Elections and Electors

Abstract

Few people in Britain participate in party politics. Less than 5 per cent of the electorate subscribe to a political party and only about three in every thousand hold some party office (Butler and Stokes, 1974, p. 21). One partisan political act is nevertheless widespread. On twelve occasions since the Second World War over 70 per cent of adults on the electoral register have cast their vote in favour of a political party in a General Election. The fact that voting is such a common political act gives it a special interest. This interest is heightened by the consequences of elections The votes cast in a General Election influence — though in an arithmetically complicated way — both the composition of the House of Commons and the partisan control of government.

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Ecclesiastes, 9.11