How many UK councillors won when most voters chose someone else?

5,031 seats elected (136 councils, 2,943 ward races)

1,593 winners below the proportional quota (31.7% of seats)

The most extreme case in the 2026 cycle: a councillor elected on 20.5% of the vote in Tyseley and Hay Mills (Birmingham, 2026) — meaning 79.5% of people who voted in that ward chose someone else, and they still won the seat. Under First-Past-the-Post and bloc vote, that's allowed: a candidate wins by being top of the poll, regardless of share, with no minimum threshold. We compare every elected councillor's share of votes to the share they would need under a system where seats match votes.⁽¹⁾ The 2026-05-07 cycle covered 136 councils, 2,943 ward races and 5,031 seats. Of those, 1,593 (31.7%) fell short of that fair share — methodology.

Want a fix? Back the call for a National Commission on Electoral Representation.

Year-over-year flips

Each council where the leading party changed between consecutive cycles, coloured by the party that took the lead. In the 2026 view, cohort councils that polled but didn't flip are shown in a darker neutral tone; councils that weren't up for election this cycle stay default-grey. Hover for the cycle and the party transition; click to see the council's full history.

Incoming party (latest flip)

Labour
Conservative
Liberal Democrats
Reform UK
Green
Independent / other
Polled, no change (94)
No election this cycle
Count still in progress (13)

Biggest council-control changes — 2026 cycle

Ranked by composition shift — the incoming party's gain in seat share of the full council. A big shift on a small vote swing is the FPTP signature: a few percentage points of vote movement can land enough seats to swap which party leads the council. A flip = the largest party in the council's running composition actually changed between cycles (per opencouncildata's annual snapshot; 2026 compositions are synthesised from the 2025 snapshot plus the 2026 election results until oncd publishes its 2026 row). See /councils/flips for the full list.

Cycle	Council	Largest party changed	Composition shift (incoming)
2025 → 2026	Wakefield	Labour Party Reform UK	+92.1 pts
2025 → 2026	Thurrock	Labour Party Reform UK	+85.7 pts
2025 → 2026	Sunderland	Labour Party Reform UK	+77.3 pts
2025 → 2026	South Tyneside	Labour Party Reform UK	+75.9 pts
2025 → 2026	Lewisham	Labour Party Green Party	+72.2 pts
2025 → 2026	Havering	Other Reform UK	+70.9 pts
2025 → 2026	St. Helens	Labour Party Reform UK	+69.7 pts
2025 → 2026	Hackney	Labour Party Green Party	+68.4 pts
2025 → 2026	Essex	Conservative Party Reform UK	+67.5 pts
2025 → 2026	Walsall	Conservative Party Reform UK	+66.7 pts

Unfairly awarded seats — 2026 cycle

Same vote totals, different counting rule. Wakefield is the cleanest 2026 example: Reform UK won 44% of the vote and took 58 of the 63 seats (92%); under D'Hondt those same votes would give them 30 seats (47%) — closer to their vote share. Each hex below shades a council by how many of its seats were unfairly awarded — that is, went to a different party than a proportional re-count of the same votes would have. Darker = bigger gap. See /councils/distortion for the full leaderboard and methodology for the bloc-vote caveat in multi-member wards.

Unfairly awarded seats

0.0%25.6%51.1%

Count still in progress (13)

One hex = one council. “Unfairly awarded” = the seat went to a different party than a proportional re-count of the same votes (D'Hondt) would have produced. 0% = FPTP and proportional agreed; higher = bigger gap. Multi-member wards inflate the count slightly (bloc-vote caveat — see methodology).

Ten 2026 elections with the most unfairly awarded seats

Year	Council	Seats	Unfairly awarded	% of seats	Most over-represented
2026	Sunderland	75	29	38.7%	Reform UK · 41.3% of votes → 77.3% of seats
2026	Wakefield	63	28	44.4%	Reform UK · 44.4% of votes → 92.1% of seats
2026	Sutton	55	26	47.3%	Liberal Democrats · 44.4% of votes → 92.7% of seats
2026	Ealing	70	26	37.1%	Labour Party · 30.0% of votes → 65.7% of seats
2026	West Surrey	90	25	27.8%	Liberal Democrats · 35.7% of votes → 62.2% of seats
2026	Richmond upon Thames	51	24	47.1%	Liberal Democrats · 51.2% of votes → 100.0% of seats
2026	Sefton	66	24	36.4%	Labour Party · 29.8% of votes → 54.5% of seats
2026	Essex	77	24	31.2%	Reform UK · 37.4% of votes → 68.8% of seats
2026	South Cambridgeshire	45	23	51.1%	Liberal Democrats · 42.7% of votes → 95.6% of seats
2026	Havering	55	22	40.0%	Reform UK · 37.8% of votes → 70.9% of seats

