#DeniedMyVote - what happened?

In the European Parliament elections last week, a number of EU citizens resident in the United Kingdom reported that they were unable to vote here, finding that paperwork hadn't been processed, their names were crossed off the register and officials were telling them to vote in their "home country". What exactly happened and why?

I have to admit this is probably the most obscure part of election law in regards to registration. It only comes up at one election that comes along every five years and only applies to one small section of the electorate. Consequently it's not something well known about by political activists or often handed down from agent to agent. As a result the rationale behind the procedure is obscure, but this post is my best bet.

The arrangements seem to stem from EU law and work as follows:

• All citizens of European Union member states who meet the other qualifying criteria (age, residency etc...) are eligible to vote for the European Parliament.
• It is assumed as a default that they will be exercising their vote in their country of citizenship (called "home country", though many object to this term).
• Those resident in other EU member states are assumed to still be exercising their franchise in their country of citizenship, whether by postal vote, voting locally at a facility run by their embassy or by travelling to their country of citizenship.
• Those who wish to vote in their country of residence are required to make an additional declaration that they will be exercising their vote in their country of residence and not in their country of citizenship.
• EU citizens resident in another country who qualify for that country's domestic franchise (in the case of the UK this is Cypriot, Irish and Maltese citizens including anyone with dual nationality with one of the other 24 EU member states) are treated as domestic, not EU, voters and so do not have to go through this process.

As set out in my previous post #DeniedMyVote - The position across the EU, at least most EU member states operate a system that requires EU citizens resident in them to take active steps in order to be able to transfer their European Parliament franchise to their country of residence. Some seem to incorporate it into general registration, some have a specific registration for EU citizens and/or European Parliament elections and some have a stand-alone procedure for existing voters on the register. The United Kingdom has the last method.

Thus an EU citizen resident in the United Kingdom has to complete an additional form. For voters in Great Britain this is the "European Union citizens – European Parliament voter registration form (GB)" known as the "UC1" form, though confusingly that term does not actually appear on the form making it harder to search for. For voters in Northern Ireland it's the "European Union citizens - European Parliament voter registration form (NI)" form or "EC6", a term which does actually appear on the form.

(Amongst the many confusions seen on this, frustratingly some British councils have been talking about "EC6" forms. I hope nobody was given the wrong one to fill in.)

It seems the form has to be returned to election authorities in the country of citizenship. With many countries having elections run at the municipal level, not just the United Kingdom, that's an awful lot of agencies involved to screw things up. It's not clear if the agency in the country of citizenship has to sign things off before the EU citizen can be added to the relevant roll at the other end, or if the local agency can go straight ahead. But this makes it impossible to set things up for people to sign at polling stations and vote there and then.

Much of the mess originates in this entire procedure being little known about and understood, rather bureaucratic (especially if the forms need to be processed at another agency in a different country before the EU citizen can be admitted to the local roll) and easy to mess up. It's also clear that a lot of confusion has been generated by people who don't know the difference between being on the register and having had the updated category allocated. Much of the wording is focused on the former and reports suggest many people inadvertently got confirmation of the wrong thing. Also there is no actual legal requirement for local election services to send out the forms to EU citizens on the register.

However many people report sending the forms in or even hand delivering them before the deadline yet finding they were not processed in time. This is a clear failing, although it's likely to impact at the local election services end.

The reason for people's names appearing crossed out on the register is clear. As explained in my previous post Who can vote for what bodies?, there is a joint electoral register covering six different categories of voters across combinations of three different franchises. When a voter is ineligible to vote in a particular election, their name is crossed out so they cannot vote polling stations but the staff can see the reason and explain.

Overall this system is cumbersome and a mess, but being an EU wide thing it seems hard to fix. Obviously leaving the EU will resolve it in an instance, but for other countries where similar problems have been reported there will probably need to be modifications to make the forms more directly accessible - maybe incorporating them into basic registration?

#DeniedMyVote - The position across the EU

This is a long information post. It's to support my next post looking at the details of how European Union citizens resident in the UK can vote here in European Parliament elections. As part of this I look at what the requirements are across the whole European Union.

In a lot of the talk about #DeniedMyVote there has been conflicting claims about whether or not other EU member states have similar requirements of EU citizens having to complete additional forms in order to be able to cast their European Parliament vote in their country of residence. Rather than trading anecdotes, let's have a quick look at what the actual procedures are.

The EUROPA - Your Europe European Union website has information for EU nationals residing in countries other than their country of citizenship at Your Europe > Citizens > Residence formalities > Elections abroad > European elections. Although not exhaustive, there's information about how to register to vote for the European elections in each member state. So just how many states have a declaration process requiring non-national EU citizens to complete extra steps in order to register for the European Parliament elections? The answer is at least most of them:

Austria:

"...voters must be registered on the European electoral roll in Austria at least 72 days before the European elections."

Nothing specific about transfers though the term "European electoral roll" suggests a specific franchise roll instead of a combined one. The page links through to the Austrian government site but only in German.

Belgium:

"...non-Belgian nationals must:
...

• be registered on the electoral roll in Belgium
• not be registered to vote in their home country

To inform the authorities where they will vote for European Parliamentary elections, non-Belgian EU nationals should contact the Belgian municipality where they reside no later than 31 January 2019."

Bulgaria:

"When voting for Members of the European Parliament from the Republic of Bulgaria, citizens of other EU Member States are entered on the electoral roll on the basis of a standard statement to the municipal administration at their address of residence in Bulgaria no later than 40 days before election day."

Croatia:

"In order to vote in the Republic of Croatia nationals of other EU Member States must apply to the office responsible for their place of permanent or temporary residence in Croatia to be entered in the electoral roll, and must do so no later than 30 days before the date of the elections.
They must include the following with their application to be entered in the electoral roll:

• a declaration stating their nationality, their place of permanent residence in the Republic of Croatia, where applicable, and the place or constituency in their home Member State in whose electoral roll their name was last entered
• a declaration that they will vote in Croatia only"

Cyprus:

"To inform the authorities where they will vote for European Parliament elections, foreign EU citizens should contact the Ministry of Interior."

Czechia:

"The EP election electoral roll is managed by Czech municipal authorities. As an EU national, you can be placed on the electoral roll if:

• you submit a request
• you submitted a request in the previous EP elections and have not asked to be deleted from the electoral roll since
• you are on the electoral roll for municipal elections and ask to have your information transferred to the EP electoral roll."

Denmark:
There's not a lot of text on the site. However if we follow the link through to the Danish government we find:

"If you are an EU citizen and reside in Denmark, you can only be enrolled in the electoral register for the election in Denmark upon application. The reason is that EU citizens who live in a member state other than their home country can usually choose if they want to participate in the elections in their home country or their country of residence. However, you can only vote in one place, and thus you cannot vote both in the elections in Denmark and in your home country.

If you want to vote in the elections in Denmark, you must fill out the application form (see the application form below) and enclose documentation for the information stated on the application form."

Estonia:

"To inform the authorities where they will vote for European elections or stand as a candidate, EU citizens residing in Estonia must first submit a one-time application to be entered in the polling list. The application shall be submitted to the chief processor of the population register not later than on the thirtieth day before election day."

Finland:

"EU citizens need to enroll with the voting register to vote, for the first time, in Finland in European elections.
They should contact the local register office and file a written notification 80 days before the election day at the latest to inform that they wish to vote in the elections in Finland."

Again there's a link through to the domestic government website with a bit more:

"When a person has been entered in the voting register in Finland, the Finnish authority will notify the relevant authority in his or her home state of the registration, and his or her personal data will be removed from the electoral register of this state. According to the EU Act concerning the elections, no one may vote in more than one Member State of the European Union in the same election. EU citizens may vote either in their home state or in the state they live in."

Link to the declaration form.

France:

"When registering on the list of EU citizens, you should provide a written statement that you will exercise your right to vote in France only."

