Q and A: Electoral dead heats

In the light of the electoral confusion reigning in the US following last week's election the BBC Political Research Unit's Jonathan Isaby looks into the likelihood of similar chaos happening in the UK.

Could the UK face the same problems?

A direct comparison between choosing an American president and a British prime minister is not really possible, due to the massive differences in the voting systems.

In the USA, voters cast their ballots directly for the president, where in the UK they vote for their constituency MP.

The leader of the party with the largest number of MPs is then invited by the Queen to become the prime minister.

Can a party win an election, even if it takes less votes than its main opponent?

If Governor Bush is eventually declared the winner of last week's election, it seems that he will have done so with the majority of the electoral college votes, but with fewer actual votes than Vice-President Gore.

Two post-war precedents do exist of a similar situation in the UK.

In the general election of February 1974, the Conservatives won a national share of the vote of 37.9%, winning 297 seats in the House of Commons; Labour only won 37.2% of the national vote, but managed to get 301 MPs elected - the Queen therefore invited Labour leader Harold Wilson to form a government.

The reverse happened in 1951, when Labour Prime Minister Clement Atlee went to the polls and actually received the party's largest ever share of the vote, at 48.8%, but lost the election after the Tories took more seats, but won only 48% of the vote.

Isn't this unfair?

Many supporters of Proportional Representation would agree. And both these results forced people to note the way in which the British system of electing MPs (and hence a government) can lead to a situation in which a party can win the popular vote but not form the government.

But others would say it simply makes parties 'play the system' to their advantage - this is what Republicans will be claiming if Bush ends up as President.

Has there ever been a dead heat in the UK?

There is no recorded example of a dead heat in an individual constituency at a British General Election.

The nearest we have got in recent times was in 1997 in the Hampshire seat of Winchester, when, 19 hours after the polls closed, and after several recounts, the seat went to the Liberal Democrat candidate, Mark Oaten, by a mere two votes.

One of the recounts had actually given the seat to sitting Tory MP, Gerry Malone, by a whisker.

Malone later contested the result in court, demanding a further recount of the votes cast on 1 May 1997, on the basis that he believed that some of the 125 votes which were declared void by the returning officer should have been given to him.

During the court case, it turned out that due to mistakes by the returning officer's officials, 55 ballot papers which had been used to cast votes didn't have the official mark on them, necessary if they are to be counted.

It is understood that if those 55 had been counted, Malone would have just won the seat. In the event, the court decided to annul the result of 1 May, and insisted on rerunning the election - which the Lib Dems then won by over 20,000 votes.

Malone appeared to be the victim of an electorate unimpressed by a 'sore loser'.

There may be a lesson to be learned for those in Florida here.

How are dead heats resolved?

The question of what would happen in the case of there being two parties with an equal number of seats in the Commons has never yet arisen.

The fact that the monarch has the task of asking someone to form a government could create a considerable constitutional crisis if that were to occur.

Presumably there would be a case for then bringing into the equation the parties' national vote share, and inviting the leader of the party with the larger popular vote to form a government.

However, there would still remain the chance that one of the parties - and possibly the one with the smaller popular vote - might enter discussions with a minor party and attempt to form a coalition.

With that scenario, it is possible to envisage a party leader having to make a representation to the monarch themselves, asking that they be allowed to form a government, rather than be invited to do so in the traditional way.

How is a dead heat settled in a local election?

There are examples of dead heats in local council elections in this country. Bizarrely the result is then decided by the toss of a coin.

At the local elections in May 2000, there was a dead heat in the Worksop North East seat of Bassetlaw District Council: after three recounts, the Labour and Conservative candidates were still neck and neck with 572 votes each - Janet Pimperton, the Labour candidate, won on the toss of a coin.

The same problem occurred in May 1999, when the Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates for Ashington ward on Wansbeck Council were deadlocked on 443 votes each: on that occasion, the Liberal Democrat, Andrew McGregor, won the toss of the coin.