2023-24 Local Government By-Elections

[timrollpickering]

Apr 25, 2023 6:44:36 GMT Harry Hayfield said:

Apr 24, 2023 19:39:57 GMT uthacalthing said:

This is a stupid election law.

It was the norm for Westminster until 2010

I don't think "norm" is the correct word. IIRC there was no case in practice for Westminster between 1950 and 2005 so I guess it wasn't thought about much.

The Cormack amendment is on the principle that a party can replace their candidate but an Independent is an irreplaceable solo affair but it's an awkward imposition of the concept of party into an election & system that doesn't generally recognise them (even the name registration is more akin to licenced trademarks than anything else).

I'm not sure postponing an election is desirable but I'm also uncertain as to what would be a workable alternative, particularly given the time between polling day and taking office can be short to none at all. Back-up candidates and co-options don't seem particularly workable, especially given the potential for them to be abused to become a voter free route into office.

[Chris from Brum]

Apr 26, 2023 16:59:40 GMT andrewteale said:

Apr 7, 2023 21:42:22 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Rule 2(1) of the Local Elections (Principal Areas) (England and Wales) Rules states:

"In computing any period of time for the purposes of the Timetable ... a Saturday or Sunday ... shall be disregarded, and any such day shall not be treated as a day for the purpose of any proceedings up to the completion of the poll nor shall the returning officer be obliged to proceed with the counting of the votes on such a day."

I'm not sure those rules are applicable to the Isles of Scilly. They apply to "principal areas" which are defined in rule 2(1) as

“principal area” means, in England, a county, district or London borough and, in Wales, a county or county borough;

The Isles of Scilly Council is not a county, district or London borough - it's sui generis.

If the Isles of Scilly Council is not a council of a principal area or a parish council, then perhaps it can make up its own election procedure under which Saturday polls are legal.

If it is not a principal area, then what is the principal area that it falls under? Logic suggests Cornwall, but Cornwall council's writ doesn't run there either. Though the local cops are Devon and Cornwall, aren't they? I think also I remember a friend of ours who's from the islands saying that she played tuba in the Cornwall youth orchestra, which I assume gathered for weekend courses out of term rather than having weekly rehearsals as would be common in more urban areas.

[uthacalthing]

Apr 26, 2023 14:48:34 GMT andrewp said:

2 candidates. Tim Jones who came 13th out of 13 in 2021 ( 13 candidates for 12 seats) and John Peacock, who lives on St Agnes, one of the other islands

On the basis of this information, I support John Peacock

[timrollpickering]

Apr 26, 2023 15:52:37 GMT sjorford said:

Apr 26, 2023 14:48:34 GMT andrewp said:

The Isles Of Scilly St Marys by election is indeed happening on Saturday 20th May, so we might find out if it’s lawful

There was a case in 1999 where Doncaster tried to hold an election on a Saturday - they had to move it, but they subsequently said they were going to challenge the law:

www.lgcplus.com/?orderby=date&order=DESC&s=Doncaster%20Saturday&datefrom=01/10/1999&dateto=31/12/1999
(open the articles in incognito/private browsing mode to bypass the paywall)

Doncaster MBC has received legal backing for its failed attempt to hold a by-election on a Saturday.

The council was forced to withdraw the plan after the Home Office said it would be illegal. But Rory Mates, a barrister specialising in election law, believes a Saturday election is lawful.

Mr Mates said: 'In my opinion, were the council to hold an election on a Saturday in order to fill a casual vacancy, such an election is permitted by law.'

He believes the law does not limit the days on which an election can be held and leaves the returning officer the power to choose. Only Sunday, the Christmas break, Easter and bank holidays are forbidden, he said.

Corporate services chair Bev Marshall said: 'Doncaster is determined to be at the vanguard of electoral reform and this opinion has certainly bolstered our commitment and confidence.'

A supporting legal opinion may have been found and the Home Office of the time was sympathetic (around then there were a lot of trials of various faddish ideas about how to do voting, few of which had any impact), but given where the objections came from I suspect there would have been a real risk of a petition had they gone ahead with the law as it stood at the time (and hasn't been modified since?). The job of a council electoral services is to run elections effectively, not to try to drive new case law.

[J.G.Harston]

25th May: North Yorkshire Council, Eastfield

BATTS, Eric: Conservative
FORBES, Will: Green
RANDERSON, Tony
THOMPSON, David: Labour
THORNE, Tim: Independent
WILLETT, Erica: LibDem

Eric Batts has stood previously in other divisions in the Scarborough area.
Will Forbes is an outgoing Green SBC councillor in Falsgrave.
Tony Randerson is the previous Labour councillor who resigned.
David Thompson: not seen his name before.
Tim Thorne has stood for UKIP previously in other divisions in the Scarborough area.
Erica Willett has stood previously just over the boundary in East Yorkshire.