Germany:

"Foreign EU citizens should contact their German municipality of residence to inform the authorities where they will vote in European Parliament elections."

Greece:

"To register on special electoral rolls, you must:
...

• fill in a formal declaration form

...
Voting in the European elections is compulsory for everybody on the electoral roll. If you don't vote, you may be sent to prison for a period of 1 month to a year.
If you wish to vote for political parties and candidates from your home EU country, you may contact its Embassy or Consulate in Greece."

Hungary:
The information for Hungary doesn't seem to cover this. It describes how to register but it's not clear if this is exclusively for the European Parliament elections (and thus has the declaration built in?) or if there's a more general process. There's a link to the National Election Office website but it's in Hungarian.

Ireland:

"To inform the authorities where they will vote for European Parliament elections, foreign EU citizens should contact the relevant local authority in Ireland or visit the Register of Electors website."

Ireland appears to require registration for each election. The form for EU citizens (other than British) includes both registration and a declaration. The declaration form needs to be officially witnessed.

Italy:

"You must inform the Italian national authorities where you intend to vote in the European Parliament elections when you register on the electoral roll in the municipality where you live. When registering, you must declare that you will vote only in Italy."

Lithuania:

"Foreign EU citizens need to register to vote in the European elections (foreign EU citizens need to be permanent residents of Lithuania 65 days before election day) and to submit a formal declaration that they want to vote in Lithuania.
In order to be registered, the deadline to submit the above-mentioned formal declaration is 25 days before election day.
The rules to be included into electoral roll are the same as for Lithuanian nationals, but foreign EU citizens need to submit the above mentioned declaration form.
To inform the authorities where they will vote for European elections, foreign EU citizens should contact the Central Electoral Commission of the Republic of Lithuania."

Luxembourg:
There isn't specific information here but there are links to the registrar's website:

"In support of their application for registration, nationals from other EU Member States must present the following:

• a formal declaration specifying:
• * their nationality, their date and place of birth, their last address in their country of origin and their address in Luxembourg;
• * where applicable, on the electoral register in which local area or district in the country of origin they were last registered;
• * that they will only exercise their right to vote in elections for the European Parliament in Luxembourg;
• * that they have not been stripped of the right to vote in their country of origin by individual court order or by administrative decision. These decisions must be subject to a judicial review. If this is the case, the interested party must mention that the loss of the right to vote is due to the residence conditions imposed by their country of origin;
• * a current valid identity document.

False declarations are subject to penalties."

Malta:

"When you register to vote, you will need to specify whether you want to vote in Malta or in your home country. If you choose to vote in Malta, the Electoral Commission will inform your home country accordingly."

Netherlands:
No information on the site at all, just a link to their election agency which doesn't say anything about this either:


Poland:

"EU citizens who have not previously been placed on the electoral roll should apply to the municipal authority responsible for the place where they are domiciled.
A copy of their passport or other form of ID and a written declaration (indicating the number and date of the residence card issued by the provincial governor and the address and the constituency where the EU citizen is on the electoral roll in their country of origin) should be attached to the application.
The declaration should state that the applicant wishes to exercise their electoral rights in Poland and has not been deprived of electoral rights in their country of origin.
...
EU citizens who are not Polish citizens should contact the municipal or city authority responsible for their place of residence in order to make it known where they intend to vote."

Portugal:

"EU citizens can register with the registry commissions (comissões recenseadoras) or the Aliens and Borders Department (Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras, SEF). They are then registered in the constituency corresponding to their place of residence as stated in their valid residence document (título de residência).
For this purpose they must:

• submit a valid identity document
• provide proof of legal residence in Portugal, in the form of an EU citizen's registration certificate (Certificado de Registo de cidadão da UE) or an EU citizen's certificate of permanent residence.

Voting is voluntary, so there is no penalty of any kind for not doing so.
However, voting simultaneously in the European elections in both Portugal and another EU country is punishable by a prison sentence of up to one year and a fine of up to 50 days."

Romania:

"As an EU citizen, you have to register in a special electoral roll to be able to vote in Romania. You need to submit your request in writing to the mayor of the place of your domicile, accompanied by a copy of a valid identity document."
Otherwise nothing about declarations but it's possible the application for the special roll incorporates it."

Slovakia:

"Citizens of other EU countries need to register to vote in the European elections. The municipality will add electors who are citizens of another EU country to the electoral list on request. This application must be submitted by the EU citizen to the municipality in which they reside no later than 40 days before the day of the election. Otherwise, they will no longer have the right to enroll on the electoral list."

Again there's nothing about declarations.


Spain:

"EU citizens need to register in the Municipal Register and also formally express their wish to exercise the right to vote in Spain so that they can be put on the electoral roll of foreigners residing in Spain (CERE) for European elections."

Sweden:

"To vote in the European elections, you must be  
...

• an EU citizen registered in Sweden 30 days before the elections. You must also inform the county authority (länstyrelse) that you wish to vote in Sweden rather than in the country of which you are a citizen."

United Kingdom:

"UK and EU citizens in the UK need to register to vote in European Parliament elections."

And nothing further on the site but a link through to the government website:

"If you're a citizen of an EU country (other than the UK, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus) who's resident in the UK, you can vote in either the UK or your home country.
If you want to vote in the UK you must be registered to vote. Contact electoral authorities in your home country (where you're a citizen) if you want to vote there."

Information about declarations is noticeably absent.


Most of these reference some kind of formal procedure for an EU citizen to formally declare they're exercising their European Parliament in their country of residence and not of their country of citizenship. (The use of the term "home country" for the country of citizenship has caused some outrage on social media but is used so often as to be a standard legal term.) Not every country's information mentions it, and it's possible that some of the countries which have compulsory voting, whether enforced (Belgium and Luxembourg) or not (Bulgaria and Greece) invert the process. But it seems clear the standard assumption is that an EU citizen will be voting in their country of citizenship and they must take active steps to be able to vote in their country of residence.

This is so widespread it seems clear this is a requirement of EU Law, even though hardly anyone has identified the specific law. It's also notable that in a lot of countries the declaration is a separate procedure from registering for local government elections (and, confusingly, some seem to make registration for European Parliament elections a separate affair altogether).

Few state what happens to the declarations, but the information for Finland is clear that the declaration is reported back to the country of citizen's electoral authorities to prevent them exercising the vote there. This means it would be impossible to operate this procedure at polling stations and that this was not an option the UK could have adopted, despite some calling for it.

So overall this procedure seems to be a creation of the EU rather than the UK, showing that those making wild claims about "voter suppression" don't know what they're talking about. It's an administrative arrangement that sounds good in principle (and could indeed be adopted by the UK against concerns about people registering & voting in two places at once) but is a bureaucratic quagmire that isn't well publicised (I've seen claims made that it doesn't exist in countries that have it) or processed well.

Finally it's notable that in a lot of EU countries voter registration is handled by local government, just as it is here. This can't make for easy exchange of information between countries.

#DeniedMyVote - Postal votes

In a further post I'll be looking at the problems EU citizens residing in the UK had with voting in the European elections last week but for now a quick look at the other reported element, postal ballot papers arriving too late to be returned in time.

Postal voting has been around for a while but has steadily grown over the years, particularly after 2001 when postal voting on demand was introduced. (Previously it was only available to those with good reason for being unable to get to their designated local polling station, such as employment, education, ill health, holidays or living on an island without its own polling station.) Note that provision is more restricted in Northern Ireland. It is very unlikely that the on demand provision will be curtailed again, not least because many political activists spend general election polling days outside their own home area and postal voting allows them to still vote with ease.

At the same as postal voting has increased, postal services have continued to decline. Long gone are the days when a person could receive a letter at the breakfast table inviting them to afternoon tea somewhere in town and have the time to compose and send a reply that would be received by the host in time to prepare. Collections and deliveries are less frequent, such that it now takes longer to send something out and get a reply back in time.

