Today's curious and whimsical story is inspired by the upcoming 2020 US election. However, rather than wading into the murky waters of contemporary US politics, we will have a look at other arcane election systems and their sometimes unintended consequences. We will start off with Europe's second oldest parliament* (in London).
Something rotten - For many hundred years, it took a royal charter to give towns in the United Kingdom the right to send elected citizens as Members of Parliament to Westminster. These towns were known as parliamentary boroughs. However, fortunes are changing and what used to be a thriving medieval city could soon become little more than a ramshackle collection of houses. Thus, by the early 19th century, the borough of Old Sarum (a town first established in the Iron Age) counted three houses and seven voters (similarly to at least a handful of other so-called "rotten" boroughs**). This made things rather convenient for wealthy, aspiring politicians. Rather than “wasting” their time developing a political platform or reading opinion polls, they could (and did) just buy the place and warmly recommend to their new tenants who to vote for. As voting was by show of hands at a single polling station at a specific time, the outcomes were mostly predictable. The Duke of Newcastle was rumored to have up to seven boroughs under his control giving him personally more representation in parliament than the Liberal Democrats achieved in the 2019 election. Rotten boroughs were finally abolished by an act of parliament in 1832. (Link)
Caricature of the 1832 Reform Act addressing Rotten Boroughs
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*The oldest continuously running parliament is of course Iceland's Alþingi ("Althing" in English). It has been running for more than 1090 years (or approximately 4.5 United States'). Interestingly, with 63 members, it is more than 170 times larger than the US House of Representatives as a percentage of population (17 seats per 100.000 citizens vs. 0.1 seats per 100.000 citizens respectively) (Link)
**Another such example was the town of Dunwich in Suffolk. It ultimately only had 32 voters on the account that most of it had fallen into the sea. It rose to moderate fame when it was satirized by the very excellent British show "Blackadder" where it is called Dunny-on-the-Wold and described as having a population of three cows, a dachshund named "Colin", and "a small hen in its late forties" (in addition to one voter) (Link).
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