Previous results:
2022 NYC: Lab 73%, Con 22%, Grn 4%
2019 SBC: Lab 62%+46%+42%, UKIP 31%, Con 21%

[mattb]

Apr 27, 2023 21:23:33 GMT J.G.Harston said:

2019 SBC: Lab 62%+46%+42%, UKIP 31%, Con 21%

what on earth does that mean?

[Harry Hayfield]

Apr 28, 2023 5:15:38 GMT mattb said:

Apr 27, 2023 21:23:33 GMT J.G.Harston said:

2019 SBC: Lab 62%+46%+42%, UKIP 31%, Con 21%

??? what on earth does that mean?

It means that individually the three Labour candidates polled 62%, 46% and 42% of the total vote, the UKIP candidate polled 31% and the Conservative candiate polled 21%. This is how a lot of councils publish multi member ward results these days whereas I have discovered the offical way of doing it is to take the top polling candidate for a party and ignore all others.

[yellowperil]

That still makes no sense to me. The total candidates votes adds up to 202% of the total vote. I presume it was a triple election, so one might expect the numbers to add up either to 100 or 300, but 202? I might have guessed it was a double election and adding up to 200, which might come out at 202 with a bit of rounding up, but given there were 3 Labour candidates that seems unlikely. I can therefore assume some candidates are missing?

[carolus]

Apr 28, 2023 6:22:59 GMT yellowperil said:

That still makes no sense to me. The total candidates votes adds up to 202% of the total vote. I presume it was a triple election, so one might expect the numbers to add up either to 100 or 300, but 202? I might have guessed it was a double election and adding up to 200, which might come out at 202 with a bit of rounding up, but given there were 3 Labour candidates that seems unlikely. I can therefore assume some candidates are missing?

I suspect there were a large number of voters who didn't use all their votes - hence the sum of the percentages is less than 300.

[YL]

Apr 28, 2023 6:22:59 GMT yellowperil said:

That still makes no sense to me. The total candidates votes adds up to 202% of the total vote. I presume it was a triple election, so one might expect the numbers to add up either to 100 or 300, but 202? I might have guessed it was a double election and adding up to 200, which might come out at 202 with a bit of rounding up, but given there were 3 Labour candidates that seems unlikely. I can therefore assume some candidates are missing?

According to Wikipedia the result was
Randerson (Lab) 616
Maw (Lab) 452
Norton (Lab) 410
McCann (UKIP) 307
White (Con) 202
with a turnout of 988.

I don't actually know where Wikipedia gets the 988 from; the council website says that there were 1987 votes cast (which is the sum of the votes above) and 2 ballot papers rejected but does not say how many ballots there were. However, with two parties each only running one candidate, you'd expect quite a lot of voters to just use one of their three votes, so I'm not sure that the numbers are very surprising.

The "top vote" method would give Lab 54.8%, UKIP 27.3%, Con 18.0%. Arguably this is a case where "top vote" is a bit misleading, as one Labour candidate was well ahead of the other two, but I don't think there is a perfect method for giving percentages in multi-member FPTP elections where different parties run different numbers of candidates.

[yellowperil]

So the missing 98% were non-votes. Makes sort of sense, I suppose. Personally I think it makes more sense to take the percentage vote from the votes actually used,rather than counting unused votes available to those who voted. After all we are not counting in the potential votes of those who didn't turn up at all, or we would get very different percentages.

[iain]

Apr 28, 2023 7:01:24 GMT YL said:

Apr 28, 2023 6:22:59 GMT yellowperil said:

That still makes no sense to me. The total candidates votes adds up to 202% of the total vote. I presume it was a triple election, so one might expect the numbers to add up either to 100 or 300, but 202? I might have guessed it was a double election and adding up to 200, which might come out at 202 with a bit of rounding up, but given there were 3 Labour candidates that seems unlikely. I can therefore assume some candidates are missing?

According to Wikipedia the result was
Randerson (Lab) 616
Maw (Lab) 452
Norton (Lab) 410
McCann (UKIP) 307
White (Con) 202
with a turnout of 988.

I don't actually know where Wikipedia gets the 988 from; the council website says that there were 1987 votes cast (which is the sum of the votes above) and 2 ballot papers rejected but does not say how many ballots there were. However, with two parties each only running one candidate, you'd expect quite a lot of voters to just use one of their three votes, so I'm not sure that the numbers are very surprising.

The "top vote" method would give Lab 54.8%, UKIP 27.3%, Con 18.0%. Arguably this is a case where "top vote" is a bit misleading, as one Labour candidate was well ahead of the other two, but I don't think there is a perfect method for giving percentages in multi-member FPTP elections where different parties run different numbers of candidates.

