by Edward Milford
8. June 2009 09:28
Watching a democratic count in action is inspiring. I attended the count for the European Elections in Camden, North London and seeing thousands and thousands of long ballot papers (there were 19 candidates) being carefully sorted, checked and counted all by hand in a period of just a few hours helps restore some of one’s faith in Democracy. Unclear ballots are carefully evaluated by party agents, looking carefully to see if the voter’s intention is clear even if the mark on the paper is not as prescribed.
In this particular area of London, support for the four main political parties was very evenly spread, with the fourth-place party (the Greens on 17%) being just seven percent behind the leading party (Labour, unusually, on 24%) with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats being sandwiched between the two. No other party scored over 6%.
However, the strange hybrid electoral process used for European elections in the UK then gives that faith in the Democratic process something of a knock. Despite approaching some 10% of the vote nationally, the Green Party in the UK ended up with just two MEPs (as they had after the 2004 European election). The Conservatives, with roughly three times as many votes, end up with over 12 times as many seats.
Put another way, with 1.3 million votes, each Green Party seat took 650,000 to win; with just under 4.2 million votes, each Conservative party seat took just 167,000 votes to win. That is less inspiring.
