Apathetic Voters Elect BNP

It's now four months since apathetic UK voters elected two BNP MEPs in the European Parliament Elections 2009 by not voting.

How did not voting bring in two MEPs you may ask?

Well, the math is is quite simple:

• The electorate is 45M.
• 17M voted in 2004.
• 15.5M voted in 2009.
  
• Due in a large part to various Government scandals, 7% of past labour supporters couldn't be bothered to vote in June 2009. (Overall 9% less people bothered to vote)
  
• By not turning out they effectively increased BNP share by proxy.

• Taking the North West region example, where Nick Griffin was selected as a topical the example, Griffin got 134,959 votes in 2004.
• In 2009 Griffin got 132,094 votes, that is 2,865 votes less! Which is a 2% drop in support.
• However, because of the massive drop in other parties votes, the BNP 6.4% vote share jumped up to 8%, a quarter increase simply due to those other voters.

If the apathetic 1.5M had turned out to vote, BNP share would not have risen and Griffin would not be now sitting in the European Parliament, and attending the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen representing the UK North West (he is a climate change denier).

How much is a vote "worth"? Well, it's relative to the population, electorate, and those who vote. Consider:

• UK population is 61M.
• Only 45M are eligible to vote (over 18)
• Only 15M votes were cast in the 2009 European Parliament elections.
• Each eligible voter represents 1.35 people in the populace.
• Each person who actually voted represented 4 people
  

So your vote is very important, every vote casts currently represents 4 people. If one of those electorate doesn't vote, the electorate that do vote, represent more of the population, and, as with the BNP, their share grows.

A few factual references with the votes cast: Ref1, Ref2, Ref3