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Three-quarters empty or one-quarter full?

Fractionally over one-quarter of the possible votes appears to be enough to secure the vital role of representing 100% of the constituents in any given area.

Sunday, July 28, 2024
2 mins

Something to chew over...

by Rab Clark

Last year we used the example of the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election to show how low turnout can lead to results which should worry anyone concerned with the quality of 'democracy' in Scotland while it remains part of the Anglo-state.

In October last year, Michael Shanks became the MP for the area having secured just under 22% of the possible votes.

Shanks retained the seat earlier this month with 21,460 votes - that represents 29.53% of the potential vote, a significant increase, but still means that less than one-third of the R&HW voters supported his re-election.

We've selected a few Scottish results at random - it appears that Shanks may have attracted rather more of his constituents than happened elsewhere.

These are presented in no particular order and we have omitted the names of candidates, their party etc because the point we want to make is best viewed when stripped of all extraneous detail.

The first number is eligible voters.

The second number is votes cast for the successful candidate.

The third number is the % of possible votes secured by the winner.

Paisley/Renfrewshire South      71,574      19,583      27.38%

Rutherglen      72,674      21,460      29.53%

North Ayrshire & Arran      72,176      16,821      23.31%

Dumfries & Galloway      78,541      13,527      17.21%

Falkirk      73,584      18,343      24.92%

Edinburgh South West      73,784      18,663      25.27%

Motherwell, Wishaw & Carluke      71,777      19,168      26.70%

West Aberdeen/Kincardine      72,994      17,428      23.88%

Lothian East      75,546      23,555      31.18%

Inverclyde/Renfrewshire West      71,994      18,931      26.31%

We're not going to trawl through every result looking for higher/lower outcomes. The selection was entirely random and we trust that the 'average' produced from the above i.e. 25.57% is probably replicated across results as a whole.

Fractionally over one-quarter of the possible votes appears to be enough to secure the vital role of representing 100% of the constituents in any given area.

If that's not a 'crisis of democracy' then we don't know what is and we repeat our appeal to have this statistic included in the tabulated result breakdowns as they appear in mainstream print and broadcast media.

If any readers have thoughts - particularly those who live in Dumfries & Galloway - we'd love to hear them.

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