House of Lords Act: Hereditary Peers Byelection, March 2005

After the death of Lord Burnham on 1st January 2005, the vacant seat was filled at a byelection held between 28th February and 9th March 2005. 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 6 elected as office-holders by the House as a whole. All told, there were therefore 47 people eligible to vote, of whom 42 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 36 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 9 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
Viscount Addison Earl Alexander of Tunis Lord De Mauley Lord De Ramsey Viscount Eccles Lord Margadale Lord Norrie Lord Rathcavan Earl of Stockton Viscount Torrington Viscount Weir Not transferrable	1 7 12 2 6 1 1 2 4 2 4	-1 +1 -1 -1 +2	7 12 2 7 2 4 4 4	-2 +1 -2 +2 +1	7 12 8 6 5 4	+1 +1 +2 -4	8 12 8 7 7	+3 +4 +2 -7 -7 +5	11 16 10 5	+2 +5 -10 +3	13 21 8

Candidates who obtained no first preference votes

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