Same metric, different system: Scotland uses STV

Scotland's councils have used Single Transferable Vote since 2007. The same "unfairly awarded" measure — share of seats that would land with a different party under a proportional re-count of the same votes — gives a very different number when the counting rule already is proportional.

FPTP

365 English & Welsh councils — most recent cycle

19.6%

of seats unfairly awarded (3,088 of 15,737)

STV

28 Scottish councils — 2022 cycle

9.0%

of seats unfairly awarded (100 of 1,111)

Wales's 2022 council elections were also run under FPTP; the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 lets councils opt in to STV from the 2027 cycle, but no Welsh council has yet held an STV election. Raw Scottish 2022 data (per-candidate first preferences plus round-by-round transfers) is mirrored at /data/stv/scotland-2022.csv for sister-site reuse, sourced from indylive radio under CC BY-SA 4.0. 4 island/uncontested councils (Orkney, Shetland, Western Isles, North Ayrshire) are excluded from the average because the source CSV ships their first-pref counts blank — many wards in those councils were uncontested.

See the cleanest and worst-distorted Scottish councils ↓

Cleanest (closest to proportional)

Highland — 2.8% (2 of 71)
South Ayrshire — 3.6% (1 of 28)
Renfrewshire — 4.7% (2 of 43)
City of Edinburgh — 4.8% (3 of 63)
Perth and Kinross — 5.0% (2 of 40)

Most distorted (still under any FPTP council)

Glasgow City — 15.3% (13 of 85)
The Scottish Borders — 14.7% (5 of 34)
Angus — 14.3% (4 of 28)
Dundee City — 13.8% (4 of 29)
East Dunbartonshire — 13.6% (3 of 22)

Distorted elections

Councils where seats went to candidates with less support than a proportional system would require. The map shades every UK council by how many of its seats fell below that bar in the 2026 cycle (darker = more seats below). The table lists the ten seats won on the smallest share of the vote in 2026.

% below quota

0.0%50.0%100.0%

Count still in progress (13)

One hex = one council. Geographic position is approximate (cartogram — each council gets equal space, regardless of size). A council that polled in 2025 shows 2025; a London Borough that last polled in 2022 shows 2022.

Ten 2026 seats won on the smallest share of the vote

The seats furthest below the proportional quota in the 2026 cycle — councillors elected on the smallest share of votes in their ward. Click a ward to see the full race.

Year	Ward / Council	Seat-holder (party, per public record)	Seats	Won at	Quota	Below quota
2026	Tyseley and Hay Mills Birmingham	Atikur Rahman Green Party	1	20.5%	50.0%	−29.5 pts
2026	Harborne Birmingham	Kevin James Carmody Green Party	2	21.9%	33.3%	−11.4 pts
2026	Chadwell Redbridge	Niamh Victoria Atkins Green Party	3	23.2%	25.0%	−1.8 pts
2026	Stockland Green Birmingham	Manni Butt Reform UK	2	23.6%	33.3%	−9.7 pts
2026	Wealdstone South Harrow	Yusuf Yusuf Labour Party	2	24.6%	33.3%	−8.7 pts
2026	Hatfield East Welwyn Hatfield	Vaishali Shah Labour Party	1	24.8%	50.0%	−25.2 pts
2026	Bordesley and Highgate Birmingham	Ali Akbar Shujja Kazi Green Party	1	25.0%	50.0%	−25.0 pts
2026	West Hill Wandsworth	Daniel Ghossain Conservative Party	3	25.1%	25.0%	+0.1 pts
2026	Dewsbury South Kirklees	Christopher Kennedy Reform UK	3	25.1%	25.0%	+0.1 pts
2026	Tarring West Sussex	Henna Chowdhury Labour Party	1	25.1%	50.0%	−24.9 pts

See the full leaderboard of below-quota seats across all cycles.

All councils

393 councils with at least one cycle of data. Click a name to see every cycle and any changes in the leading party.