Had Scotland used winner-take-all

by Jack Santucci // Published May 9, 2007
Amidst the administration gaffes of Scotland's parliamentary elections last week was a significant plus for MMP. Ken Richie, FairVote board member and director of the British Electoral Reform Society, in a letter to the Guardian:

If the Scottish parliament had not been elected with a broadly proportional system, Labour would have won a majority with less than a third of the votes. Similarly in Wales, without a proportional system, Labour would have had a clear lead in seats with no more than a third of the votes.

This would have been far worse than a wrong-winner election (a.k.a. plurality reversal). Those happen frequently enough in our own country and others with winner-take-all like New Brunswick, Canada last year.

Read it again. A majority of seats with fewer than a third of votes.