Overrepresenting UKIP, underrepresenting the Greens and Lib dems

Revisiting a study conducted by McLean and Johnston in 2009, this article analyses the results of the 2014 European elections in Great Britain. Britain uses a regional list system to select its members of the European Parliament. The d'Hondt method, which is used to allocate votes to seats within each of the 11 regional constituencies in Britain, is shown to have allocated three more MEPs to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) than they would have received under the more proportional ‘Sainte-Laguë’ method. Additionally, under Sainte-Laguë, the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats would have doubled and tripled, respectively, their representation in the European Parliament.