Less Votes, More Seats: How the UK General Election Shed a Light on Election Systems Everywhere

While the US celebrated its independence from the United Kingdom on July 4th, the UK had its general election. For some background, the UK parliament has 650 seats, meaning that a majority for any party requires 326 seats. The two main parties in the UK are known as Labour and Conservative. The Labour party sits on the center left of the political spectrum and has sometimes been called social democrats, democratic socialists, and trade unionists, while the Conservative party sits on the center right to right wing of the political spectrum including ideologies such as Thatcherites, one nation conservatives, and traditional conservatives. 

Seats are elected by geographical constituency by plurality… For example if candidate A earns 40% of the vote, while three others win 20%, then candidate A would win the seat. 

Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister before the general election, became Prime Minister in October 2022. Since Brexit (the UK’s exit from the European Union in January 2020), the UK has had 3 prime ministers, Sunak being the 3rd. Borris Johnson aimed to get the country through Brexit from 2019 to 2022, was then followed by Liz Truss who lasted 49 days in office, and was taken over by Sunak. Sunak came into office when his party (Conservative) had 363 seats, and the Labour party had 287 seats. 

This year’s election greatly changed the political landscape. Labour won by an absolute landslide, acquiring 214 seats. In comparison, the conservative party lost 252 seats,That left the majority to the Labour party with a whopping 412 seats, and the Conservative party with a measly 121 seats. The rest of the seats went to other minority parties such as Liberal Democrats who gained 64 seats, or the reform party who gained 5 seats. 

This massive sweep by the Labour party had several effects. The first being that Sunak became the leader of the opposition party (often referred to as the minority party in other countries), while Keir Starmer the leader of the Labour Party since 2020 became the Prime Minister effective on July 5th. The second effect is the obvious majority they now hold in parliament, while the Conservatives hold the fewest number of seats in two centuries.

Starmer has outlined many goals such as cutting down on NHS waiting times, an 8.3 billion dollar commitment over the next 5 years to renewable energy, and filling the gaps in education by recruiting 6,500 new teachers. 

The most interesting thing about the election is the actual percentage of votes to be received for each party. Since the UK operates on first-past-the-post (the system mentioned above where the person with the most votes wins), a party could win every seat with 40% of the votes, earning 40% of the votes nationwide and yet 100% of the seats. For example the Labour Party won 34% of the total votes cast, but 63% of the seats. In contrast the Reform party won 14% of the total votes, but only 1% of the seats. The Liberal Democrats won 12% of the vote, and 11% of the seats, almost equal. The percentages of the vote tells a very different story from the number of seats won. 

Every country has its own way of electing leaders, and it’s interesting to see the comparison. The US came under scrutiny in the 2016 election after Hillary Clinton lost the election to Donald Trump due to the Electoral College system while winning the popular vote. Of the 125 countries represented as “electoral democracies” by Freedom House, 30 have the head of state indirectly elected. None are quite exactly like the US who is included in the 30. Germany, one of the 30 for example, has its president elected by the 630 members of the Bundestag together. India has more than a million population-weighted votes by nearly 5,000 electors to elect its president. South Africa on the other hand has its people elect parties, and whoever won the majority elected their own leader as president. In Poland after 1989 with a resurrection of its democracy, it decided to elect its president with anyone who won more than 50% of the vote. If no candidates receive 50%, then a second election is held with the top two candidates. Brazil is the exact same as Poland, but voting is mandatory which can mean people leave ballots blank, or pay the fine for not voting which is less than a dollar.   

Comparing a landslide victory in the UK with a party that earned only 34% of the vote, to an election in the US where the person with the most votes lost, 

shows how each system has its pros and cons put on display every election cycle. Whether the flaws will be displayed in such systems in November by the US, or Algeria in December is yet to be seen this year.