South Yorkshire PCC

[Pimpernal]

Recount looking possible...
and now it's not...

[Deleted]

Disappointing not to take Labour to the 2nd round at least. Not the end of the world though and Will have no bearing/affect on the Rochester by election and UKIP's momentum in general.

[Pete Whitehead]

Its rather convenient that Labour had just enough to avoid the second preferences being counted

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Rotherham totals are

Lab 15,006
UKIP 14,228
C 3,936
ED 2,044

Making the overall total:

Lab 74,060 (50.01%)
UKIP 46,903 (31.7%)
C 18,536 (12.5%)
ED 8,583 (5.8%)

Total 148,082. Labour were 19 votes over 50%.

[mboy]

Oct 31, 2014 14:09:14 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Total 148,082. Labour were 19 votes over 50%.

Gnashes teeth...

[The Bishop]

Oct 31, 2014 14:06:51 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

Its rather convenient that Labour had just enough to avoid the second preferences being counted

Convenient in the administrative sense, I agree. Not in any other way, though - you might have run Labour fairly close then, but there was only one winner.

[Andrew_S]

I still would have expected a recount. 19 votes out of 148,082? The fact that it wouldn't have altered the final result shouldn't be a consideration strictly speaking.

Actually it might have looked better for Labour with a second round, because they could have said we won with for example 53% of final votes rather than 50.01%.

[neilm]

This needs a recount. That is far too close.

[Philip Davies]

Surely it wouldn't take long to find say 50 Conservative/ED votes that didn't have UKIP as the second choice to conclude a recount and a second choice count to be a futile task.

[Andrew_S]

Oct 31, 2014 15:09:16 GMT Philip Davies said:

Surely it wouldn't take long to find say 50 Conservative/ED votes that didn't have UKIP as the second choice to conclude a recount and a second choice count to be a futile task.

Of course it wouldn't take long, but I thought elections were about following procedures regardless of what the result is.

There doesn't seem to have been an official announcement yet. BBC News website doesn't have anything on the results at all which is a bit odd.

[LDCaerdydd]

BBC News (TV) mentioned that Labour held the seat a little while ago, and it was just that. No coverage from the count, no mention of the figures or that it was won on 1st Pref.

Also, there is as far as I know no provision for a recount for the list seats to the National Assembly or the EU seats should it be tight between two seats.

[timmullen1]

Oct 31, 2014 14:55:16 GMT Andrew_S said:

I still would have expected a recount. 19 votes out of 148,082? The fact that it wouldn't have altered the final result shouldn't be a consideration strictly speaking.

Actually it might have looked better for Labour with a second round, because they could have said we won with for example 53% of final votes rather than 50.01%.

Might be a daft question (probably is given that I'm asking it!) but under the four counting area system where would you have had the recount; none of the four areas, taken individually, were particularly in recount territory, so would you make all four recount on the off-chance they were all wrong by at least a couple of percentage points? Taken further, if Yes or No had won the Scottish referendum with 50.01% would the whole of Scotland have been required to recount?

[neilm]

There wasn't provision for a recount in Scotland was there?

[Andrew_S]

Oct 31, 2014 15:21:22 GMT neilm said:

There wasn't provision for a recount in Scotland was there?

I don't think there was, but the idea there wouldn't have been one if the future of the UK was in the process of being determined by 5 or 10 votes is difficult to believe.

[Deleted]

If you had suggested to Labour members a week ago that the main discussion point about the result would be the need for a recount we would have have been resignedly unsurprised.

That the recount would needed because we had only just got over 50% ?? We would have been more than happy....

In the circumstances, a very good result.

[neilm]

Oct 31, 2014 15:09:16 GMT Philip Davies said:

Surely it wouldn't take long to find say 50 Conservative/ED votes that didn't have UKIP as the second choice to conclude a recount and a second choice count to be a futile task.

Yeah but we want one anyway...

The scale of the Labour win surprises me. I genuinely thought this would go to a second round.

[Andrew_S]

It would have been interesting from a psephological point of view to see how the votes split in terms of second preferences. That was why I was hoping Labour fell just short of 50%.

[Andrew_S]

2010 general election, South Yorkshire:

Lab 42.01%
LD 23.74%
Con 20.57%
BNP 5.90%
UKIP 4.35%
ED 1.15%
Greens 0.59%
Others 1.67%

Combined Lab/LD share: 65.75%

Lab share today (with no LD candidate): 50.02% [or maybe 50.01% according to some sources]

[neilm]

Oct 31, 2014 15:45:29 GMT @trident said:

Oct 31, 2014 15:42:20 GMT Andrew_S said:

It would have been interesting from a psephological point of view to see how the votes split in terms of second preferences. That was why I was hoping Labour fell just short of 50%.

It would also have been interesting to see how many voters actually marked a second preference.

I am pleasantly surprised by the comfortable win in view of the circumstances in which the by-election came about.

Yes, this was a good win for Labour. I knew Labour would win but expected a second round.

This also points to the UKIP vote being far 'fluffier' than people seem to think. I forecast a raft of not even close second places here next year.

[neilm]

Possibly. That and Labour talking up non policing issues may have kept Labour voters on side.