Here are the British results for the European Parliament elections. As the article shows clearly, seven parties won at least one seat to the European Parliament from Great Britain. This is because for these elections, Britain used proportional representation. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
All of the regimes in the EU are required to have some type of P.R. election system for EU Parliament elections.
However – smaller regimes are a bit over represented.
larger regimes are a bit under represented.
Est. result – about 80-90 percent accurate — votes percent vs seats result for the larger parties in all of Europe.
USA is about 60 percent accurate – due to nonstop minority rule gerrymanders — it shows.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Two conclusions pop right out at you: 1) democracy flourishes under PR, but withers in first-past-the-post, especially where (as in most of the U.S.)gerrymandering becomes an endemic and expected procedure in districting, and 2) Labour and the Tories, watch your front and back: UKIP has already passed you in EU deputies and other “thirds” are coming up on you from behind.
In Irish local elections, which uses the Single Transferable Vote in multi-member districts, local elections have seen big gains for Sinn Fein and for two socialist/independents alliances.
http://elections.independent.ie/2014/
The ruling Fine Gael and its coalition partner, the Labor Party, have been punished with transfers to the insurgent groups.
A Socialist Party member has also won a by-election to the Dail as well. She led preferences throughout the vote, but won based on transfers from other parties.
Europe is getting back on it’s feet!
I agree with David Gillespie about PR and healthy political cultures. These numbers though tell us something else important about proportional elections as well. When the turnout is low the most motivated (usually the smallest and sometimes the more extreme) parties win all out of proportion to their actual popular support.
And finally, did Sinn Fein really win a seat outside of Ireland? The article says these results don’t include Northern Ireland.
@Pete: Sinn Fein didn’t run any candidates in Great Britain. They won their one UK seat in Northern Ireland. (They also won three seats in the Republic of Ireland.)
The table is somewhat confusing with regard to the vote results in Northern Ireland. The three parties that won seats in NI (Sinn Fein, Democratic Unionist, Ulster Unionist) have their first preference totals from NI shown in their votes column. But the other parties that ran in NI only aren’t listed in the table at all.
Thanks Joshua for clearing that up. Sinn Fein, and other small parties, did very well in the “Free State” since the two majors are in decline and disrepute.