Parliament and produce unstable multi-party governments. Although UK MEPs will join EU political groups in the EU Parliament - such as the centre-right EPP (European People's Party) - the diversity of parties represented as a result of the PR PL system can be seen in the 2009 UK results. For example, UKIP won 13 seats the same as Labour whilst the Greens, the SNP and the BNP all won 2 seats each.
Social Class
In the 1950s and 60s social class was a very important factor in influencing voting behaviour. In the past where you lived and what you did for a living had a direct impact on your vote. If people lived in traditional working class areas like Glasgow there was a strong Labour following. Whereas people from a more affluent, upper-middle class background tended to vote Conservative. Today however, the social classes are less distinct and a reduction in traditional working class jobs has led to more fluid voting.
The 2010 election showed that many people do still vote in accordance with their class so social class still influences voting behaviour to an extent. For example, 39% of AB voters and 39% of C1 voters voted Conservative in 2010 while 40% of DE voters voted Labour. But there are more people willing to vote out with their class and to vote for third parties. For example, there were more working class people (C2 voters) voted for Conservative than for Labour in 2010. Thirty-seven percent of C2 voters voted Conservative compared to only 29% voting Labour. Just 2/3rds (66%) of the votes in Great Britain were cast for either the Conservatives or Labour.
Traditional working class areas still align themselves with Labour, especially in General Elections. For example, in 2010 Labour won the most seats in Scotland and received strong support in and around Glasgow. Labour won the Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill constitency with 66.6% of the vote and Glasgow East with 61.6% of the vote. However, Labour suffered significant losses in working class areas with high unemployment in the 2010 election. Labour support fell disproportionately in working class seats which suffered from above average rises in unemployment by as much as 7.9% compared to 4.9%.
2010 Election Results Scotland
Does social class influence how people vote?
The Media
TV Debates
The 2010 General Election was the first ever campaign to feature televised debates between the 3 main party leaders - Gordon Brown (Labour), David Cameron (Conservative) and Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat). An audience of just under 10 million watched the 90-minute politics programme on TV. In the first debate Nick Clegg was the winner. He performed well by talking directly into the camera and calling audience members by their name.
Instant polls showed Clegg as the clear winner and some polls showed the Lib Dems in the lead in party polls. Within 24 hours of the debate the Lib Dems claimed to have received £120 000 in small donations and over 100 000 Facebook users - more than the party's entire membership - had joined a group dedicated to supporting a Lib Dem victory. The weekend following the 1st debate Clegg enjoyed a personal approval rating of 72%.
When it became clear the Lib Dem surge, as a result of the TV debate, was not a temporary blip, the Conservative Party responded by changing their list of target seats. They removed most of the Lib Dem seats and added 14 new Labour ones in an attempt to compensate for the expected Lib Dem surge come election day. The Conservatives also pulled a Party Election Broadcast (PEB) on the failures of Brown's government, replacing it with one, produced at very short notice, on the theme of 'change'. It was filmed in Cameron's back garden with him talking directly to the camera.
Newspapers
The Conservatives won support of 6 out of 10 national dailies and 5 out of 9 Sunday papers. Labour lost the support of the Guardian, the Financial Times and Rupert Murdoch's papers. Labour was left with the Mirror as its only ally - the worst press showing the party had received since 1983. Considering the declining circulation figures of the Mirror, the picture was even bleaker still in terms of positive press coverage for Labour. Labour's share of the total circulation of national dailies was just 13% in 2010, lower than at any time since 1945, and a massive decline from the 75% it received in 2001.
Partianship and circulation of national daily newspapers in 2010
|
Name of paper |
Preferred result |
Circulation (2005 in brackets) 000s |
Readership (2005 in brackets) 000s |
|
Mirror |
Labour victory |
1,240 (1,602) |
3,425 (4,657) |
|
Express |
Conservative victory |
666 (884) |
1,577 (2,132) |
|
Sun |
Conservative victory |
2,956 (3,098) |
7,761 (8,825) |
|
Daily Mail |
Conservative victory |
2,096 (2,278) |
4,934 (5,740) |
|
Daily Star |
No preference declared |
823 (735) |
1,577 (1,965) |
|
Daily Telegraph |
Conservative victory |
683 (868) |
1,905 (2,181) |
|
Guardian |
Liberal Democrat (but vote tactically to keep Conservatives out) |
289 (327) |
1,147 |
|
The Times |
Conservative victory |
507 (654) |
1,773 (1,655) |
|
Independent |
Liberal Democrat (but vote tactically to keep Conservatives out) |
188 (226) |
671 (643) |
|
Financial Times |
Conservative victory |
387 (132) |
434 (453) |
Adapted from Table 14.1, Labour No More: The Press, 'The British General Election of 2010' by Dennis Kavanagh and Philip Cowley.
