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Post by leicesterlad on Jun 29, 2012 22:16:14 GMT
2011 Lab 1276 (60.6) Con 830 (39.4) 2012 Lab 1083 (68.4) Con 501 (31.6) Swing 7.8% or 2011 Lab 1158.67 (58.3) Con 830 (41.7) in which case swing to Labour is 10.1% Quite a good ezample of how the difference can be. Likewise thank you for pointing that out. |
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Post by marksenior on Jun 30, 2012 5:19:04 GMT
Yes but as I pointed out , in 2011 there were 3 Labour and only 1 Conservative candidates and this will distort the figures as we do not know what Conservative supporters will have done with their 2 spare votes ..
Many will not have used them at all but at least a few of the Lsabour votes would have gone to Conservatives if they had had 3 candidates .
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Post by middleenglander on Jun 30, 2012 6:33:41 GMT
Yes but as I pointed out , in 2011 there were 3 Labour and only 1 Conservative candidates and this will distort the figures as we do not know what Conservative supporters will have done with their 2 spare votes .. Many will not have used them at all but at least a few of the Lsabour votes would have gone to Conservatives if they had had 3 candidates . Likewise some Labour supporters may have given a vote to the Conservative. |
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Post by middleenglander on Jun 30, 2012 7:56:04 GMT
In May 2011, 2,157 ballot papers were issued in Blaby, Ravenhurst & Fosse although we do not known how many were voided - only 2 were on Thursday.
Assuming all were valid, then 6,471 votes could have been cast compared to the 4,306 that actually were. There were therefore 2,165 possible votes that were not cast or 33% of the total.
The total given to the top Labour candidate and the Conservative at 2,106 is not far from the 2,157 ballot papers issued and may be even closer were there a couple of dozen or so invalid papers.
It is consequently likely that bulk of electors either gave just the 1 vote to the Conservative and voted with a variable degree of enthusiasm for the 3 Labour candidates with the lowest placed one polling 82% of the number of votes of the highest placed.
However, even in this relatively straight forward scenario, there is highly likely to be a small number of electors voting for all or at least most of the combinations mathematically possible.
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Crimson King
Lib Dem
Be nice to each other and sing in tune
Posts: 9,844 
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Post by Crimson King on Jun 30, 2012 8:33:14 GMT
This sort of thing always makes my head spin, but does this make some sort of sense:
If the unused votes (2165) were all from Tories frustrated at only having one candidate to vote for that would imply 2165 + 830 (the actual tory vote)/3 = 998 tory voters, which must be wrong.
OTOH if the 830 tories were die hard tory only types that only accounts for 1660 of the unused votes, leaving 505 unexplained.
The most obvious possibility would be labour voters only using one vote rather than three, only 252 would have to do this to explain the drop, and only having one Con candidate might encourage that.
Scenarios where tories use some of their votes on Labour, artificially boosting the 'Labour' vote, or Labour give a consolation vote to the tory boosting the 'tory' vote would not explain the unused votes
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Post by marksenior on Jun 30, 2012 8:59:18 GMT
Anyone who has ever observed ballot papers being counted in multi member ward elections would be not be surprised that all sorts of combinations occur . There are always a few people who will vote 1 Con 1 Lab and 1 LD in a 3 party contest and there are always a few who only cast 1 vote even if they have 3 .and there are 3 candidates for their party .
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Crimson King
Lib Dem
Be nice to each other and sing in tune
Posts: 9,844
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Post by Crimson King on Jun 30, 2012 9:19:47 GMT
Tell me about it
When I was up in a by in the May 11 elections it was quite nerve wracking seeing the number of people who voted one LD (more often my long standing colleague) and one other (usually lab). It was only when I realised that the 'one other Lab' was spread evenly between the two candidates, so neither was going to catch up that my heart rate settled.
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ColinJ
Labour
Living in the Past
Posts: 2,126
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Post by ColinJ on Jun 30, 2012 9:47:48 GMT
Another way of looking at vote share could be as follows. Say:
LAB (1) 1200
LAB (2) 1100
LAB (3) 1000
CON 815
Total Ballot Papers 2250
In this instance one could show the "popularity" of each candidate among those of the electorate who voted by dividing each candidate's vote by the number of ballot papers included in the count:
Thus:
LAB (1) 1200 (53.3%)
LAB (2) 1100 (48.9%)
LAB (3) 1000 (44.4%)
CON 815 (36.2%)
I adopted this approach for my analysis of early Harrow elections where there were multi-member vacancies and huge fields of independents. Probably less useful in partisan elections.
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Crimson King
Lib Dem
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Post by Crimson King on Jun 30, 2012 9:55:26 GMT
Returning to the original question (I think) of calculating swing. If my analysis is correct (admittedly a big if) even the top Labour candidate's vote would be somewhat supressed, and more so than the Conservative vote,. So top candidate would (in this instance at least) be a more appropriate way of calculating swing, but would still probably lead to an overestimate.
