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Post by jigger on Oct 1, 2017 22:05:04 GMT
Thank you, yellowperil . When it comes to elections, even one mistake or mis-type can have serious consequences-see the 1979 results for Chertsey & Walton for example, and the October 1974 and 1983 results for the same seat which when all compared together show that a serious mistake was made in recording the 1979 result for that constituency. South East Staffordshire and Newcastle North in 1987 seem to be other examples of spectacular counting errors. |
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Oct 1, 2017 22:13:28 GMT
Thank you, yellowperil . When it comes to elections, even one mistake or mis-type can have serious consequences-see the 1979 results for Chertsey & Walton for example, and the October 1974 and 1983 results for the same seat which when all compared together show that a serious mistake was made in recording the 1979 result for that constituency. South East Staffordshire and Newcastle North in 1987 seem to be other examples of spectacular counting errors. I've mentioned the proven miscount in Wandsworth Central in 1923 before but I'll do it again. |
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Post by greenhert on Oct 1, 2017 22:15:08 GMT
Thank you, yellowperil . When it comes to elections, even one mistake or mis-type can have serious consequences-see the 1979 results for Chertsey & Walton for example, and the October 1974 and 1983 results for the same seat which when all compared together show that a serious mistake was made in recording the 1979 result for that constituency. South East Staffordshire and Newcastle North in 1987 seem to be other examples of spectacular counting errors. What evidence have you got to back this up? |
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Post by jigger on Oct 1, 2017 22:29:22 GMT
South East Staffordshire and Newcastle North in 1987 seem to be other examples of spectacular counting errors. What evidence have you got to back this up? Well obviously one can never be 100% sure of these things - why I said "seem to be". But in Newcastle North were the result in 1987 to have been correct, then that would have meant that the Conservatives would have increased their vote share in 1992 by more than 7%. In none of the neighbouring seats did the Conservatives come even close to that level of performance. South East Staffordshire is even more of a likely example- the SDP-Liberal vote increased by almost 6% when in all the neighbouring seats the SDP-Liberal vote share declined. It would be virtually impossible 30 years after the events occurred to prove to a criminal standard that there was a miscounting of votes but on the balance of probabilities it's the only conclusion that can really be drawn. |
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 38,952
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Post by The Bishop on Oct 2, 2017 9:29:22 GMT
There is very little doubt, in my mind at least, that the Newcastle North results are (both) correct.
In 1987 the Libs/Alliance genuinely thought they had a chance of winning it, and Labour people were braced for a close result - they were genuinely surprised (and pleased) to win by as much as they did. However, a significant part of their support was a personal vote for John Shipley and when he was no longer candidate in 1992 the LibDems duly slumped. Tory support then also wasn't that different from what it was in 1983.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Oct 2, 2017 9:44:52 GMT
I must admit I'd never heard any question mark over the Newcastle North results before. It's true the fluctuations between 1983 and 1992 were odd but not uniquely so and as the Bishop shows they are mostly explicable. The Alliance vote was largely an anti-Labour vote and this coalesced more behind the Conservatives in 1992. Undoubtedly the SE Staffs result in 1987 is suspect and I'm convinced Chertsey & Walton in 1979 is wrong
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Post by jigger on Oct 2, 2017 16:26:05 GMT
I must admit I'd never heard any question mark over the Newcastle North results before. It's true the fluctuations between 1983 and 1992 were odd but not uniquely so and as the Bishop shows they are mostly explicable. The Alliance vote was largely an anti-Labour vote and this coalesced more behind the Conservatives in 1992. Undoubtedly the SE Staffs result in 1987 is suspect and I'm convinced Chertsey & Walton in 1979 is wrong Fair enough. For more than 20 years, I've been under the (presumably what must now be called) misapprehension that either of the 1987 and 1992 Newcastle North results as declared were wrong. I'll still probably have nagging doubts to my dying moments about the correctness of those results, simply because that belief has been with me for so long. But perfectly plausible explanations have been given about the prima facie strange fluctuations there and so it is incumbent on me to change my mind, having no evidence to defeat those explanations. Thanks to both you and The Bishop for your informative and very useful contributions. That's exactly why I joined this forum - to have long-standing beliefs such as that challenged. |
