How would this Web site gauge our Congressional Districts?

A third resource worth perusing during this month of campaigning is a Web site pointing out flaws in the first-past-the-post system that the UK has used to elect members to Parliament for years (and what several other nations have been using as well). Vote Power has calculated how much weight one person's vote has by constituency.

The more volatile a seat is (how often the seat changes hands, margin of victory, population of the district, etc.), the more weight a vote has. On the extremes, Vote Power has determined that the reformed constituency of Arfon in North West Wales has the most sway on the overall vote result, with just over the equivalent of 1.3 times a single vote. The worst constituency is also a new district, Merseyside's Knowsley, where it would take 50,000 voters to make up the moving power of one voter. That's because according to the figures Vote Power has shown, about 70 percent of residents in are believed to have voted for the Labour candidates in 2005.

In terms of constituencies that existed in 2005, the western Wales county constituency of Ceredigion has the most might with 1.220 (4.83 times the national average of 0.253), while Easington in County Durham ranks the lowest, also at 0.002.

While marginal seats are noted for having the most powerful votes in determining the election (it's suggested that despite the anger at Parliament, at least 60 percent of seats will return candidates from the same party), they also wind up having the most "wasted votes". That is, votes not counting toward the winning candidate. In the Labour-strongholds of Easington and Knowsley, only 29 percent of votes are expected to be cast for someone other than Labour's candidates, while in Ceredigion and Arfon, as many as two out of three votes will be cast for someone other than the winning candidate.

This is quite the presentation into the ills of first-past-the-post, both for stable and bellwether seats. A similar presentation could be (and perhaps should be) made later this fall with regards to control of Congress and the Electoral College. It would be interesting to know whether someone moving to Jackson County should settle in Lee's Summit (covered by the reliably Democratic 5th District), shuffle east to Blue Springs (which is the tailbone of an increasingly reliable Republican 6th District), or make the commute from Odessa in neighbouring Lafayette County (where, despite the long tenure of Ike Skelton, the 4th District just might swing to the GOP this fall.)