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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Apr 6, 2019 8:41:08 GMT
The question came up on the West Berkshire thread about how often multi-member wards end up voting for a full party slate. Looking at the three member wards in London:
2014: 86.7% had all three councillors from the same party; 13.3% had a two-one split; 0 had a three way split. 2010: 84.9% had all three councillors from the same party; 14.7% had a two-one split; 0.5% had a three way split. 2006: 84.0% had all three councillors from the same party; 15.6% had a two-one split; 0.3% had a three way split. 2002: 90.7% had all three councillors from the same party; 9.1% had a two-one split; 0.2% had a three way split.
Don't have 2018 to hand.
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Post by froome on Apr 6, 2019 8:56:04 GMT
Many thanks David. I was actually about to start a similar thread based on the same discussion. I will look at my local results when I have time and come up with some figures for here.
In general, I expect this to differ a lot from one authority to another. In some places voting for just one party in multi-member wards is the norm for most people, but in others, many use the opportunity to split their votes amongst different parties.
And a note of caution in interpreting any statistics from this. Even if 2 candidates from the same party get exactly the same vote, it doesn't actually mean that they both got votes from all the same voters. It just means that any split voting has evened itself out.
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Post by matureleft on Apr 6, 2019 9:47:25 GMT
It would be a painful task to complete but it would be mildly interesting to see the proportion of split slates where that may (of course the electorate make what they please of the candidates on the ballot paper anyway) have come about through a party not fielding the requisite number of candidates. That can happen for several reasons: recognising one particularly strong, but broadly friendly, opponent; genuine lack of willing candidates; or incompetence at the nomination stage.
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The Bishop
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Post by The Bishop on Apr 6, 2019 10:14:39 GMT
It would be a painful task to complete but it would be mildly interesting to see the proportion of split slates where that may (of course the electorate make what they please of the candidates on the ballot paper anyway) have come about through a party not fielding the requisite number of candidates. That can happen for several reasons: recognising one particularly strong, but broadly friendly, opponent; genuine lack of willing candidates; or incompetence at the nomination stage. Or quite often, of course, an attempt to maximise the chances of your own party getting a seat.
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ColinJ
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Post by ColinJ on Apr 6, 2019 11:22:05 GMT
Four years ago I conducted a detailed examination of block-vote voting patterns during a recount for a 5-member ward on Watford Rural Parish Council. I think it makes interesting viewing: the Labour "block vote" was 736 but the best-placed Labour candidate received 1230 votes, the worst-placed 893. The Conservative "block vote" was 392; their best-placed candidate got 756, their worst 617. The single UKIP candidate had a total of 930 votes, of which 422 were "plumpers". I will attempt to add the file as an attachment here ------>
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Post by johnloony on Apr 6, 2019 13:17:08 GMT
I was surprised that the proportion of split wards is as high as your figures say. In Croydon there have only been 5 out of 135 since 1994 (ignoring the 2-member wards). But of course Croydon is a 2-party system whereas it is easier for split wards to happen in 3- or 4-party systems.
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Post by timrollpickering on Apr 6, 2019 14:12:54 GMT
The question came up on the West Berkshire thread about how often multi-member wards end up voting for a full party slate. Looking at the three member wards in London: 2014: 86.7% had all three councillors from the same party; 13.3% had a two-one split; 0 had a three way split. 2010: 84.9% had all three councillors from the same party; 14.7% had a two-one split; 0.5% had a three way split. 2006: 84.0% had all three councillors from the same party; 15.6% had a two-one split; 0.3% had a three way split. 2002: 90.7% had all three councillors from the same party; 9.1% had a two-one split; 0.2% had a three way split. Don't have 2018 to hand. Are there any stats available by borough? Some seem more likely to have splits than others - e.g. Barking & Dagenham in 2006 where the BNP fielded a lot of incomplete slates or Tower Hamlets in general.
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Post by overthehill on Apr 6, 2019 20:00:35 GMT
The question came up on the West Berkshire thread about how often multi-member wards end up voting for a full party slate. Looking at the three member wards in London: 2014: 86.7% had all three councillors from the same party; 13.3% had a two-one split; 0 had a three way split. 2010: 84.9% had all three councillors from the same party; 14.7% had a two-one split; 0.5% had a three way split. 2006: 84.0% had all three councillors from the same party; 15.6% had a two-one split; 0.3% had a three way split. 2002: 90.7% had all three councillors from the same party; 9.1% had a two-one split; 0.2% had a three way split. Don't have 2018 to hand. Would be interesting to factor Alphabetical / Ballot paper order into this re chance of success i.e. in the 13.3% of three member wards in 2014 where not all Councillors elected were from the same party what would be the % of Councillors elected from a party slate of three who were NOT all elected who were at the bottom of the ballot of three (I think it would be a lot less than 33.3%!)
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Post by edgbaston on Apr 6, 2019 20:13:46 GMT
Four years ago I conducted a detailed examination of block-vote voting patterns during a recount for a 5-member ward on Watford Rural Parish Council. I think it makes interesting viewing: the Labour "block vote" was 736 but the best-placed Labour candidate received 1230 votes, the worst-placed 893. The Conservative "block vote" was 392; their best-placed candidate got 756, their worst 617. The single UKIP candidate had a total of 930 votes, of which 422 were "plumpers". I will attempt to add the file as an attachment here ------> Really interesting stuff. I noticed yesterday that there are a number of Parish Council wards where the number of candidates a party stands can seem random, bearing no relation to the number of seats. One two-member ward had 1 Democrats & Veterans, 1 Labour, 2 Conservative. Who benefits? Labour from a split right-wing vote? Or the Conservatives from every Labour voter also likely giving one of their candidates a vote? How compelled do voters feel to use *all* of their votes if they only like 1 candidate? South Oxley would suggest ’not very’.
