Voting infographic (first past the post in the UK)

news today in the UK mentioned there's going to be a referendum this year into changing from First Past the Post (FPTP) to AV (alternative vote).

 

Thought it might be timely to take a look at the results of last year's UK general election, to see how fair the current system is - how well it translates votes into seats.

 

Was a bit surprised by some of my findings. Data source.

 

It also looks like it might illustrate Duverger's Law, namely that certain voting systems (like FPTP) tend to end up favouring two dominant parties.

 

Personally I'm not sure about the merits (or otherwise) of AV - if I can find any equally detailed election results from a democracy that uses AV (e.g. Australia), I'll do a similar analysis.

 

 

Done