Scotland 2007; results thread

[minionofmidas]

That's rather a surprise.

[minionofmidas]

Still out as of now:
Argyll & Bute
Highlands & Islands list
Edinburgh E, N, S, and W (what's wrong with the Edina count?)
Lothian list
Aberdeen N
NE list
W of Scotland list

[minionofmidas]

Edinburgh S in. Slight swing to the LDs.

[minionofmidas]

Labour hold Aberdeen Central after all.

[minionofmidas]

Eh, I almost thought Labour had carved out a first place there after all. Funny about the lack of possible coalitions. What 3 indies can do to throw a spanner in the works...

[minionofmidas]

Run that through a d'Hondt calculator:

That's what undid you. As a result of that, you only got additional SNP seats at total/4, total/6, total/8 etc when it should have been total/3, total/4, total/5 etc.
Same thing and worse with Labour of course (total/20, total/30, total/40 rather than total/11, total/12, total/13), tho' it didn't matter there anyways.

[minionofmidas]

I've just checked for overhang.
Under the system in Scotland and Wales, if a party wins too many seats for its proportional share, not only does it get to keep the booty, but other parties lose seats they're proportionally entitled to.

In Scotland, Labour won an overhang seat each in Glasgow and the West of Scotland, and the SNP (in Glasgow) and the Tories lost a seat each as a result - the proportional result was SNP 48, Labour 44, Tories 18, all other unchanged. (The result under rules as in the German Bundestag, except with D'Hondt rather than Hare-Niemeyer, was SNP 48, Labour 46, Tories 18, etc, as logically follows.) A system of adding extra seats to render the result proportional again, as used in German state elections, renders SNP 49, Labour 46, Tories 18, etc, with the extra SNP seat in the West of Scotland (ie, SNP would get a sixth seat there before Labour proportionally got that eightth seat they won in the direct vote. In Glasgow the Labour overhang seat was the next in line anyways, with Sheridan in the position after that.)

[minionofmidas]

Labour have no respect for the democratic system anyway from postal votes to dodgy machines.

I could quite happily dig up plent of evidence to "prove" that your party also has no respect for the democratic system either.

I could also, for example, claim that as Gwynedd County Council is run in very authoritarian way, discriminates against non-Welsh speakers and is probably very corrupt, all members of Plaid Cymru are corrupt, hate people who can't speak Welsh and have an authoritarian strike about a mile wide.

But what's the point exactly?

Besides it would also be quite hypocritical; for one thing, one of Labour's new AM's used to be a member (more than that; he was once their chairman!) of Plaid. And I also know several Plaid members, more Plaid members and find them to be, on the whole and with a few exceptions, decent people.

This just proves that you, too, have an authoritarian strike a mile wide, are very corrupt, and hate people who can't speak Welsh, the Scottish electorate for example.
And given that you're a Labourite, you just proved Andrew's point.

[minionofmidas]

Let's do Glasgow through a computer then (using the standard method and using Glasgow's numbers) as this is getting confusing:

9 Lab constituency wins (divides the Lab total by 10)
1 SNP constituency win (divides the SNP total by 2)
All other parties divide by 1

As each regional seat is calculated, it gets added to the totals of seats won and is recalculated

SNP 1st seat (new SNP divisor 3)
SNP 2nd seat (new SNP divisor 4)
Lib Dem 3rd seat (new Lib Dem divisor 2)
SNP 4th seat (new SNP divisor 5)
Con 5th seat (new Con divisor 2)
SNP 6th seat (new SNP divisor 6)
Greens 7th seat (new Green divisor 2)
SNP 4, Con 1, Lib Dem 1, Green 1

In that case, why am I getting: SNP 3, Con 1, Lib Dem 1, Solidarity 1 using a d'Hondt calculator that I was using for all the other calculations then?

Run that through a d'Hondt calculator:

That's what undid you. As a result of that, you only got additional SNP seats at total/4, total/6, total/8 etc when it should have been total/3, total/4, total/5 etc.
Same thing and worse with Labour of course (total/20, total/30, total/40 rather than total/11, total/12, total/13), tho' it didn't matter there anyways.

Maybe I've not been clear enough... I assume you just added your new totals (ie with SNP/2 and Labour/10) into that calculator and told it to distribute seven seats. How is some machine supposed to know that the SNP's next divisors come at SNP/3, SNP/4 etc - ie at (new total)/1.5, (new total)/2 etc rather than the normal (party x)/2, (party x)/3 etc. ?

[minionofmidas]

Look guys, I'm sorry. But I'm just really pissed off with the whole conduct of this election. Labour do not, under any circumstances, wish to let go of power in Scotland despite losing the election. Their campaign was negative, their arrogance was transparent with their unwillingness to let Salmond have 'first dibs' on forming an administration until someone had a quiet word in McConnell's ear.

I'm hearing you. I frankly don't like it either. I think even Al's problem is just with the last sentence of your previous post (and he has a point there.)

[minionofmidas]

Remind me again what the snaky seat to the north of the Falkirks and Dunfermlines is. Ochil?

[minionofmidas]

Interesting how Labour managed to retain a majority of the constituencies... 37 out of 73. Now... if the other seats would not exist...
a swing of 0.9 from Labour to the SNP meant a hung Parliament (loss of Aberdeen C)
A swing of 2.8 would see Labour and the SNP tied at 29 seats each (with the SNP picking up Linlithgow, Glasgow Kelvin, Airdrie & Shotts, Dumbarton, East Kilbride, and Edinburgh C, plus Tweeddale etc from the LDs, and Labour losing Eastwood to the Tories)
A swing of 4.7 would see an SNP majority (picking up Falkirk E, Midlothian, East Lothian, Cumbernauld & Kilsyth, West Renfrewshire, Clydesdale, Cunninghame S, and Strathkelvin & Bearsden).

[minionofmidas]

How much of that 19,000 votes is down to a personal vote? He has been the MP since 1987 and that could make this extremely interesting indeed.

Definitely not enough to make the seat competitive. This will be one of the more boring by-elections this cycle.

[minionofmidas]

So what will we get? A Labour-Tory government?

[minionofmidas]

Glasgow:

Lab 38.2% - 2 seats [2.674]
SNP 27.0% - 2 seats [1.89]
LD 7.2% - 1 seat [0.504]
C 6.7% - 1 seat [0.469]
Green 5.2% - 1 seat [0.364]

That's not a proportional distribution. Even under Hare-Niemeyer, which favors minor parties, Labour gets a third seat before the Greens get one.
This one isn't a Hare-Niemeyer distribution either, although it's what you would get under D'Hondt:

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Hare would have a second Labour seat. With a quota under 3.00, there isn't a way in hell for the SNP to get four seats under Hare.



Other regions seem to be in accordance with Hare, provided that in 

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there isn't a party with a quota from .31 to .35. (If you do want to introduce thresholds in Hare-Niemeyer, you should recalculate quotas to the new total of only those parties over the threshold.)

Btw, systems like you lined out exist in the world, for example in Japan (lower house) and in Russia.
And from looking at these examples... while the idea sounds good on paper, it does seem to tend to induce an unhealthy level of stability.