In other cases when the unused votes were smaller in number it would be possible to argue that some candidates' votes may have been artificially boosted and draw conclusions on the best way to calculate swing from this. Perhaps all results in such elections should have the unused votes noted before discussion of the result
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Post by leicesterlad on Jun 30, 2012 11:23:02 GMT
I'm glad I asked the question, because as a newbie, I found it mind boggling.
One of the ballot papers was voided on Thursday for being 'want of an offical mark'. Does that happen very often nowadays? I ask, because I thought that ballot papers were all marked by a QR style barcode on them nowadays.
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Crimson King
Lib Dem
Be nice to each other and sing in tune
Posts: 9,844
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Post by Crimson King on Jun 30, 2012 11:33:35 GMT
I'm glad I asked the question, because as a newbie, I found it mind boggling. One of the ballot papers was voided on Thursday for being 'want of an offical mark'. Does that happen very often nowadays? I ask, because I thought that ballot papers were all marked by a QR style barcode on them nowadays. It shouldnt do - the official mark doesnt exist nowadays - though you occaisilnally here stories of AROs using pins or something when they cant find the punch they were expecting |
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Post by leicesterlad on Jun 30, 2012 12:08:39 GMT
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ColinJ
Labour
Living in the Past
Posts: 2,126
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Post by ColinJ on Jun 30, 2012 12:09:45 GMT
I'm glad I asked the question, because as a newbie, I found it mind boggling. One of the ballot papers was voided on Thursday for being 'want of an offical mark'. Does that happen very often nowadays? I ask, because I thought that ballot papers were all marked by a QR style barcode on them nowadays. Possibly the ballot paper had been torn and was missing the official mark. I can't think of any other circumstances that would lead these days to a paper being invalidated for 'want of official mark'. |
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Post by leicesterlad on Jun 30, 2012 12:31:22 GMT
I'm glad I asked the question, because as a newbie, I found it mind boggling. One of the ballot papers was voided on Thursday for being 'want of an offical mark'. Does that happen very often nowadays? I ask, because I thought that ballot papers were all marked by a QR style barcode on them nowadays. Possibly the ballot paper had been torn and was missing the official mark. I can't think of any other circumstances that would lead these days to a paper being invalidated for 'want of official mark'. No, there wasn't any torn ballot papers at the count. |
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Post by greatkingrat on Jun 30, 2012 13:34:58 GMT
Looking at other Blaby wards in 2011 there do seem to be a significant percentage who don't use all their votes, even when the parties put up a full slate.
Cosby with South Whetstone
Con 988/953, Lab 575/394
1685 ballot papers issued
Max Votes 3370, Actual Votes 2910 (86.4%)
Countesthorpe
Con 1891/1127/1134, LD 708/611/589
2393 ballot papers issued
Max Votes 7179, Actual Votes 6060 (84.4%)
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Post by leicesterlad on Jun 30, 2012 15:42:59 GMT
Looking at other Blaby wards in 2011 there do seem to be a significant percentage who don't use all their votes, even when the parties put up a full slate. Cosby with South Whetstone Con 988/953, Lab 575/394 1685 ballot papers issued Max Votes 3370, Actual Votes 2910 (86.4%) Countesthorpe Con 1891/1127/1134, LD 708/611/589 2393 ballot papers issued Max Votes 7179, Actual Votes 6060 (84.4%) Is that particularly low compared to the rest of the UK? |
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Post by greatkingrat on Jun 30, 2012 16:06:37 GMT
Looking at some London results they seem to be around 90-95% of votes used.
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Post by leicesterlad on Jun 30, 2012 19:22:59 GMT
Looking at some London results they seem to be around 90-95% of votes used. It would be interesting to see if there is a geographic correlation, where people are less likely to use all of the votes available to them in rural or urban areas, or in the north of england, compared to the south. |
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Post by greatkingrat on Jun 30, 2012 22:25:52 GMT
One possible reason is in shire districts you have a mix of 1, 2 and 3 seat wards, plus county elections that are normally single member. So some people may not realise they can vote more than once. While in London virtually all wards a 3-member so people are more used to voting 3 times.
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Post by Andrew_S on Jun 30, 2012 22:38:03 GMT
One possible reason is in shire districts you have a mix of 1, 2 and 3 seat wards, plus county elections that are normally single member. So some people may not realise they can vote more than once. While in London virtually all wards a 3-member so people are more used to voting 3 times. Has having more than one ballot paper ever been considered for multi-member wards? If you have a 3 member ward, I think having 3 separate ballot papers would probably be the best way of making sure people understand that they have 3 votes. |
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