House of Lords Act: Hereditary Peers Byelection, May 2004

After the death of Lord Vivian on 28th February 2004, the vacant seat was filled at a byelection held on 11th and 12th May 2004. As Lord Vivian had been one of the peers elected by the Conservative hereditary peers, the electorate consisted of the other Conservative elected hereditary peers. This included the 41 hereditary peers elected under the House of Lords Act 1999 in the Conservative Party group, and 7 elected as office-holders by the House as a whole. All told, there were therefore 48 people eligible to vote, of whom 45 cast votes.

The election was conducted using the Alternative Vote system. Hereditary Peers who wished to stand for election had previously registered with the Clerk of the Parliaments, but had to confirm that they were interested in standing for this vacancy. There were 37 confirmed candidates, of whom 25 received no first preference votes at all. In a slight variant on the normal rules of Alternative Vote elections, candidates who had the lowest remaining total were eliminated in alphabetical order and so there were 10 stages; but for simplicity I have rolled all the eliminations of candidates who were tied in votes into a single stage.

Candidate	I	Elim.	II	Elim.	III	Elim.	IV	Elim.	V	Elim.	VI	Elim.	VII
Viscount Addison Viscount Brentford Earl of Cathcart Lord De Mauley Viscount Eccles Lord Harlech Lord Norrie Lord Rathcavan Lord Terrington Viscount Torrington Viscount Trenchard Viscount Weir Not transferrable	1 1 7 4 7 1 1 2 1 5 8 7	-1 -1 +2 -1 -1 -1 +1 +4	7 4 9 2 6 10 7	-2 +2	7 4 9 6 12 7	+3 -4 +1	10 10 6 12 7	+1 +3 -6 +2	11 13 14 7	+2 +2 +3 -7	13 15 17	-13 +3 +7 +3	18 24 3

Candidates who obtained no first preference votes

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