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Post by syorkssocialist on Apr 6, 2019 20:19:56 GMT
Four years ago I conducted a detailed examination of block-vote voting patterns during a recount for a 5-member ward on Watford Rural Parish Council. I think it makes interesting viewing: the Labour "block vote" was 736 but the best-placed Labour candidate received 1230 votes, the worst-placed 893. The Conservative "block vote" was 392; their best-placed candidate got 756, their worst 617. The single UKIP candidate had a total of 930 votes, of which 422 were "plumpers". I will attempt to add the file as an attachment here ------> Really interesting stuff. I noticed yesterday that there are a number of Parish Council wards where the number of candidates a party stands can seem random, bearing no relation to the number of seats. One two-member ward had 1 Democrats & Veterans, 1 Labour, 2 Conservative. Who benefits? Labour from a split right-wing vote? Or the Conservatives from every Labour voter also likely giving one of their candidates a vote? How compelled do voters feel to use *all* of their votes if they only like 1 candidate? South Oxley would suggest ’not very’. At the parish level its often just a matter of whoever the parties can convince to stand.
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Post by timrollpickering on Apr 6, 2019 20:20:34 GMT
Are local parties in parished areas overflowing with people who want to be parish councillors whom the parties would be happy to have standing for them?
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Post by edgbaston on Apr 6, 2019 20:33:23 GMT
syorkssocialist timrollpickering oh I get that, hence the randomness and the high propensity of the situation I described I suppose. The subsequent election is the interesting and unpredictable part.
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Post by greenchristian on Apr 6, 2019 20:38:34 GMT
Worth noting that the rules about who can stand for a parish council are more limiting than for a principal authority. For the parish council you have to live within 2 miles of the parish boundary, whilst for the district/county you can live or work anywhere within the council area. Unless you have a very large local party membership the odds are that your active members will be heavily skewed towards some parts of the district/constituency and against others. This makes it much easier to find eligible candidates at district (and, especially) county level.
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Post by greatkingrat on Apr 6, 2019 20:38:46 GMT
From the 2018 London local elections - looking only at wards where a party stood three candidates
Conservatives (573 wards) 1st alphabetically - average 1116 votes 2nd alphabetically - average 1084 votes (97.1% of lead candidate) 3rd alphabetically - average 1048 votes (93.9% of lead candidate)
Labour (571 wards) 1st alphabetically - average 1721 votes 2nd alphabetically - average 1665 votes (96.7% of lead candidate) 3rd alphabetically - average 1609 votes (93.5% of lead candidate)
Liberal Democrats (395 wards) 1st alphabetically - average 644 votes 2nd alphabetically - average 606 votes (94.1% of lead candidate) 3rd alphabetically - average 572 votes (88.8% of lead candidate)
Greens (165 wards) 1st alphabetically - average 503 votes 2nd alphabetically - average 432 votes (85.9% of lead candidate) 3rd alphabetically - average 425 votes (84.5% of lead candidate)
There were 44 wards where a party got one out of three candidates elected. In 33 of these wards, it was the first alphabetically who was elected.
There were 44 wards where a party got two out of three candidates elected. In 26 of these wards, it was the last alphabetically who missed out.
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J.G.Harston
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Post by J.G.Harston on Apr 7, 2019 0:31:53 GMT
Really interesting stuff. I noticed yesterday that there are a number of Parish Council wards where the number of candidates a party stands can seem random, bearing no relation to the number of seats. One two-member ward had 1 Democrats & Veterans, 1 Labour, 2 Conservative. Who benefits? Labour from a split right-wing vote? Or the Conservatives from every Labour voter also likely giving one of their candidates a vote? How compelled do voters feel to use *all* of their votes if they only like 1 candidate? South Oxley would suggest ’not very’. At the parish level its often just a matter of whoever the parties can convince to stand. In parish areas it's more likely to be whoever wants to stand stands, and their party label is whatever their party label happens to be, rather than the parties organising candidates. Most candidates with a party affiliation are likely to not go to the hassle of complying with their party's rules to get the party name on the ballot and will just stand as No Description, or prefer to explicitly not bring party labels into parish politics.
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J.G.Harston
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Post by J.G.Harston on Apr 7, 2019 0:40:29 GMT
Worth noting that the rules about who can stand for a parish council are more limiting than for a principal authority. For the parish council you have to live within 2 3 miles of the parish boundary, whilst for the district/county you can live or work anywhere within the council area. Unless you have a very large local party membership the odds are that your active members will be heavily skewed towards some parts of the district/constituency and against others. This makes it much easier to find eligible candidates at district (and, especially) county level. Yes, we had an application for co-option last year who lived just over the 3 miles, and while he put his place of work as his qualifying address, "Whitby Business Park" is half *outside* Whitby, and so didn't qualify. (Residency address can be within 3 miles, but the other address qualifications have to be within the parish.)
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