'Labour's lost it' was the headline from the Sun declaring its switch to the Conservatives in 2009. The Sun gave over more coverage to the election than in 2005 and had a two-pronged strategy: firstly to have a sustained attack on Gordon Brown and secondly, to take every opportunity to promote 'Cam the Man' as the people's champion. Gordon Brown, according to the Sun, had sunk to the 'nation's zero'. Brown was regularly ridiculed as incompetent, a grotesque 'waster' of taxpayers' money, 'deceitful' and 'dithering'. Brown was the 'Prime Sinister', according to the paper following the first TV debate. Whereas the Sun became David Cameron's cheerleader in the national press. He was 'the change we need' following the Conservative's manifesto launch, the 'Cam back kid' in the TV debates, and 'Iron-man Cam' on the election trail. Also, on election day the Sun used the iconic Barack Obama 'Hope' poster to depict the Tory leader under the headline 'Our Only Hope ...in Cameron we trust.'
The press often seemed marginalised during the 2010 campaign. The 2010 General election was most definitely a television election. It was defined by the TV debates and 24-hour broadcasting generally provided the key moments. Sky news broke the 'Bigotgate' story. [On a visit to Rochdale during the election campaign, Gordon Brown engaged in a discussion with Gillian Duffy, a pensioner, who had heckled him. However, once Brown got into his car to leave he forgot his radio mic was still switched on. His subsequent conversation with his aide was picked up by Sky whereby he called Mrs Duffy a 'bigoted woman'.] The Press generally followed, rather than set the agenda (which was done largely by the TV debates). More significantly, even though the Conservative-supporting press commanded 74% of total national daily circulation, it failed to deliver a clear majority for David Cameron.
An Ipsos-MORI poll of voting behaviour by newspaper readership showed that the national readership swing from Labour to Conservative was 5%, the same as the electorate as a whole. This shows the press was simply in tune with the mood of the country. However, there was a very high swing of 13.5% to the Conservatives among Sun readers. It may have been down to the paper's high proportion of readers from social classes C2 and DE; at 7% these groups switched to the Conservatives by a larger than average national swing. But, given the Sun's huge readership and its willingness to flex its political muscles, its significance in influencing this group of voters cannot be ignored. The Sun did not win or lose it; but Cameron, like Blair before him, had good reason to be grateful to Rupert Murdoch's support.
The Influence of Social Media
The 2010 General Election was the first election held in the social media age. The Guardian's Charles Arthur wrote an article, '2010: The first social media election', in which he analysed the potential impact and influence of social media in the 2010 election.
- Research had found that people were more likely to be influenced by talking in the pub (32%) than by social media (19%) but social media was having a significant impact on Liberal Democrat voters and the young.
- The internet had a growing role in informing people prior to the election with almost half the population going on-line to get information about candidates and parties.
- Parties embraced social media with an eagerness that suggested the parties thought social media could make a difference.
- Social media users cannot be herded; if attempts were made to direct their thinking it was likely to backfire.
- Social media is an echo chamber rather than influencing votiong behaviour. People tend not to engage with others whose views disagree with their own.
- Facebook could make a difference simply through increasing the number of people who vote, especially young first-timers. The Democracy UK facebook page led to 14,000 voter registration forms being dowloaded.
- Social media provides realtime feedback to any political event - it can amplify the impact of an event, it can spread suppressed information and humourous rejections of the offical line. Paul Mason, BBC Newsnight economic editor said it has "the potential to partially or completely neutralise the ability of the corporate media to transmit the dominant ideology". For example, there was an explosion of tweets saying everything was "Nick Clegg's fault" before the second TV debate when the Mail, Express and Telegraph suddenly found anti-Clegg stories for their morning papers.
- Tweets and facebook pages do not generally give much detail about where people live and so whether it is worth parties trying to persuade you to vote for them.
2010: The first social media election
Comments