Elections are run on a surprisingly tight timetable, with just four weeks between the close of nominations and polling day, with a further requirement that all votes must be with the local Returning Officer's team by the close of polling. There is limited time in which to get the ballot papers printed and sent off.

Postal votes are normally dispatched around eleven working days before polling day, which is generally enough time domestically although it would help if election services across the country aimed for better consistency of expectations. There have been many cases of people asking for one due to a holiday but it doesn't arrive before they go away despite their social media being full of others casting their postal votes.

However international postal services are another matter and the situation is not helped by election services that use consolidation services to send a whole bundle to a remailer to send on at cheaper local rates. There are countries that no longer have universal daily collections and deliveries (if they ever did), and indeed many such countries only require their own postal votes to be sent & post marked by the close of polling, not received. Reply envelopes may not have the quickest postage option on them. As a result many people have reported receiving their postal vote packs far too late to be able to return them in time to be counted and some have even reported receiving their votes after the declaration of results.

The short amount of time from confirmation the European elections were taking place to polling meant that many were caught unprepared (and as very few local government ballot papers are sent overseas there weren't off the shelf contracts in place for the council elections that could be adapted) and the length of the ballot paper would have added to delay because of the limited number of printers that can handle it, but reports of overseas postal votes arriving too late have come up in other elections and referendums that have had rather more time to prepare. However they haven't received so much attention but this is not something can be easily ignored or dismissed as a one-off problem.

It is possible that the UK's postal services will be further curtailed in years to come, placing greater pressure on the tight election timetable if postal votes can't be sent out and returned in good time. Various solutions exist, ranging from internet voting to a longer period between nominations and polling to allowing postal votes to arrive after polling day at the cost of instant overnight final results, but all bring their own drawbacks and would provoke resistance.

The overseas votes are already facing this problem and again some solution could be found, but it's hard to see the timetable being extended or more radical solutions such as internet voting being introduced purely for them. Some countries have overseas voting at embassies, but they often don't have the requirement for all ballot papers to be in with the local Returning Officer by the close of poll. Perhaps embassies could be given the task of printing and dispatching ballot papers locally as a means to cut down on the transit time (and maybe even receiving them, though I don't know how workable a solution that is).

Longer term a number of problems with overseas voting may be better solved by introducing dedicated ex pat constituencies (as already happen in other countries) that could have their own timetables and arrangements rather than being at the mercy of the domestic timetable.

Who can vote for what bodies?

Amongst the many comments about the elections this week and the problems many EU Citizens raised was the fact that their names appeared on the paper registers at polling stations but crossed through. Why was this?

The basic answer is that the election register combines six different categories of voters with differing entitlements to vote in different elections. All qualified voters who have registered and can vote in at least one set of elections appear are on the list but those ineligible to vote at the election in question at the polling station in question are crossed out.

More detail required? Sure.

Broadly there are three different franchises in this country:

• The local & devolved government franchise for electing councils, police & crime commissioners and devolved parliaments & assemblies.
• The Westminster franchise for electing the House of Commons.
• The European Parliament franchise for electing members of the European Parliament.

(I'll come to referendums later in the post.)

Due to the different voting entitlements of ex pats, EU citizens and members of the House of Lords there are six different categories of voters with various combinations of franchise. For operational simplicity a single electoral roll is maintained but has to indicate the differing eligibility. If you see a register you will note that some voters' names have letters next to them; these indicate the different categories. These are as follows:

• (No letter) - Citizens of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Commonwealth countries (including Cyprus and Malta) who have all three franchise.
• E - Ex pat members of the House of Lords who have the European Parliament franchise only.
• F - Ex pats who moved abroad from the United Kingdom in the last fifteen years who have the Westminster and European Parliament franchises (in the constituency of their last registered address) but not the local government franchise.
• G - Citizens of other European Union countries (excluding the Republic of Ireland, Cyprus and Malta covered above) who only have the local government franchise unless they've completed a further stage...
• K - Citizens of other European Union countries (excluding the Republic of Ireland, Cyprus and Malta covered above) who have completed, returned & had processed a formal declaration to state that they will be exercising their vote for the European Parliament in the United Kingdom and not in their country of citizenship, and thus have both the local government franchise and the European Parliament franchise.
• L - Members of the House of Lords who have both the local government franchise and the European Parliament franchise but not the Westminster franchise for the House of Commons.

(The document for converting from "G" to "K" is called the UC1 form, although annoyingly not on the form itself, or the "European Union citizens – European Parliament voter registration form (GB)" in Great Britain and the EC6 form, a code that does appear on it, or the "EUROPEAN UNION CITIZENS - EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT VOTER REGISTRATION FORM (NI)" in Northern Ireland.)

There are also two letters relating to how votes cast:

• A - Indicates a voter who has applied for a postal vote and thus cannot vote at the polling station.
• P - Proxy - a vote has proxied their vote for someone else to cast it on their behalf.

To summarise by franchise:

• Local & devolved government - (No letter), G, K, L
• Westminster - (No letter), F
• European Parliament - (No letter), E, F, K, L

Referendums usually use the same franchise as the relevant body in question though there have been some variations. Votes on various council matters or devolution use the local & devolved franchise. The AV and Brexit referendums used the Westminster franchise plus members of the House of Lords (E & L), with the latter also enfranchising voters in Gibraltar.

The standard election registers have all registered voters across the six categories listed. The copies for polling stations are printed so that all names appear but those unable to vote in a particular election are crossed out. As well as the categories of voters ineligible at the election, also crossed out are people with postal votes (A) and people on the register under the age of 18 on polling day.

This arrangement helps staff quickly identify the reason why a person will not be able to vote there, albeit at the expense of potentially confusing ineligible voters who may not understand why they can't vote when their name is on this list.

The problems relating to EU Citizens and the declaration forms to convert their category from G to K is such a big subject that it would take a separate post. However looking at some of the reported letters and phone calls, it seems that a lot of wording has not distinguished between someone appearing on the combined register for elections in general and having had the specifics processed for European Parliament elections.

An Election Freepost FAQ

Updated 15/12/19: I've added another question that came up in the general election.

 

Updated 21/11/19: Information about elections to the European Parliament is no longer relevant. To keep it for historic purposes I've italicised the relevant text.

Over the past week or so a number of people have been posting on social media about leaflets from various political parties they've received, often with their name and address on them.

Officially called "Election Communications", these are election freepost leaflets. In some elections all candidates/parties are entitled to have one item delivered to all voters/households by Royal Mail. For many voters it may be the only thing they receive from a particular party/candidate.

Not everyone knows the ins and outs of them, so here's a quick set of Frequently Asked Questions and answers.

What elections have the freepost option?

Elections to the Westminster and European Parliaments.

For directly elected mayors the electoral authorities will directly send out a booklet containing multiple one or two page manifestos from all candidates who submitted them and paid the fee.

Local council elections and, if I recall correctly, police & crime commissioner elections don't have them. I forget what the provision is for the devolved parliaments.

Why have we only received leaflets from some parties?

The freepost is an option available to all parties and independent candidates, but not everyone makes use of it whilst some campaigners opt to only send out a limited amount to targeted voters and/or areas. For example in the 2011 AV referendum the Yes campaign (infamously) decided against doing a full delivery.

Why did this arrive after my postal vote?

It largely depends upon when the leaflets were delivered to Royal Mail. The final deadlines for submission are usually after the bulk of postal votes go out and the distribution is often staggered. Unaddressed freeposts (more on these below) are especially vulnerable to this but also some are sent in batches so the ones to postal voters arrive earlier; however not every party or candidate will have the most up to date postal vote list to hand.

How did [X] party get my address details?

Political parties and candidates are allowed access to the electoral register for election purposes, including sending literature to voters.

I am on the closed register so why am I receiving this?

The option to opt out of the "open" version of the register only applies to its commercial sale to marketing companies. Political parties and candidates have the full register.

