The votes have been counted in the BGS Mock election but who has won? Well that all depends on the voting system you choose...
As you can see from the scenarios below, different voting systems can produce quite different outcomes, something Head of History and Politics, Charlie Pearson, was keen to demonstrate to our pupils with this mock election.
Under First-Past-The-Post, Green won 45% of the seats from 33% of the votes, while the Conservatives gained just 1.7% of seats for their 7.5% vote share. This unequal value of votes is reflected in real world elections too, although the Green party are usually impacted more negatively by it; when the BGS votes were adjusted by a multiplier based on how many votes it took in the 2019 general election for each party to gain a seat, the Green's 33% of the vote netted them just 4 seats!
Using the Additional Member System – a form of proportional representation – the seat share more closely resembles the vote share. So is this a fairer system? We'll leave you to decide.
Well done to all the candidates who stood – all five took part in a lunchtime hustings which lasted almost an hour and impressed with their conviction, stamina and ability to think on their feet. Congratulations to our 'winning' parties and to the losers, sadly, that's politics!
The results
Under the First-Past-The-Post system (as used in the UK), we would probably have ended up with a GREEN / LIB DEM coalition with LABOUR as the main opposition.
|
Party |
Votes (total – 769) |
Vote % |
SEATS (31 for a majority) |
Seat % |
|
Green |
254 |
33.0% |
27 |
45.0% |
|
Labour |
159 |
20.7% |
14 |
23.3% |
|
Liberal Democrat |
150 |
19.5% |
10 |
16.7% |
|
Reform UK |
148 |
19.2% |
8 |
13.3% |
|
Conservative |
58 |
7.5% |
1 |
1.7% |
Allowing for the historical/cultural biases of First-Past-The-Post (based on how many votes it took in the 2019 general election for each party to gain a seat), we would have ended up with a LABOUR majority government with the CONSERVATIVES as the main opposition.
|
Party |
% votes received |
Multiplier based on 2019 General Election |
2019 GE-scaled seats in BGS mock election (31 for a majority) |
|
Labour |
20.7% |
x 0.97 |
35 |
|
Conservative |
7.5% |
x 1.29 |
16 |
|
Liberal Democrat |
19.5% |
x 0.15 |
5 |
|
Green Party |
33.0% |
x 0.07 |
4 |
|
Reform UK |
19.2% |
x 0.00 |
0 |
Under AMS (Additional Member System - a form of proportional representation based on combining the 60 tutor group seats with 48 further house seats, each house being a multi-member constituency with 8 seats) we would probably have a GREEN / LABOUR coalition with the LIB DEMS as the main opposition.
|
Party |
Combined Tutor Group and House vote (total – 1,501) |
Combined % of votes |
Combined tutor group and house seats (total – 108, 55 for a majority) |
Combined tutor and house seats % |
|
Green |
509 |
33.9% |
40 (27 + 13) |
37.0% (FPTP – 45.0%) |
|
Liberal Democrats |
308 |
20.5% |
25 (10+ 15) |
23.1% (FPTP – 16.7%) |
|
Labour |
299 |
19.9% |
21 (14 + 7) |
19.4% (FPTP – 23.3%) |
|
Reform UK |
273 |
18.2% |
17 (8 + 9) |
15.7% (FPTP – 13.3%) |
|
Conservative |
112 |
7.5% |
5 (1+4) |
4.6% (FPTP – 1.7%) |