"Thousands of voters were 'swindled' in local elections"

Thousands of voters were 'swindled' in local elections, says watchdog By Andy McSmith Published: 15 June 2006

Hundreds of thousands of voters who turned out at last month's council elections were "swindled" by a system that put control of a dozen councils in the hands of the "wrong" party because of a mismatch between votes cast and who got elected.

That was the claim made yesterday by the Electoral Reform Society, which published a 110-page booklet called "The Great Local Vote Swindle" , analysing the election results. Its analysis shows that the Conservatives " won" the contest in Kingston upon Thames, with 41 per cent of the vote, but it left them with only 21 council seats.

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A big loser was the Green Party, which won more than one fifth of all the votes cast in Hackney, but ended up with only one councillor out of a total of 57.

The Great Local Vote Swindle

The Society's full report on the 2006 local elections is out now.


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Tags sutton, greenparty, electoralreform, votes, democracy

Next Meeting

The Next meeting of the Sutton and Croydon Green Party will be on the 13th June at 8pm at the Centre for Environmental Initiatives Carshalton, map here.