All female/all male electorate

[warofdreams]

Inspired by Nate Silver's maps showing the result of the US election if only men and only women could vote, how would historic UK election results look?

This BBC story claims that, with an all male electorate, it would have been solidly Labour from 1945 to 1979.   With only men voting, I think it's safe to say that every Labour victory throughout history would still have been one.  Pre-1929, not many women had the vote, so probably no change there, and the biggest Conservative/National victories in 1931, 1935, 1979 and 1983 would still have happened, possibly 1987, then maybe 1992 would have been hung?  More recently, there's been little difference between men's and women's votes, with men slightly more likely to vote Conservative, so still hung in 2010 and Conservative majority in 2015.

On the flipside, with only women voting, all the Conservative victories until 2015 would have happened, but it would have been another hung parliament at present.  The Conservatives would presumably have also won the close elections in 1929, 1950, 1964, and both in 1974.  Labour would have won in 1945, 1997, 2001 and 2005, not sure about 1966.

[Deleted]

Oct 26, 2016 18:09:13 GMT warofdreams said:

Inspired by Nate Silver's maps showing the result of the US election if only men and only women could vote, how would historic UK election results look?

(...)

On the flipside, with only women voting, all the Conservative victories until 2015 would have happened, but it would have been another hung parliament at present.  The Conservatives would presumably have also won the close elections in 1929, 1950, 1964, and both in 1974.  Labour would have won in 1945, 1997, 2001 and 2005, not sure about 1966.

A Tory win in 1929 means that they get the blame for the depression and Labour win the next election. This would have given a strong possibility of Labour dominance for the rest of the decade and Labour leadership during WW2. So that changes a lot of the political dynamic. 

Winning the 1929 election despite getting fewer votes was rotten luck for Labour. 

[Pete Whitehead]

Oct 26, 2016 18:09:13 GMT warofdreams said:

This BBC story claims that, with an all male electorate, it would have been solidly Labour from 1945 to 1979.  

Of course it wouldn't have been like that if that was the reality. A Labour government wouldn't have lasted for over 30 years without pissing off enough voters to lose office at some point. Sure not in 1951 - perhaps not even in 1955 but by 1959 or 1960 the usual pendulum effect would kick in. Also the parties work with the realities they have. Had the Tories to appeal solely to Male voters, then their campaigning stratgeies would have been accordingly different to what they were. Lord Woolton's reforms would have been based on that different reality and so on..

More recently, there's been little difference between men's and women's votes, with men slightly more likely to vote Conservative, so still hung in 2010 and Conservative majority in 2015.

In some respects though there has been a difference. There's a big difference in the level of support for UKIP amongst men and women, such that with only men voting UKIP would have won a number of seats - perhaps not enough to deprive the Tories of their majority (but at the least Thanet South, Thurrock, Rochester, Boston)

[froome]

Oct 26, 2016 20:02:10 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

In some respects though there has been a difference. There's a big difference in the level of support for UKIP amongst men and women, such that with only men voting UKIP would have won a number of seats - perhaps not enough to deprive the Tories of their majority (but at the least Thanet South, Thurrock, Rochester, Boston)

Similarly for Greens and all women voting. It would be interesting to know whether we would have won Bristol West with only women voting last year.

[Pete Whitehead]

Oct 26, 2016 20:26:19 GMT froome said:

Oct 26, 2016 20:02:10 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

In some respects though there has been a difference. There's a big difference in the level of support for UKIP amongst men and women, such that with only men voting UKIP would have won a number of seats - perhaps not enough to deprive the Tories of their majority (but at the least Thanet South, Thurrock, Rochester, Boston)

Similarly for Greens and all women voting. It would be interesting to know whether we would have won Bristol West with only women voting last year.

Yeah I wondered about that too but was unsure of the level of differential voting there

[Deleted]

I suspect that the SNP would have won an overall majority at Holyrood this year with only men voting, but would have failed to have done so in 2011 with only women voting. They would also almost certainly have failed to emerge as the largest party in 2007 with only women voting.

[Pete Whitehead]

Oct 26, 2016 20:39:51 GMT @benjamin said:

I suspect that the SNP would have won an overall majority at Holyrood this year with only men voting, but would have failed to have done so in 2011 with only women voting. They would also almost certainly have failed to emerge as the largest party in 2007 with only women voting.