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Post by AdminSTB on Oct 2, 2017 16:40:21 GMT
I must admit I'd never heard any question mark over the Newcastle North results before. It's true the fluctuations between 1983 and 1992 were odd but not uniquely so and as the Bishop shows they are mostly explicable. The Alliance vote was largely an anti-Labour vote and this coalesced more behind the Conservatives in 1992. Undoubtedly the SE Staffs result in 1987 is suspect and I'm convinced Chertsey & Walton in 1979 is wrong The SE Staffs candidate in 1987 is notorious for having done an exceptional amount of canvassing, not convinced that the result is right, but they did do a hell of a lot of work. |
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Post by jigger on Oct 2, 2017 16:54:16 GMT
As a matter of interest, what is felt to be wrong about the Chertsey & Walton result in 1979? The Liberal vote overestimated? And thus the Tory vote undercounted. There were no boundary changes in 1983 in Chertsey and Walton so for the 1979 result to be correct, the Tory vote would have risen by more than 9% , when across the country the Conservative vote fell. It does look like a very likely candidate for a miscounting. |
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Post by yellowperil on Oct 2, 2017 18:56:18 GMT
I really do find these various accusations of miscounting or of publishing wrong results on the scale you imply difficult to understand, Every count I have ever attended have had the various agents and counting agents scrutinising every action with enormous attention to detail. if these things actually happened and are not just some urban myth some agents were quite incredibly lax.I find it much more plausible that the odd rogue result is caused by underestimating the local appeal of a particular candidate, or how hard a particular team has worked - elections can on rare occasions suddenly and maybe temporarily shift in much the same way as can happen in by-elections.
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Post by jigger on Oct 2, 2017 19:03:57 GMT
I really do find these various accusations of miscounting or of publishing wrong results on the scale you imply difficult to understand, Every count I have ever attended have had the various agents and counting agents scrutinising every action with enormous attention to detail. if these things actually happened and are not just some urban myth some agents were quite incredibly lax.I find it much more plausible that the odd rogue result is caused by underestimating the local appeal of a particular candidate, or how hard a particular team has worked - elections can on rare occasions suddenly and maybe temporarily shift in much the same way as can happen in by-elections. But the thing is in 1979 it would have been/was quite difficult to get information about results from the rest of the country if you were at a count with no televisions allowed. For all the agents at the Chertsey and Walton count could have known, the Conservative Party was actually losing support in Surrey in 1979. That would obviously fall down if other counts were conducted at the same venue - I'm not sure whom out of Runnymede or Elmbridge Borough Council would have actually been responsible for the Chertsey and Walton count. |
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Post by mattb on Oct 2, 2017 19:20:25 GMT
For the record, Three Rivers had all-out elections in 2014, not 2015. Had Three Rivers had all-out elections in 2015 instead of 2014 the Conservatives would have taken overall control of the council. The point is moot but you cannot be confident of this. Due to all-ups in 2014, in 2015 we were defending every held ward with our weakest candidate; whereas the Tories had their 2014 top candidates standing. (different in this ward which was actually split in 2014 so the Tories were defending with their strongest candidate while we had a new and unknown challenger). Given the small Tory majorities in the newly-split wards in 2015, if we had instead had all-up elections in 2015, and assuming ours and the Tories' other candidates did respectively better and worse than the 2015 candidates in the same way as actually happened in 2014, all four of the newly-split wards would still have elected two LDs and one Tory - and the council would still have been balanced. Much harder to work out what would have happened in this ward if the all-ups had been in 2015 instead of 2014; but my own view is at least one and quite possibly both of our existing councillors would have hung on. (But the Tories would still have been shy of control regardless). |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Oct 2, 2017 19:43:09 GMT
