Prediction Competition - February 2019

[middleenglander]

I provisionally make it andrewp in the lead, greenrobinhood second, hempie third, then Right Leaning, robbienicoll and Toylyyev.

Will need to check in detail in the morning.

[middleenglander]

Week 1:

Authority	Bradford	Buckinghamshire	Lambeth	Tower Hamlets	Tower Hamlets	Wokingham	Week 1	Week 1
Division / Ward	Bolton &      Undercliffe	Totteridge & Bowerdean	Thornton	Lansbury	Shadwell	Evendons	faults	position
andrewp	13.4	35.9+10	32.3	21.4	31.2+10	24.1	178.4	1st
David Boothroyd	13.7	29.9+10	50.3	33.8	51.7+10	16.1	215.6	8th
europeanlefty	16.6	47.9+10	26.3	27.0	53.5+10	28.1	219.5	12th
greatkingrat	13.4	53.9+10	45.5	12.6	22.9+10	38.1+10	216.5	10th
greenrobinhood	12.6	49.5+10	24.3	18.5	32.2+10	26.1	183.3	2nd
hempie	13.4	37.9+10	37.5	29.4	31.7+10	20.1	190.0	3rd
iainbhx	21.0+10	29.9+10	36.3	31.4	43.5+10	44.1+10	246.2	16th
jamesrodriguez	13.4	49.5+10	30.3	38.6	48.5+10	22.1	222.5	14th
Olympian95	17.4	33.5+10	39.0	27.4	55.5+10	28.1	221.0	13th
peterl	19.4	31.5+10	41.5	25.5	39.8+10	30.1	207.8	7th
priceofdawn	32.6+10	61.5+10	35.5	55.1	42.6+10	29.9	287.4	18th
ricmk	21.7	37.5+10	39.0	28.3	37.7+10	32.1	216.4	9th
Right Leaning	13.4	47.9+10	32.3	17.4	31.0+10	28.1	190.1	4th
robbie nicoll	21.4+10	49.5+10	55.0	11.4	19.4	14.1	190.8	5th
Robert Waller	23.7	35.9+10	47.0	39.9	35.2+10	26.1	227.9	15th
Tony Otim	21.7+10	44.9+10	47.9	30.6	37.9+10	35.7+10	258.8	17th
Toylyyev	17.7	39.9+10	19.0	21.6	52.5+10	26.1	196.7	6th
Yellow Peril	13.2	39.9+10	36.3	27.4	55.7+10	24.1	216.8	11th
Total	320.0+40	756.5+180	675.6	497.4	722.7+170	493.7+30	3,885.8

Objections please by noon Sunday.

Just the one by-election next week.  Predictions on this thread by 9.00 am Thursday.

[yellowperil]

This was such a desperate car crash for so many of us I may be grasping at straws, but I have been looking at the final arithmetic with more care than usual, and I find I can't agree the final decimal point in a number of our individual totals -it seems to be commonly out by 0.1 or 0.2 according to me. Maybe insignificant, but I normally take these numbers as gospel as I assumed they are generated off a spreadsheet?

Then the bigger issue: should the Bucks results here be allowed to stand? What if we find eventually this was affected by electoral fraud? It is possible the result will eventually be annulled by the courts, but in the meantime are we supposed to be able to predict results affected by fraud? Interesting questions!

[Davıd Boothroyd]

If an election result is avoided, it still happened. The councillor elected was a valid councillor until the point at which the election was avoided. Election courts cannot 'annul' results in the same way that some who go through a ceremony of marriage can see their marriage annulled as though it never happened.

[ricmk]

Feb 8, 2019 12:11:37 GMT yellowperil said:

This was such a desperate car crash for so many of us I may be grasping at straws, but I have been looking at the final arithmetic with more care than usual, and I find I can't agree the final decimal point in a number of our individual totals -it seems to be commonly out by 0.1 or 0.2 according to me. Maybe insignificant, but I normally take these numbers as gospel as I assumed they are generated off a spreadsheet?

Then the bigger issue: should the Bucks results here be allowed to stand? What if we find eventually this was affected by electoral fraud? It is possible the result will eventually be annulled by the courts, but in the meantime are we supposed to be able to predict results affected by fraud? Interesting questions!

Well done to the podium placers.

I wouldn't say a car crash - in fact given the difficulty I think the overall scores are perfectly respectable. I did consider choosing to take 100 points in Tower Hamlets and Wycombe and would have been last by a long way had I done so.

And yes our job is to predict the results, not what happens next.   So as the result is declared we should count it here. Whether we'll be predicting the same ward again before long, who knows?

[yellowperil]

Feb 8, 2019 12:14:57 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

If an election result is avoided, it still happened. The councillor elected was a valid councillor until the point at which the election was avoided. Election courts cannot 'annul' results in the same way that some who go through a ceremony of marriage can see their marriage annulled as though it never happened.

