Abigail Brady (
abigailbrady) wrote2010-05-10 10:53 am
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lizards chart

This shows the combined voting share of Labour/Conservatives, in the general elections and European elections since 1979 (when direct European elections started). Blue is general, Red is Europeans.
There is a notable tend, in that while the Lab/Con share for European elections starts higher than generals, it ends up much lower. For European elections from 1979-1994, large single-member constituencies were used, making the system even less proportional than the system used for general elections.
There's a consistent downward trend for the European elections, but it starts seriously dipping below the general election figures in 1999, the first time PR is introduced. The next time round in the Europeans the combined vote share of Labour and Conservative drops below 50%, and falls even further in 2009. Doesn't it look like voter behaviour is aware of the electoral system and changes accordingly (if with a little lag)? Yet the media appears to treat these vote shares as comparable.
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I'm very wary of making direct comparisons; UKIp get a high vote share, but they take some votes from each of the main parties (especially true in Devon,half their votes come from people that vote LD in the General).
There's evidence that people that vote LD are simply less likely to vote in Euro elections; the party's avowed enthusiasm for "federal Europe" puts off a lot of supporters.
Whereas the Greens, knowing it's a PR election, campaign heavily, so their supporters turnout en masse.
The old idea that low turnout affects each party proportionately no longer applies; that was definitely true of Labour in 2009, but appears to have been true of the LDs as well.
I haven't crunched the numbers properly yet,will do so when the dust has settled, but very interesting idea, thanks.
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But, there's some evidence that the bigger swings are voting to not voting, and vice versa. So while turnout is the same, different people vote each time.
I don't think enough studies have been done though, certainyl none I've got access to, might ask a friend who still has JANET access to do some digging, it's close to his PhD field anyway. But not immediately.