| Spelthorne | Oct1974 | 1979 | change | 1983 | change | | | | | | | | | Con | 44.7 | 57.4 | +12.7 | 52.4 | -5.0 | | Lab | 33.2 | 27.8 | -5.4 | 15.5 | -12.3 | | Lib | 19.8 | 13.9 | -5.9 | 26.0 | +12.1 | | | | | | | | | Surrey NW | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Con | 52.3 | 63.8 | +11.5 | 64.1 | +0.3 | | Lab | 24.5 | 18.9 | -5.6 | 9.9 | -9.0 | | Lib | 23.3 | 15.9 | -7.4 | 26.0 | +10.1 | | | | | | | | | Woking | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Con | 46.0 | 57.1 | +11.1 | 58.3 | +1.2 | | Lab | 23.7 | 24.0 | + 0.3 | 11.7 | -12.3 | | Lib | 28.4 | 18.0 | -10.4 | 29.4 | +11.4 | | | | | | | | | Esher | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Con | 55.8 | 65.1 | +9.3 | 63.3 | -1.8 | | Lab | 19.0 | 15.2 | -3.8 | 7.2 | -8.0 | | Lib | 25.1 | 19.7 | -5.4 | 28.1 | +8.4 | | | | | | | | | Chertsey & Walton | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Con | 50.7 | 49.0 | -1.7 | 58.3 | +9.3 | | Lab | 29.9 | 23.2 | -6.7 | 13.6 | -9.6 | | Lib | 18.5 | 26.2 | +7.7 | 27.5 | +1.3 |
NB there were no boundary changes in any of these seats in 1983 with the exception of Esher where the partisan effect of the changes was negligible It does seem off to say the least that the Tory share fell in C&W in 1979 when in all the neighbouring seats it was increasing by around 10% or more, only for it to then increase by that amount four years later when it was stagnating everywhere else |
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Post by yellowperil on Oct 2, 2017 20:36:56 GMT
I can see the C & W result is anomalous in 1979 and self -correcting in 1983. However, I have to ask how this happened. I would certainly expect this to be down to the quality of the 1979 candidate and/or the effectiveness of that particular campaign. If I understand you , you seem to be suggesting that the Lib and Lab votes as published in 1979 were transposed and that everybody, especially the Labour agent, failed to notice this fact? I would expect at any properly organised count all parties to be fully aware of the result to within a handful of votes, and certainly to know the order of the candidates, some time before the result was announced. I have heard of results being published and being out by a handful of votes and people deciding not to appeal because it wasn't worth the hassle, but not an error on this sort of scale.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Oct 2, 2017 20:55:50 GMT
I can see the C & W result is anomalous in 1979 and self -correcting in 1983. However, I have to ask how this happened. I would certainly expect this to be down to the quality of the 1979 candidate and/or the effectiveness of that particular campaign. If I understand you , you seem to be suggesting that the Lib and Lab votes as published in 1979 were transposed and that everybody, especially the Labour agent, failed to notice this fact? I would expect at any properly organised count all parties to be fully aware of the result to within a handful of votes, and certainly to know the order of the candidates, some time before the result was announced. I have heard of results being published and being out by a handful of votes and people deciding not to appeal because it wasn't worth the hassle, but not an error on this sort of scale. You clearly don't understand me. I am not making any claim about the Labour vote. What appears to have happened is that several thousand Conservative votes ended up with the Liberal bundles. Since the Conservative was still easily elected they would have no reason to query the result at the time and as jigger pointed out they would not at the time have been aware of the national or sub regional trends which might indicate the result was odd. Incientally here are the votes cast in the local elections on the same day: Con 27150 54.6% Lib 11809 23.7% Lab 9554 19.2% Ind 1231 2.5% 17 of 18 wards voted (the one exception being Weybridge South which had voted Conservative over Liberal by over 4 to 1 the previous year). In five wards there was no Labour candidate and the election was a straight fight between Conservative and Liberal (which may be assumed to boost the Liberal total somewhat). In one ward there was no Liberal candidate (Hersham North which is where the Independent vote came from). Make of it what you will. Here's the general election result again for comparison Con 25810 49.0% Lib 13786 26.2% Lab 12211 23.2% NF 819 1.6% |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2017 21:57:26 GMT
I really do find these various accusations of miscounting or of publishing wrong results on the scale you imply difficult to understand, Every count I have ever attended have had the various agents and counting agents scrutinising every action with enormous attention to detail. if these things actually happened and are not just some urban myth some agents were quite incredibly lax.I find it much more plausible that the odd rogue result is caused by underestimating the local appeal of a particular candidate, or how hard a particular team has worked - elections can on rare occasions suddenly and maybe temporarily shift in much the same way as can happen in by-elections. Given that it's a Surrey seat in a good tory year maybe nobody was paying enough attention and a mistake wasn't spotted. |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Oct 2, 2017 22:50:57 GMT