I was raising the issue of our own internal rules for the prediction competition rather than the wider legal issue, which if it gets resolved in the courts will take a long time. Meanwhile we have a competition based on an election which just might, for the sake of argument, been conducted in a fraudulent manner. On the bigger issue, this might be a case where criminal law takes precedence over  electoral law, either way its along time getting sorted. As far as the prediction competition is concerned, we work on an assumption that it is based on a clean electoral system. What if that proved not to be the case?

[yellowperil]

Feb 8, 2019 13:28:47 GMT ricmk said:

Feb 8, 2019 12:11:37 GMT yellowperil said:

This was such a desperate car crash for so many of us I may be grasping at straws, but I have been looking at the final arithmetic with more care than usual, and I find I can't agree the final decimal point in a number of our individual totals -it seems to be commonly out by 0.1 or 0.2 according to me. Maybe insignificant, but I normally take these numbers as gospel as I assumed they are generated off a spreadsheet?

Then the bigger issue: should the Bucks results here be allowed to stand? What if we find eventually this was affected by electoral fraud? It is possible the result will eventually be annulled by the courts, but in the meantime are we supposed to be able to predict results affected by fraud? Interesting questions!

Well done to the podium placers.

I wouldn't say a car crash - in fact given the difficulty I think the overall scores are perfectly respectable. I did consider choosing to take 100 points in Tower Hamlets and Wycombe and would have been last by a long way had I done so.

And yes our job is to predict the results, not what happens next.   So as the result is declared we should count it here. Whether we'll be predicting the same ward again before long, who knows?

Yes I should offer my congratulations to AndrewP, GRH and Hempie, especially, for surviving relatively intact, but I think when 2 of our by elections on the same day produced 35 wrong winners I reckon that's a car crash! Just a few people managed to step out of their cars relatively unscathed.

[middleenglander]

Feb 8, 2019 12:11:37 GMT yellowperil said:

This was such a desperate car crash for so many of us I may be grasping at straws, but I have been looking at the final arithmetic with more care than usual, and I find I can't agree the final decimal point in a number of our individual totals -it seems to be commonly out by 0.1 or 0.2 according to me. Maybe insignificant, but I normally take these numbers as gospel as I assumed they are generated off a spreadsheet?

The calculations are undertaken using a spread sheet which works to n decimal places, including the share of the vote, where n is a number at least 10. Each individual contest has faults to n decimal places. The week total also operates to n decimal places as are the totals which are carried forward to the next week. Obviously when displaying each by-election to 1 decimal place there will be rounding errors, normally limited to 0.1 of a fault but occasionally 0.2 when summing a number of contests. Rest assured assuming I have keyed in accurately the prediction by party and the right actual votes then the number of faults will be correctly calculated to the decimal point displayed.

[Crimson King]

Feb 8, 2019 13:34:55 GMT yellowperil said:

Feb 8, 2019 12:14:57 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

If an election result is avoided, it still happened. The councillor elected was a valid councillor until the point at which the election was avoided. Election courts cannot 'annul' results in the same way that some who go through a ceremony of marriage can see their marriage annulled as though it never happened.

I was raising the issue of our own internal rules for the prediction competition rather than the wider legal issue, which if it gets resolved in the courts will take a long time. Meanwhile we have a competition based on an election which just might, for the sake of argument, been conducted in a fraudulent manner. On the bigger issue, this might be a case where criminal law takes precedence over  electoral law, either way its along time getting sorted. As far as the prediction competition is concerned, we work on an assumption that it is based on a clean electoral system. What if that proved not to be the case?

If you work on that assumption on a Tower Hamlets election, you only have yourself to blame 😉 (and I realise this was not TH)

[iainbhx]

VALE OF GLAMORGAN UA; Rhoose: Con 41, Lab 32 Ind 27

[Tony Otim]

Vale of Glamorgan: Con 42.8; Ind 38.6; Lab 18.6

[Toylyyev]

Vale of Glamorgan UA, Rhoose: Conservative 39.1, Independent 38.9, Labour 22.

[greenhert]

Vale of Glamorgan UA,Rhoose: Conservative 42, Independent 38, Labour 20.

[Deleted]

Rhoose: Ind 52% Con 26% Lab 21%

[ricmk]

Set the Rhoose loose about this hoose!

Ind 43 Con 35 Lab 22

[Davıd Boothroyd]

VALE OF GLAMORGAN Rhoose: Ind 47, C 38, Lab 15

[robbienicoll]

Rhoose, Vale of Glamorgan: Con 44, Lab 17, Ind 39

[Robert Waller]

Rhoose, Vale of Glamorgan: Con 40, Lab 22, Ind 38

[olympian95]

Vale of Glamorgan; Con 44, Ind 42, Lab 14

[yellowperil]

 Vale of Glamorgan, Rhoose: Con 42, Lab 21, Ind 37