What was the differential in terms of male/female SMP voters? I guess the 2015 election would look quite ddifferent in either scenario if it was at all significant. Possibly a clean sweep for the SNP with the male voters (and at the least 58 of 59) and with the female electorate presumably a few more 'Unionist' seats (Berwickshire etc, Edinburgh West, East Dunbartonshire, East renfrewshire)

[Harry Hayfield]

Some exit polling data that might be of interest

Election 2001
Men: Lab 42%, Con 32%, Lib Dem 18%, Others 8%
Women: Lab 42%, Con 33%, Lib Dem 19%, Others 6%

Election 2005:
Men: Lab 34%, Con 34%, Lib Dem 22%, Others 10%
Women: Lab 38%, Con 32%, Lib Dem 23%, Others 7%

Election 2015:
Men: Con 37%, Lab 29%, UKIP 15%, Lib Dem 8%, SNP 5%, Green 4%, Plaid 1%, Others 1%
Women: Con 38%, Lab 33%, UKIP 12%, Lib Dem 8%, SNP 4%, Green 4%, Plaid 0%, Others 1%

[warofdreams]

Oct 26, 2016 19:10:03 GMT @odo said:

Oct 26, 2016 18:09:13 GMT warofdreams said:

Inspired by Nate Silver's maps showing the result of the US election if only men and only women could vote, how would historic UK election results look?

(...)

On the flipside, with only women voting, all the Conservative victories until 2015 would have happened, but it would have been another hung parliament at present.  The Conservatives would presumably have also won the close elections in 1929, 1950, 1964, and both in 1974.  Labour would have won in 1945, 1997, 2001 and 2005, not sure about 1966.

A Tory win in 1929 means that they get the blame for the depression and Labour win the next election. This would have given a strong possibility of Labour dominance for the rest of the decade and Labour leadership during WW2. So that changes a lot of the political dynamic. 

Winning the 1929 election despite getting fewer votes was rotten luck for Labour. 

This seems likely, but would MacDonald still have favoured a coalition?  Probably just with the Liberals, if the Conservatives were discredited, and that would have been acceptable to more of the party, but not the left, including the ILP.  So maybe no National Labour, but a bigger ILP split, as their grounds for leaving would be more widely accepted.

[warofdreams]

Oct 27, 2016 6:06:23 GMT Harry Hayfield said:

Some exit polling data that might be of interest

Election 2001
Men: Lab 42%, Con 32%, Lib Dem 18%, Others 8%
Women: Lab 42%, Con 33%, Lib Dem 19%, Others 6%

Election 2005:
Men: Lab 34%, Con 34%, Lib Dem 22%, Others 10%
Women: Lab 38%, Con 32%, Lib Dem 23%, Others 7%

Election 2015:
Men: Con 37%, Lab 29%, UKIP 15%, Lib Dem 8%, SNP 5%, Green 4%, Plaid 1%, Others 1%
Women: Con 38%, Lab 33%, UKIP 12%, Lib Dem 8%, SNP 4%, Green 4%, Plaid 0%, Others 1%

Thanks for these; unless the dynamics in Bristol West are very different, it looks very unlikely that the Greens would have won that with only women voting and probably not with only men, either.

[IceAgeComing]

Its hard to tell about particular bits of the country with national data though; especially when you're talking about a party that nationally gets 4% of the vote. I mean Bristol West would require a big gender gap anyway since Labour have a decent sized majority and the fact that there isn't a big one nationally might suggest that

Its the same thing for the SNP; that data is all but useless without a Scottish crossbreak - it does show an SNP gender divide in favour of men (not that that is much of a shock) but specific Scottish data would tell you so much more - like I'd be interested to see where that SNP vote goes but that's impossible with that data, I'd imagine to Labour but I could be wrong.

[Foggy]

Oct 27, 2016 13:47:50 GMT IceAgeComing said:

Its hard to tell about particular bits of the country with national data though; especially when you're talking about a party that nationally gets 4% of the vote. I mean Bristol West would require a big gender gap anyway since Labour have a decent sized majority and the fact that there isn't a big one nationally might suggest that

Could it be of any relevance at all that the (victorious) Labour candidate in that seat was female and the Green candidate – and indeed the Lib Dem incumbent who finished third – was male?

One would like to think not, but you're probably never going to get gender-breakdown exit polls on such a micro level to be able to find out.