"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.

-----

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.


--------------------------------------------------
Tags sutton, greenparty, electoralreform, votes, democracy