I am a citizen of an EU country who cannot vote in general elections so why did I receive an addressed leaflet in a general election?

Citizens of EU member states (excluding the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Cyprus and Malta) resident in the UK can only vote in local & devolved and, if they complete the correct form and get it processed in time, EU Parliament elections. If they receive an addressed mailing the most likely reason is that a party has used the wrong franchise selection on their register database.

Why did only some of us in this home receive addressed leaflets? 
and 
Why did we get different leaflets?

Some parties and candidates will try to maximise the effect of the freepost by sending more than one leaflet to a home wherever possible. A common tactic is to send a first leaflet to the first named person on the register for an address and then a second leaflet to the second named person. Other parties may have limited resources and will only send one leaflet per household but address it to a named voter to navigate shared letterboxes and the like.

Why is this leaflet addressed to someone I've never heard of?

Either they're a past resident at your address who is still listed there on the electoral register (or on an outdated one used by a party) or there's been a major database screw-up, which has hit one party this year.

Why are some not addressed at all?

Some parties and candidates opt to send unaddressed leaflets to all households. Both addressed and unaddressed are options available with Royal Mail, though not all printers are set up for individual addressed leaflets.

Why did I receive this when I have a "No junk mail" sign up?

Political communications do not meet the official definition of junk mail.

Political parties have announced a suspension of campaigning so why was this delivered?

This came up a bit in the 2017 general election. Once the leaflets have been submitted and accepted by Royal Mail, they are out of control of the parties who are unable to then get delivery delayed. Royal Mail's internal set-up simply doesn't allow for such an instruction to go through and be implemented.

Why have I received a leaflet for a different constituency?

Annoyingly some leaflets seem to turn up in neighbouring constituencies despite everything being correctly filled out. In my experience these are usually unaddressed freeposts and the problem stems from postal areas not aligning to administrative boundaries, ranging from the post code to regional level.

Why does [X] have my details when they're not a political party, but a registered company?

All political parties listed on the ballot paper are officially registered with the Electoral Commission on the Register of Political Parties. Some parties may also be registered as companies for operational reasons (e.g. here's "The Liberal Democrats Limited"'s registration at Companies House) but if they're on the register of parties then they are a recognised political party, no matter how many times somebody tweets otherwise.

Independent candidates are also entitled to a copy of the register for electoral purposes.

A vote for X, Y *or* Z is a vote for Z? or Why Corbynistas don't care about "electibility"

It's one of the oldest cries in electoral history. Politicians will declare that a vote for one of their rivals is a vote for another. But they don't always mean it the same way.

Consider a case from fifteen years ago in the US when Al Gore and his supporters declared "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush!" Ralph Nader responded with "A vote for Gore is a vote for Bush!" Presumably George W. Bush declared "A vote for Bush is a vote for Bush!" just in case anyone misunderelucidated.

Gore was making the classic attack on smaller parties and independents, arguing they would split the vote and let the rival in. But Nader clearly wasn't - nobody seriously believed Nader could win. Instead Nader argued that Gore was so similar to Bush that the country would get much the same, whichever one was elected. Now hindsight may suggest something differently and at the time supporters of Gore (and for that matter Bush) could doubtlessly rattle off a huge list of differences between the two candidates & their manifestos but it had no effect. Because Nader's voters either doubted the sincerity of the differences or felt that on the fundamentals both candidates were as bad as each other. A Nader vote at least allowed them to side step actually having to chose between the two and being somehow responsible.

And this isn't confined to the US. Over here in the old days the Liberal Democrats often portrayed both major parties as much the same. However at the same time at the local level the party would position itself as the only credible opposition to one of the big two in the hope of getting tactical votes from supporters of the other. Come 2015 it found this contradiction tearing its vote to shred as Labour & other left-minded voters decided that "yellow Tory" was no different from "blue Tory" and they weren't going to compromise vote for one over the other.

This is part of the reason why the Jeremy Corbyn bandwagon has proven immune to every single appeal to consider what will make the Labour Party an election winner again. The hard left of the Labour Party was never enamoured with Blair and New Labour but largely kept their heads down at the time. But looking back many despise those years and feel all they got was a conservative government in a red rosette. They don't want to make those compromises again. If the country is to have a conservative government it won't be by their votes or through their party.

This attitude exists on the right as well - there's a lot of voters who do believe the "LibLabCon" [sic] is all the same and aren't going to rush to vote one over the other and instead stick with Ukip.

What's the solution? It's old fashioned positive differentiation to show how a party is offering something different and better.

Now does the Corbynistas' attitude seem so strange?

Who can and can't vote for what?

There's been a lot of nonsense today about how various people are being "denied" [sic] or "given" the vote in the forthcoming European Union referendum and it's clear some of the complaints stem from mistaken belief about who can and can't currently vote. So here's a quick rundown.

British citizens over the age of 18 resident in the United Kingdom have the right to vote for the House of Commons, the devolved Parliaments (when they reside in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales), local councils and the European Parliament.

The only exceptions are:

• Members of the House of Lords (including, I think, those who've retired from it) who cannot vote for the House of Commons but can for devolved Parliaments (when they reside in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales), local councils and the European Parliament.
• Convicted prisoners who have no vote at all for the duration of their sentences
• Certified "lunatics" have no vote at all
• People who have not registered themselves to vote

Citizens of other Commonwealth countries plus citizens of the Republic of Ireland over the age of 18 resident in the United Kingdom can vote for the House of Commons, the devolved Parliaments (when they reside in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales), local councils and the European Parliament. Indeed on the register I have in front of me there's no distinction whatsoever.

British citizens over the age of 18 who reside abroad and who left the United Kingdom within the last fifteen years are entitled to vote for the House of Commons and the European Parliament, with their vote allocated to the constituency of their last UK address. They cannot vote for the devolved Parliaments (when they resided in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales) or local councils.

European Union citizens over the age of 18 resident in the United Kingdom are entitled to vote for the devolved Parliaments (when they reside in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales), local councils and the European Parliament. However to exercise their vote for the European Parliament they have to complete an additional form confirming they are exercising their vote in the UK and not in their country of citizenship. This is a bureaucratic European procedure that may be modified by 2019 regardless of the outcome of the referendum.

(This doesn't apply, as far as I know, to Cyprus, Malta and the Republic of Ireland. Their Commonwealth membership or the special UK legislation trumps their EU membership in this regard.)

Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory that is part of the European Union via the UK's membership. Citizens in Gibraltar over the age of 18 can vote for the European Parliament as part of the South West England constituency. They also have franchise rights in Gibraltar's own elections.

As you can see from this list there are actually a lot of different potential electorates (the register I have here has no less than six codes for different types of voter) and this can create myths about who can and can't vote already.

In terms of who gets to vote in referendums, this depends on the legislation for each individual vote. At some point it would be better if Parliament passed some standing legislation to set this down in advance rather than have these rows each time.

Most referendums since the late 1990s onwards have been about either devolution or aspects of local government and have used the local government franchise. The Scottish separation referendum had special provision for 16 and 17 year olds to vote.

The AV referendum was on the House of Commons franchise except that members of the House of Lords were also able to vote; overall this was because this was a decision with would otherwise have been taken by the Westminster Parliament.

The European Union membership referendum has similarly been announced as using the House of Commons franchise plus the House of Lords and also Gibraltar. In other words pretty much the people who would otherwise have elected or voted in the Parliament that would otherwise take the decision. Oddly I've seen almost no comment about Gibraltar compared to all the talk about European Union citizens or Commonwealth citizens.

And apart from one referendum in Scotland, 16 and 17 year olds have never had the vote.

So all this talk of "denying" and "disenfranchising" voters is nonsense. They don't have the relevant vote anyway.

Comments on ballot papers don't deliver a message

At some point I'll post my more general reflections on the council and European elections last week but for now I want to focus on one aspect that doesn't get much discussion - spoilt ballot papers at the count.

