Swing Seats and Safe Seats
- Main articles: Marginal seat and Safe seat
Sometimes, particularly under non-proportional winner-take-all voting systems, electoral districts can be prone to landslide victories. A safe seat is one that is very unlikely to be won by a rival politician due to the makeup of its constituency. Conversely, a swing seat is one that could easily swing either way. In United Kingdom general elections, the voting in a relatively small number of swing seats usually determines the outcome of the entire election. Many politicians aspire to have safe seats.
Read more about this topic: Electoral District
Famous quotes containing the words swing, seats and/or safe:
“Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?”
—Edwin Markham (1852–1940)
“It has always been thought perfectly womanly to be a scrub- woman in the Legislature and to take care of the spittoons; that is entirely within the charmed circle of woman’s sphere; but for women to occupy any of those official seats would be degrading.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.”
—John Emerich Edward Dalberg, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902)