Making the Most of Your Vote

Download MVC's "Londoners Votes Count" leaflet to get this information in printable form and to pass on to other people.

Mayor

A candidate needs to get over 50% of first choice votes to win outright. Otherwise - and this is highly likely - there will be a second stage. The top two candidates remain. All the other candidates are eliminated and their ballots looked at again for second preferences. Where people have cast their second choice for one of those two remaining candidates, those votes are added onto their total. The winner is then the one with the most votes.

So you get to vote for your first and second choices to be Mayor of London. There is no point in voting for the same candidate twice, as that second vote won't be counted.

You could vote with your heart (a 1st preference for the candidate you most believe in) and also vote with your head (a 2nd preference vote for the candidate you think has a realistic chance of winning).

To make the most of your vote, your second choice candidate should be one of the ones most likely to end up in the top two. In this election, polls and media coverage suggest that Boris and Ken will likely be the top two. Thus, if you haven't voted for one of them as your first choice candidate, you need to as your second choice in order that your vote counts to the final result and is not partly 'wasted'.

London Assembly - Constituency Member:

The winner is the candidate with most votes in that constituency.

You can give your vote to any candidate.

Past results in 2000 and 2004 show that most constituencies are won fairly easily by one party - in the past just Labour or the Conservatives. The Lib Dems come close in a couple of places (the South West constituency). Very few of these Constituency Assembly seats change hands and our predictions [link to page] are for this pattern to continue. Thus it is more difficult to make your vote really count.

If all Assembly Members were elected in this way it would replicate the problems and discontent with the way we elect our MPs (this same method of First-Past-the-Post). Hence ....

London Assembly - London-wide Assembly Member:

A more proportional voting system is used so that the overall Assembly reflects how all of London voted. It works by adding together all votes cast (for the London-wide Assembly Member ballot) across London. Any party with less than 5 per cent of the total vote is eliminated. A formula is then used to allocate the 11 London wide seats in proportion to the votes cast, taking into account any Assembly Members the parties have already won.

As long as you vote for a party that gets over 5% of support London-wide, that party is likely to gain representation in the London Assembly. So you will then be represented by someone you have voted for.

Your vote will in effect count twice: once for the party you support; and once against extremists. This is because your vote makes it harder for extremist parties to be elected; as it takes them one vote further away from reaching that 5% threshold.