UK Popular Vote

[rockhound]

 When voting for president in the United States the media is often fixated with the popular vote  despite this having no direct bearing on the election outcome.

 I know that in the UK the prime minister is selected  by the party with the most members in the House of Commons.  In many ways this is analogous to the US electoral college system, though without the winner-take-all aspect for blocks of votes.

But still, it is mathematically possible for the prime minister to be elected without his party having obtained a plurality of the popular vote.

Does anyone know if this has happened?

[mencken]

1974 and 1951 are both examples if I recall correctly.

[DC Al Fine]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1979

[YL]

1974 and 1951 are both examples if I recall correctly.

Specifically February 1974.  The Tories got more votes but Labour won 301 seats to the Tories' 297.  The Tories couldn't do a deal with the Liberals to stay in office, so Labour formed a minority government and called another election in October, when they did win the popular vote and a very narrow overall majority.

It's not uncommon in local government.  In Sheffield in 2006, the Lib Dems got more votes than Labour but Labour won 14 wards to the Lib Dems' 13; the following year Labour got a plurality of votes but lost Gleadless Valley and Hillsborough to the Lib Dems, giving the Lib Dems 15 wards and Labour 12.  (Because of the election by thirds system, control of the Council didn't change until 2008, when the Lib Dems won pluralities of both votes and wards.)

[mvd10]

In 2005 the Tories got slightly more votes than Labour in England, but Labour got the majority of seats in England. But Labour still won the popular vote thanks to Wales and Scotland.

http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/ge05/seats.htm

[Harry Hayfield]

When voting for president in the United States the media is often fixated with the popular vote  despite this having no direct bearing on the election outcome.  I know that in the UK the prime minister is selected  by the party with the most members in the House of Commons.  In many ways this is analogous to the US electoral college system, though without the winner-take-all aspect for blocks of votes.  But still, it is mathematically possible for the prime minister to be elected without his party having obtained a plurality of the popular vote.  Does anyone know if this has happened?

Yes, it happens all the time. The closest that a party got to 50% +1 popular vote and a majority was the Conservatives in 1955 when they polled 49.7% of the popular vote and got a majority of 60

[IceAgeComing]

Also happened in 1929 (Tories had 38.1% compared to Labour's 37.1% yet Labour had 27 more seats but not a majority; governed as a minority with Liberal support until the events that created the National Government sparked) and technically 1923 as well (the Tories had 38% while Labour had 30.7% - the Tories actually had like 60 more seats as well but the Liberals had their best election since the Great War - got like 1% less than Labour and only 40 or so seats less, the closest the UK have ever come to having a true three party system - and the Tories had to resign because they couldn't get the Queens Speech through parliament so Labour got into government with the first time - apparently Asquith's motivation for allowing a Labour government was that they'd prove themselves incompetent and the Liberals would become the second party again - that didn't work out very well if you look at the 1924 results).

Boring fact: until 1992 Labour's 1951 vote total was the most votes ever received in a general election (high turnout + the Liberals and other small parties couldn't stand many candidates because they hadn't the money to cover the deposits; so a majority of seats were Labour/Conservative only); yet the Tories got a working majority and entered government.  Its unlikely to happen again since the UK now has a lot of third parties in parliament so any discrepancy would lead to a hung parliament and might factor into coalition negotiations.  We've gone back to the Tories having the "advantage" in that way thanks to the SNP owning Scotland, this'll only increase more so with the new boundaries.

[the506]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1979

Also many times provincially in Canada, this is probably the most egregious:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_general_election,_1998

[Phony Moderate]

A nice little bit of trivia: Churchill (voted Greatest Briton of all-time) never led the Tories to a PV win despite leading them in three elections.

[Starpaul20]

A rather extreme example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_general_election,_1948

[Tintrlvr]

A rather extreme example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_general_election,_1948

This one isn't very illuminating, though, since South Africa malapportioned its legislative seats to strongly overrepresent rural areas, where the National Party was strongest, and underrepresent cities, where the United Party was strongest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1979

Also many times provincially in Canada, this is probably the most egregious:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_general_election,_1998

Yes, pretty easy to have happen in Quebec because the Liberals win such huge majorities (90%+) in Anglophone areas even when they lose overall.


Anyway, the clear distinction to make between these systems and the US system is that, in the UK and other parliamentary democracies, voters don't elect the Prime Minister at all. They elect their local parliamentarian, and the parliamentarians in turn elect the Prime Minister. Of course, in a first-past-the-post system, it's very possible for a party to win more votes and fewer seats, but at least there is a clear argument that voters did vote, in a plurality in their constituency, for each person who was elected to parliament and forms government or opposition. This isn't really true in the U.S. presidential system since people don't really vote for electors in their own right (in most states, the electors aren't even on the ballot), and electors don't operate to govern the country in any way except by electing the President.

[Hatman 🍁]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1979

Also many times provincially in Canada, this is probably the most egregious:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_general_election,_1998

This one was pretty bad too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manitoba_general_election,_1922

[rockhound]

Thanks for the history everyone.

This is good argument to refute those who say that popular voting for president is what everyone else does.

In effect, voting for electors, based on your location, is what many countries do.  [The biggest difference in the US, of course,  is that in most states you are voting for a block of voters not just one, and with some states (e.g. California, Florida, NY, Texas) you are voting for a large block of those votes].

[Gary J]

Thanks for the history everyone.

This is good argument to refute those who say that popular voting for president is what everyone else does.

In effect, voting for electors, based on your location, is what many countries do.  [The biggest difference in the US, of course,  is that in most states you are voting for a block of voters not just one, and with some states (e.g. California, Florida, NY, Texas) you are voting for a large block of those votes].

There is a difference between selecting a Prime Minister and cabinet, based on the composition of a Parliament, and electing a President.

For a single office, direct election by the whole population seems the simplest and fairest system. Any other method gives the possibility of the winner of an overall plurality of votes losing to another candidate whose smaller number of votes are more efficiently distributed.

[joevsimp]

Thanks for the history everyone.

This is good argument to refute those who say that popular voting for president is what everyone else does.

In effect, voting for electors, based on your location, is what many countries do.  [The biggest difference in the US, of course,  is that in most states you are voting for a block of voters not just one, and with some states (e.g. California, Florida, NY, Texas) you are voting for a large block of those votes].

No we are voting for individual members of a legislature that the cabinet and head of government had to have the confidence of I  order to exist in their jobs,  not just get their legislation passed*. Westminster system parliaments and the US congress and presidency are not remotely comparible. Presidents of parliamentary republics are almost always directly elected by popular vote or mostly powerless figurehead (sometims both). The Australian referendum on becoming a republic failed mostly because the president would've been elected by parliament and not the people.


*And you'll find that a great many of us favour elections by one form or another off proportional representation rather than fptp, and certainly not the majoritarian bloc voting that the electoral college effectively uses

[reciprocity]

The 2013 Malaysian election seemed pretty terrible.