Letter WMN - Euro elections result

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 18th Jun 2004

Dear Sir,

I agree with your correspondent, Peter Cox, about the lack of understanding of how the vote for our Euro M.Ps is counted. I am all in favour of proportional representation which gives a much fairer distribution of seats according to the number of votes cast, but the system in use in the Euro elections is a disaster. Few people understand it and there is little or no affiliation amongst voters with individual candidates. Perhaps I can take a little of your space to say how it works.

The method is known as the d'Hondt system. You add up all the votes for each Party. Then the top party wins the first seat, and you divide their vote by 2. The results are then analysed using this divided figure. The new top party then wins the next seat and their vote is divided by 2 and so on. When you win a second seat your ORGINAL total vote is then divided by 3 and if you win a fourth seat by 4 and so on.

If we want to encourage people to vote and be part of the democratic process we must have a system that is readily understood. This system patently is not!

Yours sincerely,

Mike Treleaven

( Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate - Totnes Constituency)

PS

If you are interested the table below shows how it worked this time in the South West region

PARTY ROUND 1 ROUND 2 ROUND 3 ROUND 4 ROUND5 ROUND6 ROUND7

Cons: 457,371; 228,685; 228,685; 228,685; 152,457; 152,457; 152,457

UKIP: 326,789; 326,789; 163,392; 163,392; 163,392; 163,392; 108,927

Lib Dem: 265,619; 265,619; 265,619; 132,309; 132,309; 132,309; 132,309

Labour: 209,908; 209,908; 209,908; 209,908; 209,908; 104,954; 104,954

Seats Allocated: Cons, UKIP, Lib Dem, Cons, Labour, UKIP, Cons