For those who've never been to an election count, one of the important later stages is the adjudication. This is when all ballot papers identified by the counting as "Doubtful" - i.e. those that don't seemingly express a clear & correct number of intentions - are ruled on by either the Returning Officer or a formally designated deputy. Candidates and/or their agents are entitled to attend to witness the rulings though challenges must be submitted through the legal process. Crucially it's often the case that not every candidate/party is represented at this but that's their own decision.

Coming late in the count and usually straight after a long and intense campaign, all the candidates and agents are invariably tired and focusing their remaining energies on spotting valid votes for their own side. The ballot papers also go by fairly fast, especially in a borough such as Newham, which has many doubtful votes.

Some votes are ruled as valid and returned to the pile. Others are ruled out for one of the following reasons:

• Want of an official mark
• Being unmarked or wholly void for uncertainty
• Voting for more candidates than voter was entitled to
• Writing or mark by which voter could be identified

The first is rare nowadays due to changes in the way ballot papers are designed, printed and issued. The fourth should be self-explanatory though it includes polling numbers as well as names. The third is also known as "Overvoting" and is particularly common when there are multiple ballot papers given out at the same time - in my opinion the vast majority of these that I saw last week were either people who read the instructions on one ballot paper and followed them on the other two or people who put both their first and second preference for Mayor in the same column.

The second is something of a catch-all category, including blank ballot papers, ticks and crosses in so awkward a place they couldn't be determined, various attempts to vote for "None" and a variety of comments.

Why people cast spoilt ballot papers is ultimately known only to them, though I suspect a lot of the blanks come from people being given three papers and mistakenly assuming they can only vote on one of them. I'd be interested to hear people's experience from other multiple election counts but I'm not persuaded they're a sign of a mass deliberate "Vote Blank" campaign.

The comments are usually clearer, expressing dissatisfaction with some or all of the candidates or the absence of a particular party. But frankly they don't make any impact beyond comedy and irritation - it's a common opinion at counts that nobody who has seen how this process works would bother trying to send politicians a message by the ballot paper. The official returns bundle them in with the blanks and mistakes. The agents are primarily concerned to a) save good votes and b) work out where their supporters made mistakes & how to get them to get it right next time. Nobody is transcribing messages. If the agents report any of the messages back to party activists it will be for a laugh rather than anything else.

So all the essays and brief comments scribbled on ballot papers are ultimately ineffective. If you wish to not vote or to cast a blank then you're perfectly entitled to. But if you want to send a message to politicians in general or in particular, this is not the way to do it. Try email or Twitter or even, to show how serious you are, snail mail.

"Mummy, what does 'santorum surging' mean?"

So far the US Presidential election is just dull.

Compared to recent contests this one just hasn't caught fire. On the Democrat side the euphoria from when Obama was first elected has now died down as even his most ardent supporters realise he can't walk on water and isn't going to deliver endless change they can believe in. But he's basically unopposed for his party's nomination. (Yes pedants I know there's probably a few non-entities who've managed to get their name onto the odd primary ballot paper but that won't make a difference.) The last incumbent President in such a position who went on to lose re-election was Herbert Hoover back in 1932. That should give Obama comfort until he remembers that Hoover fell in harsh economic times - and no Obama can't simply magic away the world's economic problems. We're not in Doctor Who!

On the Republican side we have the return of Mitt Romney and the succession of "stop Romney" candidates, and all it's done is reinforce perceptions of the Republican Party as full of nutters. Now just because I'm a British Conservative doesn't mean I should automatically cheer on anyone from one of our "sister" parties around the world - you don't see many Conservatives cheering on Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel at the moment despite their parties being founder members of the IDU. The nuttier wings of the Republican Party are not ones that should be copied here. But they can at least make things exciting - and at the moment that hasn't happened. Instead it's one long dull fest.

Of course there is the occasional moment of humour, especially with Rick Santorum. For there is a not very nice meaning for "santorum" and if he pulls off an early primary win a lot of people will be searching for more information on him.

So why are journalists so keen to write that "Santorum is surging"?

The Additional Member System - New Zealand's experience

Yesterday New Zealand had an election. In itself it wasn't too dramatic - the main governing party slightly advanced, the opposition fell back rather more and there was some shuffling round amongst the smaller parties. The most prominent story is the return to parliament of the populist New Zealand First. But of other interest is that New Zealand also held a referendum on its voting system and opted to retain its current Additional Member System (known as Mixed Member Proportional over there, but I'll translate the terminology for a British audience).

Now here in the UK changing the voting system was dealt a huge blow at the AV referendum in May and many, myself included, are willing to take the losing campaign's cries of "this is the only chance to change the system" at face value. However in politics few proposals ever truly die and circumstances can change, bringing once seemingly dead issues back to the table. (The New Zealand referendum came 18 years after two previous ones that adopted the system, and six elections in the meantime. Historically this is slow for New Zealand which until 1989 had referendums on prohibition alongside every election.) And despite the referendum we still have other voting systems in use - the Additional Member System is used for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and London Assembly; the Single Transferable Vote is used for the Northern Ireland Assembly and local government in Northern Ireland and Scotland; party lists are used for elections to the European Parliament (apart from Northern Ireland which still uses STV); and the Supplementary Vote is used for directly elected Mayors and will also be used for Police Commissioners. So one way or another the voting system question hasn't gone away completely.

New Zealand's implementation of the AMS system is relatively straight forward. There are seventy constituencies ("electorates") which each elect a single member of parliament by First Past The Post. Then there is a top-up list vote, operating on a New Zealand-wide basis, which elects a further 50 members. Crucially the 70 constituency members are factored into the overall proportionality. There are, however, some additional key details:

• There are separate constituencies for Māori voters. When registering voters can choose to go either on the main ("general") electoral register or on the separate Māori register (but cannot appear on both). The seven Māori constituencies are organised on a geographic basis, overlapping the sixty three general constituencies. All voters vote for the same list.
• In order to qualify for list seats, a party has to get either at least 5% of the list vote or win at least one constituency. (The German implementation includes a further qualification that parties that represent specific minorities - e.g. the South Schleswig Voter Federation representing ethnic Danes in Schleswig-Holstein - are exempt from the threshold requirements. Such a rule was considered for New Zealand but the final implementation opted instead for keeping the separate Māori constituencies.)
• Proportionality is calculated only amongst list votes for parties that qualify for list seats. Thus if 10% of the vote goes to parties that don't qualify, the 120 seats are apportioned on the basis of 90% of the votes.
• If a party wins more constituency seats than its list vote entitles it to then there is an "overhang". This is partially corrected by automatically creating additional list seats equal to the number of overhang constituencies. For example in 2008 the Māori Party won five constituencies but a list entitlement of only three, so two extra list seats were created.

(The British uses of AMS have all voters on a single "general" register and maintains the 5% rule, which in London has caught out variously the Christian People's Alliance, RESPECT and the BNP in some elections. In Scotland and Wales the use of separate AMS regions means there are fewer seats available overall. Also AMS here uses a different mechanism for allocating the list seats though in practice to much the same effect. There is no mechanism to counter an overhang.)

AMS can throw up a number of anomalies and confusions because of this - for those interested in the more technical details have a read of Antony Green's Election Blog: The MMP Sealed Section: How the Intricacies of MMP Could Prevent a National Majority which is written for an audience with no direct experience of the system. By far the most interesting, and potentially controversial for any British consideration, are the rules on qualifying for list seats and the potential for gaming the system.

Preliminary results for 2011 suggest that this isn't an issue - every party that has won list seats is over the 5% threshold and every party below it with seats has only constituency seats. But in 2008 New Zealand First won 95,356 list votes and no seats whilst ACT New Zealand (a free market, free people, small government party) won 85,496 and was entitled to five seats overall. Were the UK to have a referendum on AMS I wouldn't be surprised if this occurrence got fished out at some stage. The difference was that ACT had successfully targeted the Epsom constituency, albeit with help from the Nationals, whereas New Zealand First won no constituencies at all. These things are swings and roundabouts - New Zealand First had itself relied on constituency success in 1999 when leader Winston Peters narrowly retained Tauranga by just 63 votes but by 2005 they lost there and were at the mercy of the list.

