Election - minimum number of votes to win a seat?

[Eric Bloodaxe]

Apologies first of all, as I'm sure you're all as fed up with this subject as I am, but came up with this question while out walking with a mate the other day.

We know that you need to get 5% of the vote to retain your deposit, so if only 100 voted in a constituency and you got 5 votes, you'd keep your deposit. But if in that situation, you got 51 votes out of 100,  presumably you'd win the seat under the "first past the post"system. 

What set us thinking was that a newspaper columnist suggested they were all as bad as each other, so the electorate ought to go on strike, and nobody vote. But in reality somebody would, even if it was just party activists in each constituency, so we wondered if there was a minimum number of votes needed to win a seat, or if the simple majority rule still applies, irrespective of how few votes are cast. As far as I can see, it does - anyone know any different?

 

 

[DaveT70]

One more than the next candidate and you win, 

[Eric Bloodaxe]

Sorry if the original post was unclear - what I was driving at was if there was any minimum number of votes to be cast to make for a valid election in each constituency, or if the simple majority or "first past the post" rule always applied, irrespective of how few votes were cast in total.

Anyway, been doing a bit more research on this one. It does seem that if only one vote was cast in a constituency, then the candidate getting that one vote would win the seat. If NO votes at all were cast, it would be decided by drawing lots - in effect the names of all the candidates would be put in the hat, the returning officer would draw one out, and that candidate would win the seat.

Suppose that's a good reason to actually vote, otherwise the draw might result in you getting Lord Buckethead or Count Binface instead of a normal candidate - but then again............?😀

 

 

 

 

[Turvey]

What would happen if all candidates got exactly the same amount of votes? 

 

 

[alexp999]

2 hours ago, Turvey said:

What would happen if all candidates got exactly the same amount of votes? 

 

 

I guess they’d do the lot thing. 

[Eric Bloodaxe]

12 hours ago, alexp999 said:

I guess they’d do the lot thing. 

Yes, I think that would be the case. If all candidates got, say, 1,000 votes it would, in effect, be the same situation in as if they all got 0.