In March the British press laughed over the first round of the Presidential election in Ukraine pointing a finger at the record number of candidates, 39, and consequently the length of the ballot paper. Couldn’t possibly happen here. Well, I hope a Ukrainian journalist reads this because it’s pay-back time.
My postal voting ballot paper has arrived for the European Parliamentary Election on 23rd May. There are ten parties with between six and eight candidates each and eleven independent candidates. That makes eighty-eight candidates on the ballot paper which is two feet and six inches long. The only excuse for this is London is a big constituency and eight MEPs will be returned. The UK has twelve constituencies for European elections and elects seventy-three out of the 750 members of the European Parliament. Personally I hate the system of party lists where the party put their pet candidates at the top of their lists. In Northern Ireland the system is more palatable: a single transferable vote (STV) meaning that voters rank candidates in order of preference.
Here are the parties on my ballot paper: Animal Welfare Party: Change UK – The Independent Group: Conservative and Unionist Party: Green Party: Labour Party: Liberal Democrats: The Brexit Party: UK European Union Party: UK Independence Party: Women’s Equality Party.
https://youtu.be/sZbWCCWcQFs
The number of political parties and candidates is only half the story in connection with voting for candidates to the European Parliament. For an explanation of how the votes are actually tallied, visit the D’Hondt Process at Wikipedia. It will make you shake your head in confused amazement.
So, this is democracy???
Kinda reminds me of SF politics…power to the people and all that…