LONDON -- If you felt like the choices you made last month when you voted in the UK general election weren't represented in the final results, you are not alone.
A new report published on Monday says the May election was the most disproportionate in British history.
The Electoral Reform Society's The 2015 General Election: A Voting System in Crisis’ report examined the recent election, finding that it was the dawn of multi-party politics but operated under an "archaic and broken voting system".
Elections to the House of Commons are held using first past the post. Under this system, voters put a mark next to the candidate they'd like to vote for on the ballot paper, the person who wins the majority of the votes takes the seat.
Does this look like a fair voting system to you? #MakeSeatsMatchVotes pic.twitter.com/PR5P8LJqm4— Electoral Reform Soc (@electoralreform) June 1, 2015
The report includes the results of a survey in which 40,000 people, polled by YouGov, were asked how they would have voted if they could have voted used another system -- list-based proportional representation.
The survey shows the results of the election could have been very different, with smaller parties like the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, the Greens and Plaid Cymru performing much better according to the publication:
The Conservatives would have won 242 seats (-89)
Labour 208 (-24)
The Scottish National Party 30 (-26)
The Liberal Democrats 47 (+39)
Plaid Cymru 5 (+2)
UKIP 80 (+79)
The Green Party 20 (+19)
"We're not seeing the choices that people made at the ballot box in any way reflected in a fair share of seats in parliament," Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society Katie Ghose told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"I think the starkest illustration of that is the 5 million votes which were cast for UKIP and the Greens, which won them just two seats."
Ghose said that voters have changed fundamentally, they're shopping around and the system is struggling to cope with those changes.
The Electoral Reform Society says the current system could be contributing to the break-up of the UK, citing the result in Scotland where the SNP took 95% of the seats on half of the vote.
The report also says half of all votes cast in the election went to losing candidates, meaning 15 million people didn't see the choices they made reflected in the final result. It highlights the South Belfast race where SDLP candidate Dr Alasdair McDonnell set a new record getting elected to a seat with 24.5% of the vote.
In 2011, the UK rejected a vote on electoral reform. Almost 70% of people who voted in the referendum said they didn't want to change the way MPs are currently elected, opting to stick with first past the post.