Haven’t checked, but probably this spreadsheet:
www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/elections-and-referendums/past-elections-and-referendums/european-parliamentary-elections/report-may-2019-european-parliamentary-elections-and-local-elections

[iain]

Apr 28, 2023 7:15:37 GMT yellowperil said:

So the missing 98% were non-votes. Makes sort of sense, I suppose. Personally I think it makes more sense to take the percentage vote from the votes actually used,rather than counting unused votes available to those who voted. After all we are not counting in the potential votes of those who didn't turn up at all, or we would get very different percentages.

It isn’t counting ‘unused votes’, it’s counting the proportion of the vote for each candidate as a percentage of ballots cast.

[johnloony]

Whenever I calculate the percentage of votes for candidates in multi-member ward elections, I always do the number of votes for the candidate divided by the total number of ballot papers. A 3- member ward usually adds up to about 270%. In the abovementioned case, a total of 202% is reasonable, given the absence of any 2nd or 3rd Conservative or UKIP candidates.

[J.G.Harston]

Apr 28, 2023 7:01:24 GMT YL said:

According to Wikipedia the result was
Randerson (Lab) 616
Maw (Lab) 452
Norton (Lab) 410
McCann (UKIP) 307
White (Con) 202
with a turnout of 988.

I don't actually know where Wikipedia gets the 988 from; the council website says that there were 1987 votes cast (which is the sum of the votes above) and 2 ballot papers rejected but does not say how many ballots there were. However, with two parties each only running one candidate, you'd expect quite a lot of voters to just use one of their three votes, so I'm not sure that the numbers are very surprising.

My records say the council stated there was a 22.82% turnout, which is displayed in my spreadsheet as 983 ballots issued. Annoyingly, they only reported the turnout, not the actual number. Where I've done a box count I have the exact number from totalling each box.

[carolus]

17 May:

Stroud, Painswick & Upton (2024). Jason Bullingham (Conservative) has ceased to be a councillor.

20 May:

Isles of Scilly, St Mary's (2025). Mike Nelhams (Independent) was disqualified for non-attendance.

25 May:

North Yorkshire, Eastfield (2026). Tony Randerson (Labour) has resigned.

1 June:

Camden, South Hampstead (2026). Will Prince (Labour) has resigned.

8 June:

Wiltshire, Tisbury (2025). Nick Errington (Liberal Democrat) has ceased to be a councillor.

15 June:
North Lanarkshire, Bellshill (2026). Jordan Linden (SNP) has resigned.

Known Vacancies:

East Sussex, Heathfield & Mayfield (2025). Rupert Simmons (Conservative) has died.

Kent, Maidstone Central (2025). Dan Daley (Liberal Democrat) has died.

Norfolk, West Depwade (2025). Barry Duffin (Conservative) has died.

Plymouth, Efford & Lipson (2024). Brian Vincent (Labour) has died.

St Albans, St Peters (2024). Danny Clare (Liberal Democrat) has ceased to be a councillor.

Postponed Elections:

Stockton-on-Tees, Hartburn (x2). Countermanded due to the death of Mike Elliot (Reform UK).

Sunderland, Hendon. Countermanded due to the death of Syed Ali (Conservative).

Surrey Heath, Frimley Green (x3). Countermanded due to the death of Karen Campion (Conservative).

West Lancashire, Rural South (x3). Countermanded due to the death of Ian Davis (Our West Lancashire).

Wyre, Warren (x3). Countermanded due to the death of Brian Crawford (Independent).

[maxque]

Apr 28, 2023 19:23:27 GMT finsobruce said:

Haringey, Hermitage and Gardens ward

Death of Julie Davies (Labour). She was previously elected for the St Anns ward.

www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/23488369.tributes-haringey-councillor-teacher-julie-davies/

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Another postponed poll in West Devon’s Burrator ward, after the death of the Green Party candidate.

[pl]

I do sometimes wonder if there are a disproportionate number of deaths amongst council candidates between SOPN and election day.

Has anyone ever run the numbers?

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Perhaps get an actuary to look at it in detail but here's my back of an envelope calculation.

There were about 44,000 deaths in England and Wales during April 2019 (pre-pandemic year taken for comparison). The total population was 59.4m. So there was a one in 1,347 chance of anyone in England and Wales dying in any month.

With about 25,000 candidates, that means you would expect 18.5 of them to die in the approx. one month between close of nominations and the poll if they demographically matched the UK population. But even given that many of those who die are already ill, and they would not be likely to stand even as paper candidates, the six deaths we have had so far doesn't seem an unusually large number of deaths.