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06 May 2010

AskMecha, UK Edition: Best sites to track election results? (for someone in the US.) [More:]I'm super interested in reading/watching the UK election results but I'm not sure which sites are the most interesting and most trustworthy. Please advise. XO.

(I have paid some attention to the BBC but feel that I'm missing some of the more local type coverage.)
P.S. am also paying attention to twitter.
posted by fluffy battle kitten 06 May | 19:28
Wait...England's electing a new queen??
posted by jonmc 06 May | 20:07
Vote for Latifah!
posted by qvantamon 06 May | 20:19
No, RuPaul!
posted by jonmc 06 May | 20:38
There's very little live local coverage, if any. Each constituency numbers in the region of just 100,000 people, so any specifically local interest is on very specific issues. The BBC coverage is pretty good for covering individual constituencies as their results come in, but only with respect to the overall results. Since the live coverage is really just about the overall result, so I don't think you'll get much more unless you want to dig into local reporting after the event, tomorrow and later.
posted by chrismear 06 May | 20:43
Is it a winner takes all in each constituency? from bbc, it seems the libdems have 20% of the vote, but an awfully low seat count.
posted by qvantamon 06 May | 21:18
Yeah, so, in each constituency, the candidate with the most votes becomes the Member of Parliament for that constituency. Then you count up all the elected MPs, and see which party (if any) has an absolute majority of seats -- they then get to form a government.

Which means that if you're a party like the Lib Dems, you could get a fairly healthy number of raw votes, but if they were spread out and distributed unfavourably between constituencies, then you might not win a strictly proportionally equivalent number of seats.
posted by chrismear 06 May | 22:15
qvantamon, it's first past the post, not winner take all. Although the outcome may be similar, it's possible to win with just a plurality. This is most painful for the Lib Dems, as their vote may be seemingly high in percentage terms in many places, but insufficient in most to actually gain a seat. Given three strong parties, it's very possible for a result to look like: Tory 33, Labour 32, LibDem 31.
posted by dhartung 06 May | 23:48
Yeah, so, in each constituency, the candidate with the most votes becomes the Member of Parliament for that constituency. Then you count up all the elected MPs, and see which party (if any) has an absolute majority of seats -- they then get to form a government.

If anyone cares, it works the same way in Canada.
posted by deborah 07 May | 00:18
I'm also interested in finding out which party's in power now, but more specifically, what it means to the country. Should I just stick to BBC America? What are the perceived biases of the UK papers as a whole?
posted by TrishaLynn 07 May | 07:33
What are the perceived biases of the UK papers as a whole?

It seems the Times, the Independent, and the Daily Telegraph all fold horizontally; the Daily Mail, Sun, Star, Mirror, and Express all fold vertically. I'd be surprised if any of the papers arrived with a diagonal fold.
posted by Hugh Janus 07 May | 08:01
I'm also interested in finding out which party's in power now

So is all of Britain.
posted by dhartung 07 May | 12:22
Five Pointz || In honor of the British election,

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