Aasof’s Reflections

in 2012 the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) at the Home Office voted for a strike in a ballot with a turnout of 20%. In a related article George Osborne demanded tough new strike laws , leading to the Conservative Party proposing plans to tighten the law on strike ballots if it wins the 2015 election. The proposal is a requirement for at least half of eligible union members to vote (50%) in order for a strike to be lawful. (The Tories Strike Back).

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A 50% turnout (the popular vote) of eligible voters would still only requires 25%+1 of all those balloted to win the vote. However, participation in a democratic vote is open to 100% of those eligible to vote. So it may seem reasonable to take this 50% criterion as also being democratic.

If this 50% criterion is considered right for a union ballot of members to be lawfully valid, then surely it should be the criterion for a vote to be lawfully valid in a first past the post electoral system?

So will the Conservative 2015 election manifesto apply its 50% proposal to, say, parliamentary constituency elections and all referendums? Will a failure to meet this 50% criterion result in a ballot being declared void as it would for a union ballot lawfully held but not lawfully valid?

The table below shows the maximum (77.7%) and the minimum (59.4%) voter turnout (popular vote) for a general election post 1979. No political party has won a general election supported by more than 40% of the registered electorate¹.

While all have won elections with popular votes of more than 50% of the registered electorate some constituencies did not. In the 2010 general election it wasn’t a requirement, but at least two constituencies failed to achieve a popular vote of 50% or greater and a number came very close to failing this criterion.

The popular vote in the recent Rochester by-election was only 50.67% almost enough to declare the election void had the 50% criterion applied. The popular vote falling below 50% is a trend that is likely to increase by the 2020 general election and any preceding by-elections.

Successive governments, post 1945, have won general elections with 40+% of the popular vote (except for 1974) until the general election of 2005. The general elections of 2001, 2005 and 2010 have seen the voter turnout for a general election drop significantly below the 70+% of all previous post 1945 general elections.

¹Note – If you take the registered electorate as 100%, there is only one occasion that a political party achieved more than 40% of the registered electorate vote. In 1951 Labour polled 40.24% of the registered electorate vote (48.78% of the popular vote) but ‘lost’ the election to the Conservatives who received only 39.58% of the registered electorate vote (47.97% of the popular vote). [The Conservative ‘win’ was due to the electoral boundaries in place at the time].

Elections are fundamental to democracy. They are the mechanism by which citizens exercise their democratic rights. [Nicholas Paines QC]

Read 24/7/12 original here: Cherry Picking Democracy