(Other parties who've qualified for list seats this way include: the Progressive Party in 2002, United Future in 2005 and ACT also in 2005. However it was rare in any of these elections for such parties to be outpolled by others who ended up with no seats.)

And the result partially reflected a gaming of the system by the larger National Party - they gave a discrete message to their list voters in Epsom to give their constituency vote to ACT so that the latter would qualify for list seats and boost the chances of a National government with ACT support. The constituency and list votes are cast on the same ballot paper and the detailed count includes the precise combinations - in 2008 nationally 86.3% of National Party list voters also voted National for the constituency vote, but in Epsom this figure was just 26.2%, with 69.9% of National list voters voting ACT in the constituency. (Antony Green's Election Blog: 2011 New Zealand Election: How MMP Works) Other stats from that breakdown show a lot of Green list voters vote for other parties for constituencies and indeed there are some signs of Labour and Green list voters in Epsom trying to counteract the National/ACT effect by voting for the National constituency candidate. It is a bizarre situation when a party's opponents are keener for it to win a particular contest than the party is itself!

In the past I've blogged about possible ways to game AMS - How the London Assembly could have been so different details how "decoy lists" would have worked in London in 2008. New Zealand's overhang correction mechanism could throw up interesting effects - either many more list seats would be created to counter the effect of lots of constituencies being won by parties with next to no list votes (something similar happens in some German lander parliaments, resulting in wild fluctuations of the number of politicians) or the seats might be completely disregarded in the list calculations. But a system where small parties can survive or die depending not directly on the votes but on whether they can get tactical help from big parties will not be to everyone's taste, especially if the small parties are felt to wield disproportionate influence in government.

Is AMS a "simple" system for the lay voter to understand? Well that's very hard to measure as one person's simplicity is another's convolution. But some factors are there - on the one hand AMS lacks the surpluses and fractions of STV and it never sees the most popular constituency candidates (as measured by who gets the most votes) denied victory. However details like overhangs and multiple thresholds can be complicated to explain and would expand an official summary beyond conciseness. Furthermore the prospect of a party winning more than 50% of seats with less than 50% of votes is a real one under AMS - it happened in Scotland this year due to factors such as the use of multiple regions but also because of "wasted votes" for parties that secured no seats - and again this sort of detail that works counter to expectations can confuse. Now all systems have their anomalies but given the tendency of PR campaigners to make so much of victories on less than 50% of the vote, if the alternative is shown to not live up to their own standards then it's natural to be sceptical.

Could AMS win a future referendum on voting systems? That's very hard to say as much of it would come down to a variety of factors including events in advance, how well campaigners prepared the ground before the announcement of a vote, the effectiveness of the campaigns themselves and so forth. I do hope that in any such referendum better arguments would be put forward than "vote yes for utopian politics" or "vote no 'cos the Germans use it".

However for the moment such a referendum seems a long way off. But time will tell...

Online primaries - how not to do them

The primary election is a rare beast is this country. Even most of the selections the Conservatives brand as "open primaries" are actually closer to US style caucuses with a greater level of involvement required and thus smaller turnouts. The reason for this is obvious - it's near impossible to devise a mechanism whereby all eligible voters are able to choose a candidate for a party without incurring huge costs (the Conservatives did hold some postal ballots and send papers to all voters in a few constituencies but at great cost) or having no security controls to prevent the process from being fraudulently hijacked by the ineligible and/or other parties. Realistically a primary would require state support to work. But every so often a party throws such common sense to the wind.

UKIP are currently engaged in the process of selecting who should be their candidate for Mayor of London. I'll admit upfront that I don't find the actual contest itself to be the most exciting thing going. But one of the ways they're allocating votes is so ridiculously fraud prone that I'm amazed that it wasn't laughed out at first suggestion.

For UKIP have set up a website, UKIP's Mayor for London: Have Your Say, whereby anyone can vote on the six applicants for the candidacy. There are next to no controls on voting whatsoever - you simply select a candidate's box and click "Vote". There is no requirement or provision to:

• Give your name
• Give your address
• Confirm you are a voter in London
• Confirm you are not a partisan for another side/a mischief maker intent on ensuring UKIP is saddled with the most absurd candidate available.

Absolutely anybody anywhere on the planet can vote in this. And what's to stop multiple voting? The site seems to detect second vote attempts, but there's no shortage of technical people who know how to disguise a computer and/or IP address so that they could repeatedly vote to their heart's content.

At stake in all this are large blocks of "bonus votes" that will be counted at the UKIP conference when they make their final choice. So there is a serious potential for mischief making to distort the outcome.

Increasing public involvement in politics is a desirable and necessary aim. But to do so in such a way that the outcome is invariably tainted and discredited is not the way to go about it. Let's hope no serious party follows UKIP's disastrous decision.

By the way wouldn't it be hilarious if Winston "Six Parties" McKenzie won the nomination?

Know thine enemy "partners" - the Liberal Democrat MPs

I've recently been doing some statistics compilation about the electoral record of the Liberal Democrat MPs to help some others answer various questions about how much the traditional image of the party is still true. The findings are surprising and I thought I'd share them here.

Of the current 57 Lib Dem MPs, only one has had a break in their Commons service. Mike Hancock was first elected in a 1984 by-election, lost in 1987 & again in 1992, but returned in 1997. (For all these statistics bar continuous ones I use Hancock's 1984 election.)

Just five first entered Parliament at a by-election - and only two since the merger, one in a Lib Dem held seat.

The traditional image of Lib Dem MPs gaining their seat after multiple attempts now covers only the minority of the parliamentary party. No less than thirty-two of the fifty-seven MPs won their seat on their first attempt there. Eighteen had not stood for Parliament at all before, eleven had stood once before in other seats and just three had had two previous unsuccessful candidacies.

Out of the twenty-five who first won their seat after multiple attempts, fifteen had only stood in that seat. Eighteen won their seat on the second attempt, four on the third attempt, two on the fourth attempt and one on the fifth attempt.

On average then a Lib Dem MP has won their seat after 1.63 attempts in that seat and 2.19 attempts overall.

Only fifteen MPs were first elected in an already Lib Dem held seat; the other forty-two gained theirs from other parties. The Lib Dem Cabinet Ministers disproportionately represent the "inheritees", with Nick Clegg, Chris Huhne and Michael Moore all having inherited their seats. (So too did David Laws, whom Moore net replaced.)

The inheritees are very much at the newer end of the parliamentary party. The longest serving was first elected in 1997, the rest were all in the last decade - 6 in 2001, 5 in 2005 (including one in a by-election), 3 in 2010.

Lib Dem MPs have on average been in Parliament for nearly eleven years. The mid point for election falls at the end of the 2001 intake.

The intakes by general election break down as follows: 1983 - 2, 1987 - 1, 1992 - 2, 1997 - 13, 2001 - 8, 2005 - 17, 2010 - 10. The five by-election entrances were in 1973, 1983, 1984, 2003 & 2005. Only one MP remains from the pre-Alliance era, and only five more from the Alliance days (with two having come from the SDP).

A slightly different picture emerges when looking at how long the party has held each seat since. Lib Dems seats have on average been held continuously for fourteen and a half years. The mid point is within the cluster gained in 1997. The longest continuously held seat is Orkney & Shetland (since 1950).

The breakdowns by general election are as follows: 1950 - 1, 1955-1979 - none, 1983 - 4 (2 Lib, 2 SDP, only one of whom was the sitting MP), 1987 - 2 (both Lib), 1992 - 4, 1997 - 18, 2001 - 3, 2005 - 13, 2010 - 7. Five seats were gained in by-elections in 1965, 1973, 1983, 1994 & 2003.

