My understanding of the single transferable vote system would not result in the numbers you’ve posted. I didn’t check, but assume you’ve looked at the popular vote % and divided that into the number of MPs (650).
STV doesn’t work that way.
If for example the BNP gained 5% countrywide they’d probably gain zero seats, since there’s a certain % (depending on the exact system used) to achieve a seat. Each constituency is different, but gaining a seat on 5% 1st choice votes is highly unlikely.
Picture a new constituency under STV where 3 seats are available, if there’s 6 candidates and the BNP had just 5% of 1st choice votes, it’s highly unlikely they’ll gain enough votes to gain a seat.
So the % of the popular vote isn’t as important as you might think in STV. Basically there needs to be a certain level of support in an area to get a seat, if a party has 5% countrywide they will not achieve 5% of the seats, they might get 0%.
What STV helps is parties like the Lib Dems that though not as popular as Labour and Conservative countrywide, they do have enough support (around 20%) countrywide to gain 2nd and 3rd seats in an area. So you might have a 3 seats constituency with 2 Conservative MPs and 1 Lib Dem or another with one Labour, one Conservative and one Lib Dem, really all depends on the local support for each party and which system is used.
I’m FAR from an expert on proportional representation/STV, but it does sound like a much better system than the first past the post system when there’s significant support for more than two parties countrywide.
David
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