I really do find these various accusations of miscounting or of publishing wrong results on the scale you imply difficult to understand, Every count I have ever attended have had the various agents and counting agents scrutinising every action with enormous attention to detail. if these things actually happened and are not just some urban myth some agents were quite incredibly lax.I find it much more plausible that the odd rogue result is caused by underestimating the local appeal of a particular candidate, or how hard a particular team has worked - elections can on rare occasions suddenly and maybe temporarily shift in much the same way as can happen in by-elections. But the thing is in 1979 it would have been/was quite difficult to get information about results from the rest of the country if you were at a count with no televisions allowed. For all the agents at the Chertsey and Walton count could have known, the Conservative Party was actually losing support in Surrey in 1979. That would obviously fall down if other counts were conducted at the same venue - I'm not sure whom out of Runnymede or Elmbridge Borough Council would have actually been responsible for the Chertsey and Walton count. You don't need to know what is happening in other parts of the country at all, you just need to scrutinise the count properly. You know where your candidate is on the ballot, if papers are going into the wrong pile or if bundles are being added to the wrong block it is not that hard to spot, either by party volunteers or the officials. I agree with yellowperil, it is highly unlikely that massive miscounting could occur on this scale without a scrutineer noticing, and by definition we are talking about areas where the losing party was locally strong and should therefore have had plenty of volunteers about to do it. Whereas exceptional local candidates or exceptionally good local campaigns happen all the time - mainly in by-elections but it's not inherently unbelievable in a GE. I think miscounting falls on the wrong side of Occam's razor. |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Oct 2, 2017 23:05:33 GMT
Incidentally, while the winning Conservative candidate was the same in 1974, 1979 and 1983 the Labour candidate was different in all three elections, the Liberal candidates were different in 1983 from 1979 and in 1983 not only was the Alliance candidate a different individual he or she was standing for the SDP rather than Liberals. You have quite a few variables there.
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Post by yellowperil on Oct 3, 2017 6:49:30 GMT
You clearly don't understand me. I am not making any claim about the Labour vote. What appears to have happened is that several thousand Conservative votes ended up with the Liberal bundles. Since the Conservative was still easily elected they would have no reason to query Apologies if I slightly misunderstood the point you are making but I do not think it changes my basic point -if anything it strengthens it. I thought we were talking about a Labour agent of quite appalling incompetence in suburban Surrey but no you are talking about the Tory agent in a winning seat being so incredibly complacent that he has been prepared to throw away thousands of votes. As someone who has worked as a constituency agent in several general elections, and as a counting agent over decades, I have to say I find that incomprehensible. |
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ColinJ
Labour
Living in the Past
Posts: 2,126
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Post by ColinJ on Oct 3, 2017 7:00:14 GMT
You clearly don't understand me. I am not making any claim about the Labour vote. What appears to have happened is that several thousand Conservative votes ended up with the Liberal bundles. Since the Conservative was still easily elected they would have no reason to query Apologies if I slightly misunderstood the point you are making but I do not think it changes my basic point -if anything it strengthens it. I thought we were talking about a Labour agent of quite appalling incompetence in suburban Surrey but no you are talking about the Tory agent in a winning seat being so incredibly complacent that he has been prepared to throw away thousands of votes. As someone who has worked as a constituency agent in several general elections, and as a counting agent over decades, I have to say I find that incomprehensible. However, see my post from February vote-2012.proboards.com/thread/9247/recounting-recounts?page=2where I recall an example of how it was all too easy for significant numbers of ballot papers to end up in the wrong 'pile', and where hardly anyone noticed..... |
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