Three MPs have had parliamentary careers elsewhere - John Thurso was in the Lords for four years before the hereditaries were expelled and both Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne served in the European Parliament for 5 & 6 years respectively.

What all this shows is that overall the Lib Dems are slowly moving out of their traditional niche of local campaigners wining after repeat attempts or at by-elections, and towards a more standard party model and breed of politicians; with in particular MPs who make their name in the party nationally before selection and who can get picked in seats different to their locality on merits other than their local record. But it is a slow process, with many of the older style of Lib Dems still in the parliamentary party, and one that may be reversed if the Lib Dems' see a major collapse at the next general election. Nevertheless the party is changing and the old ways of reacting to it are becoming obsolete.

It's also striking how Nick Clegg is very much at the extreme in this shift. He is the first Liberal or Liberal Democrat leader to have entered the Commons in an inherited seat since Clement Davies (leader 1945-1956). He is also one of very few of his party's MPs to have arrived in the Commons with a established parliamentary record. Clegg's election to the European Parliament was entirely due to the party list system whilst he inherited a strong majority and he has not contested any other constituency meaning that at no stage in his career to date has he really had a tough electoral fight amongst the voters at large. This lack of a background in the traditional Lib Dem frontline of street level politics may also explain the growing sense of detachment between the Lib Dem leader and his party; a detachment that could grow to be the Coalition's biggest vulnerability.

Extremists and AV - Australia's One Nation

As the Alternative Vote referendum approaches the debate's heating up and the argument has turned on how extremists like the British National Party will do under the system. With so few countries using AV there aren't that many comparisons out there, but there's one Australian party with a record to look at - One Nation.

One Nation was founded in 1997 by Pauline Hanson, a sitting federal MP, David Oldfield and David Ettridge. Hanson was originally nominated as the Liberal candidate in Oxley in the 1996 federal election but between nominations and polling day she was expelled from the party after she gained national fame from calling for the abolition of government assistance for indigenous Australians. However it was too late to nominate an alternative candidate or even remove "Liberal" from her place from the ballot paper. She went on to win the hitherto safe Labor seat. The following year she joined with Oldfield and Ettridge to form One Nation and the party had some successes, particularly in Queensland at the 1998 state election.

However the major Australian parties responded to One Nation by both trying to undercut its vote base and encouraging tactical voting against it, with Hanson defeated at the 1998 federal election. One Nation was also riven by splits with most of its elected members leaving the party and the New South Wales branch went solo (with the farce of the "One Nation" name in NSW being used by one group for state elections and another for federal elections) and losing its sole elected member as well. Some members founded breakaway parties like the City Country Alliance or the New Country Party; these parties also went nowhere.

Psephos - Adam Carr's Election Archive has all the election results from this period and shows the outcome. So without further ado:

Federal 1996 - House of Representatives in Queensland

Federal elections are conducted under the compulsory preference version of AV in which a voter needs to indicate preferences for all candidates in order for their vote to count at all.

(For the pedants out there, there were two minor exceptions at the time, though one has since been eliminated. If a voter numbers all but one candidates in order the blank space is taken to be a last preference and their vote is counted. There was also a provision in the law that if a voter numbered candidates but either skipped or repeated a number then their vote would be counted up until the "error" and then no longer transfer or "exhaust". There was a campaign in the early to mid 1990s to get voters to take advantage of this error overcoming mechanism to get de facto optional preferencing - see Langer vote for more - and by the 1998 election the provisions in the Electoral Act were changed so such votes are now invalid.)

As mentioned above Hanson was nominated as the Liberal candidate in Oxley but between nominations and polling day she was expelled from the party but it was too late to nominate an alternative candidate or even remove "Liberal" from her place from the ballot paper. Compared to the Liberal performance in 1993 she nearly doubled the first preferences to take 48.6%. Following the elimination of three Independents and the Greens she took enough transfers to get over 50% (although the majority transferred against her). Though not necessary to determine the winner, the elimination of the Australian Democrats saw transfers in her favour, pushing her to 54.7%.

Queensland 1998

One Nation won eleven seats in this election, which used the optional preference version of AV in which a voter need only indicate a single preference to be valid and which the UK will be offered. In none of the seats did they get 50% of first preferences. The seats broke down as follows:

Most first preferences but under 50% and won

• Barambah (43.5%)
• Burdekin (33.1%)
• Lockyer (39.8%)
• Maryborough (42.6%)
• Tablelands (42.0%)

Second on first preferences but won on transfers

• Caboolture (29.9%)
• Hervey Bay (33.8%)
• Ipswich West (38.6%)
• Mulgrave (31.0%)
• Thuringowa (34.9%)
• Whitsunday (30.7%)

Most first preferences and defeated on transfers

• Burnett (36.4%)
• Crows Nest (39.5%)
• Gympie (29.2%)

(None of these seats had separate Coalition candidates from the Liberal and National parties)

Crudely translating first preferences only into First Past The Post results would have given One Nation 8 seats under FPTP. Instead they won 11 under AV.

The overall result was Labor 44, the Nationals 23 & the Liberals 9, One Nation 11 and Independents 2. In theory One Nation could have held the balance of power but one of the Independents agreed to support a Labor government. Subsequently a One Nation MP resigned from the parliament and Labor won the resulting by-election, gaining an outright majority. The remaining One Nation MPs split with half forming the City Country Alliance and the rest going independent.

Federal 1998 - House of Representatives in Queensland

One of the biggest problems for de facto independent one member parties is that boundary changes can often undermine their electoral base. Changes at the 1998 election nominally made Oxley an Labor seat and Hanson contested the new Blair constituency, taking in parts of Oxley.

With competing Liberal and National candidates in the field plus more independents, Hanson topped the poll on first preferences with 36.0%. However Labor and the Coalition recommended preferences to each other. The Liberal candidate started in third place but overtook Labor on National preferences, then took the bulk of the Labor preferences to defeat Hanson 53.4:46.6. Note that Hanson still picked up 10.6% or over 7000 votes in preferences.

Queensland 2001

Most first preferences but under 50% and won

• Lockyer (28.3%)
• Tablelands (36.0%)

Second on first preferences but won on transfers

• Gympie (25.7%)

Most first preferences and defeated on transfers

There don't appear to have been any such cases.

Once again the crude comparison is FPTP 2, AV 3.

The overall result was Labor 66, the Nationals 12 & the Liberals 3, One Nation 3 and Independents 5. This time One Nation was a little more coherent and managed to lose only 1/3 MPs in the parliament.

Queensland 2004

Most first preferences but under 50% and won

• Tablelands (47.0%)

...and none of the other cases so no crude comparisons are necessary.

One Nation was now in heavy decline and riven by splits. Its sole MP here basically functioned as an Independent.

The overall result was Labor 63, the Nationals 15 & the Liberals 5, One Nation 1 and Independents 5. For once One Nation ended the parliament with all the members it started with.

Queensland 2006

Over 50% of first preferences

• Tablelands (50.4%)

One Nation only ran four candidates in this election; the other three secured tiny results of less than 5% each.

The overall result was Labor 59, the Nationals 17 & the Liberals 8, One Nation 1 and Independents 4. Once again One Nation managed to keep its only member for the full parliament.

Queensland 2009

The regular scourge of Independents and minor parties, boundary changes, abolished Tablelands. One Nation ran only two candidates including their sitting MP in the new Dalrymple constituency but she came second on both first preferences and final transfers. Their sole other candidate got just 2.9%.

The overal result was Labor 51, the now merged Liberal Nationals 34 and Independents 4.

Other victories

Between 1998 and 2001 One Nation also won seats in the federal Senate and the state upper houses in New South Wales and Western Australia (Queensland doesn't have an upper house); however these are all elected by Single Transferable Vote. For what it's worth all their NSW and WA elected members left the party as well, with the NSW branch going solo and losing its sole elected member as well. Yet another breakaway party was formed by two WA members, called the New Country Party.

