Here in the Netherlands, the votes are kept at whatever party you voted. Though, there are only so many seats in the parlement. So if you don't have enough votes to get at least 1 seat, all the votes to that party are rendered useless and that politic party gets no representation for the country. To get one seat you 'only' need 0,6667% of the votes as there are 150 places.
I'm happy it works that way, if it works here like it works in Poland than the party me and my family voted for wouldn't get a chance to make it into the parlement.