So overall what do these results tell us about AV and extremists? Well Pauline Hanson's defeat in 1998 despite getting the most first preferences is easy to zoom in on as she was the party leader and in the federal parliament; however it's worth remembering that it was under compulsory preferencing and she would have had a stronger chance under the optional system the UK is being offered. On the other hand One Nation had 16 victories in Queensland under optional the very system the UK will vote on; the crude FPTP comparison would have given them 12. If anything that suggests optional AV was marginally in their favour.

It's also clear that other parties declaring One Nation to be pariahs did not mean every single other voter followed those parties. And whatever voting system is used this alone will not decide the fate of extremist parties; it's how the political mainstream responds to voters' concerns that has the greatest effect, along with the propensity of small parties to disintegrate into squabbling fractions.

The BNP may have decided to oppose AV but the above figures show that a far right party has done better under AV than it likely would have under FPTP. Nick Griffin may well have miscalculated.

The Australian AV deadlock

Australia has one of the strongest two party systems in the world. So it's amazing that yesterday's election has produced a hung parliament and potential deadlock that makes our election outcome look simple by comparison.

Hung parliaments are historically rare in Australia. I can think of only six previous ones - the 1901, 1903 & 1906 elections when the party system was still in flux with three sizeable groups (Free Traders, Protectionists and Labor), the 1922 and 1934 elections when the Coalition between the Nationalists/United Australia Party and Country Party (now the Nationals) wasn't operating but it was soon assembled afterwards, and 1940 when the Coalition and Labor were neck & neck, with two independents holding the balance of power. The two independents supported the Coalition for a year, but then when Robert Menzies was deposed as Prime Minister the independents deserted and Labor took office without an election. The 1901-1910 period also saw a lot of parliamentary musical chairs as three parties vie for an outcome.

This time round the situation could be very messy. Firstly a note on the results figures floating around - these are provisional. Australia counts by the polling station and the formal declaration usually doesn't come for a couple of weeks. In the meantime most results are clear enough but a few knife-edge seats could tip either way, not least because postal votes can still arrive for the next two weeks. (The Australian: Count continuing and state swings notes how in 2007 the initial projection and final outcome varied.)

The second key point is that contrary to the way a lot of the national figures have been presented, one of the Nationals MPs is not going to be part of the conservative Coalition. The Nationals in Western Australia take a different approach from their eastern counterparts and operate as an independent third force focused on the needs of regional Australia. They are willing to work with Labor if it will help their constituents (and their counterparts in South Australia have already done so) and want the federal party to do the same. And if Tony Crook (who ironically defeated the only sitting MP with a criminal conviction) can't get that then he will probably be another independent force.

So the current provisional seat count is as follows:

Labor 72
Liberal/National Coalition 72
Independents 4
Greens 1
WA Nationals 1

Three of the Independents are ex Nationals & sitting MPs re-elected - see Third parties & independents under AV - the Australian experience for more details. The fourth independent is an ex Green candidate and anti-war protester who has won the urban seat of Denison.

So the balance of power rests with a disparate "Gang of Six" on the crossbenches and these six will not all work together as one block. There's also no real clarity over which of the two main parties have at least a plurality - they're equal in seats and the "Two-Party-Preferred" vote is very close and will take to finalise. So there isn't even anything to guide the six towards which party has a stronger democratic basis to form the next government. And whilst the three ex National Independents have publicly announced they will have discussions amongst themselves about what to do, they're giving slightly different signals about their intentions. And of course even if they do work as a block of three they can't deliver a majority in & of themselves. If the WA National joins them then they could at least offer a two vote majority but of the other two floaters the Green says he will support Labor and the the ex-Green independent would probably do the same, though he also wants a redress of the way federal funding goes in his state.

Advocates of hung parliaments and coalitions are fond of claiming that hung parliaments are good for countries because they produce compromises. But I don't think Australia is going to have that in pursuit of a majority. Instead it's likely that whichever party forms a government will do so by pumping extra federal spending into the various crossbenchers' constituencies. It's a great advert for hung parliaments isn't it?

Geographic political divides

One of the myths frequently bandied about the British voting system is the claim that it somehow creates an artificial North-South divide in politics. The argument runs that under a different voting system the country would be politically more mixed. It's an interesting argument, if based in some misassumptions (the divide is really metropolitan vs the rest - in the last election northern market towns and rural areas swung on a similar scale to their southern counterparts), and no doubt we'll be hearing people make it in the forthcoming AV referendum. But it ignores the fact that such divides are rooted in social & historical factors that are the backdrop to people's political outlooks, and can occur under all manner of voting systems.

Such divides exist in other countries, even when using proportional representation or holding a direct election. Yesterday was the second & final round of the Polish presidential election and the election map shows some interesting features. Here is the map of the first round results with Bronisław Komorowski of the Civic Platform in orange and Jarosław Kaczyński of Law and Justice in blue:

It's an interesting map of support and people may have recognised the historic boundaries it roughly follows. But the first round was not a isolated case - here's the second round:

Exactly the same pattern. It was also seen in the last parliamentary election as well:

The parliament is elected by party lists in multiple constituencies (the system most of the UK uses for the European Parliament).

For those still wondering, the map of party support almost exactly matches the pre First World War boundaries between Germany and Russia (when Poland was still partitioned between them). Regardless of whether the nature of the political divide can trace itself back to that time, despite several movements of boundaries and populations since, it is a stark divide. The use of either proportional representation or a single nation wide election hasn't shifted it, and I doubt any voting system change in the UK would have a effect on our geographic political divide.

See also Strange Maps: 348 – An Imperial Palimpsest on Poland’s Electoral Map which has independently noted this phenomenon.

Election Night - an undramatic, excessive expense?

Now that attention is turning to the need for spending cuts great and small, I'd like to take the chance to pounce on one area of expenditure that is admittedly small in itself but which got the blogosphere so worked up earlier this year - Election Night.

We were told that it was a horror that "penny pinching councils" were considering - SHOCK! - counting the votes the next day. It was ghastly that they were prepared to not spend extra on staff and room hire to count the votes in the middle of the night so that we could get a result in the small hours of the morning. It might even have led to the end of democracy in this country and the collapse of civilisation because a formal change of government might not happen by lunchtime. And we might not get the fun of a "Portillo moment" for most of the country to rejoice about.

Well the actual result meant it took five days for a change of government, but from where I'm sitting civilisation hasn't collapsed and we're still a democracy. And as for "Portillo moments", most of the country were not rejoicing when Michael Portillo lost his seat in 1997. Most of the country were in bed.

And let's be honest - the 2010 election contained very few results that could be considered a "Portillo Moment" and even when the outcome fits that, the declaration wasn't remotely as dramatic. For instance here's the Belfast East result where Peter Robinson lost his seat:
It's hardly the most dramatic declaration going is it?

Was the extra money spent on overnight counts really necessary to give political junkies some excitement? I frankly don't think it was. There are other areas of the election where frankly more money was needed - more staff, better venues for polling places and a better communications system would probably have dealt with the horrendous queues and allowed more people to actually cast their vote. (See "More money for electoral administration!" or "Fewer elections at the same time!"?) That would have been worthy extra spending for democracy. Overnight counts were not.

It was also galling, though not surprising, that in the run-up to the general election Parliament passed legislation to force local councils into holding overnight counts in all but the most mitigating circumstances. This legislation was passed by and cheered by many people who claim to believe in "localism". Often it seems that "localism" does not extend to local councils.

For 2015 let's go the other way. Remove the legal requirements on councils to focus everything on having an overnight count and encourage (not force) them to count on Friday daytime. The priority in election spending should be in getting efficiency, not wasting public money for a few people's excitement. If "Election Night" has to be replaced by "Results Day", so be it.