General Election 2021 Results Analysis

[Kopek]

3 hours ago, SleepyJoe said:

To me it says more about the candidates ranged against them

That could be an argument for an 'elimination ' round???

[Roger Mexico]

3 hours ago, Phillip Dearden said:

Who Voted?

There is a bit of a pattern here, ranking the constituencies by voter turnout produces three groups.

The rural towns vote the most, the areas on the periphery of Douglas (Middle, Douglas S  and Onchan) are mid-table and central Douglas votes the least. I attach 2016 results which are similar. There are movements within groups but the broad picture is similar.

Ayre and Michael are the best voters! (In terms of exercising their right to vote, no comment on who they select intended).

I posted a couple of weeks ago (see also the following discussion) on the big growth in population that the April figures implied and how unevenly they were spread across the Island, comparing the April figures with the ones from the 2016 election.  The trouble is that using the April figures is that there will have been further increases since and that may also be unevenly spread.

Take for example Douglas East where the electorate jumped from 4251 in 2016 to 4839 in April (13.8%).  The number of people voting was 1772, which as you say would give a turnout of 36.6%.  But the actual turnout reported by the media was 32%, which implies a yet bigger electorate of 5538 or thereabout.  Now this might be wrong (they had a typo in the number voting), but others are different as well.  W won't know till we get the official figures.

That doesn't mean that your general remarks are wrong: rural > suburbs > town centres is fairly standard in most places.  But the details aren't in yet.

[Roger Mexico]

41 minutes ago, Kopek said:

You'll never get them Roger, unless, you can study the imprint of the 'cross' on the ballot paper!

That would presume that people put an emphatic cross on their first choice and a somewhat less enthusiastic cross on their second choice? A bit of a hanging 'Chad' moment???

A large vote means nothing if we don't know how many were first and second preferences.

I would rather a candidate were elected on a few hundred 'favourite' votes than a candidate on a mixture of first and second preferences even if this is an impressive number!

What are you on about (or indeed on).  I was referring to what Declan asked for which was the percentage of the total electorate that voted for someone.  We'll know that when we have the electorate on the day, which will hopefully be soon.

35 minutes ago, Kopek said:

That could be an argument for an 'elimination ' round???

It would be an argument for a return to STV, which would be well suited to the way politics is done on the Island and would provide both elimination and the first and second choice you refer to.

[Phillip Dearden]

25 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

 The trouble is that using the April figures is that there will have been further increases since and that may also be unevenly spread.

 

Agreed. I will update when we get current figures.

[Declan]

Combining Phillip's registered voter numbers with Roger's we get this ranking

(Yellow - topped pole in constituency - Blue also elected, except Crowther who I've coloured by mistake) I think it demonstrates who persuaded the most people who could have voted for the to vote for them.  This breaks down the results into Parties (I've added the Manx Radio Party and COMIN Party for comparison.

The second table shows the average depending on what they were in the last Tynwald they attended so Thomas is an MHK and Crookall an MLC

It probably does skew against seats with low turn outs but in those seats the candidates didn't persuade people to vote for them, so it would wouldn't it.

Edited September 30, 2021 by Declan

[Kopek]

Roger, Philip and >Declan.

Until there is a one person, one vote system, you will never know who was the voters 'favourite'. There can only be one favourite, anyone else is a second preference.

So, you can analyse it in any form you want but you have no idea how the electorate wante the outcome to be because of the second vote.

We may have a Keys of several 'second choice' MHKs by dint of this system while the favourites have lost!!!

 

Or alternatively, there could be MHKs topping the pols thinking they are the Bees Knees when actually, they were only the second vote and most people wanted someone else!!!

This could be where an eliminaton round could put the top runners to the final vote without the distraction of 6-7 candidates to distort the vote further?

Either way, the 2 votes per person has to end.

Edited September 30, 2021 by Kopek

[Rhumsaa]

sitting in on the Ramsey count what I found fascinating is the way the votes were split per ballot paper.

Hooper & Allinson both had 100 or so plumps

700 ish voted for both and the rest was a complete random spread

[Roger Mexico]

4 hours ago, Declan said:

It probably does skew against seats with low turn outs but in those seats the candidates didn't persuade people to vote for them, so it would wouldn't it.

The trouble with low turnouts is that there can be numerous different reason for it - or what looks like it.  Firstly there are various demographic groups that are ore or less likely to vote:

Rural > Suburban > Urban

Old > Middle Aged > Young

Middle class > Lower class

Owner occupied > Social housing > Private rented

and of course these grouping aren't independent of each other.  If a constituency has a lot of these interacting factors then it will tend to have lower turnout.

Then there's the problem of turnover.  Registration normally takes place in the first few months of the year, so for a lot of people, even if they have registered they may no longer be where they were.  They may make an effort to re-register but most won't and may not even be aware that they can.  They may not de-register their old address and certainly won't if they move off-Island.  So the register may be full of ghost entries of people who will never use them.  Some constituencies, usually with a lot of private renting, have higher turnover and so will have lower turnout just from that.

In an election year they may the additional factor that the registration authorities may be unwilling to remove voters from the register for fear of taking their vote away by mistake.  So again the register may be bloated with duplicate or departed voters.

There is an additional set of problems with the Isle of Man.  Over half our voters weren't even born on the Island and especially in times of population growth, there will be large numbers of comparatively new arrivals.  These will still register (because you're legally supposed to and because it helps with things like credit ratings) but may feel it's not for them to vote as a recent arrival or simply not know who to vote for (they may not even think they can vote).  And the lack of political parties means they can't transfer allegiances from elsewhere. So more names on the register who won't vote and so reduce turnout.

[Andy Onchan]

10 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

I posted a couple of weeks ago (see also the following discussion) on the big growth in population that the April figures implied and how unevenly they were spread across the Island, comparing the April figures with the ones from the 2016 election.  The trouble is that using the April figures is that there will have been further increases since and that may also be unevenly spread.

Take for example Douglas East where the electorate jumped from 4251 in 2016 to 4839 in April (13.8%).  The number of people voting was 1772, which as you say would give a turnout of 36.6%.  But the actual turnout reported by the media was 32%, which implies a yet bigger electorate of 5538 or thereabout.  Now this might be wrong (they had a typo in the number voting), but others are different as well.  W won't know till we get the official figures.

That doesn't mean that your general remarks are wrong: rural > suburbs > town centres is fairly standard in most places.  But the details aren't in yet.

The day before the vote She Who Speaks was walking through the Lakeside estate (Garff) and met a candidate armed with a list of 200+ households that had been 'missed' off the original register. I suspect they weren't all from our estate but it does make you wonder how many others, Island-wide, were also 'missing' 24 hours before the vote!

[Declan]

I've had a go at adjusting the % of registered voting by how much a constituency's turnout deviates from the biggest turnout (Ayre). So Rushen's turnout was 4.06% less than Ayre. So Watterson got 40.79% in Rushen but if Rushen's turnout had been the same as Ayre he would have received 40.79% of the extra 4.06% which is 1.66%. So Watterson's adjusted figure is 40.79% + 1.66% = 42.44%. That means - 
 

Rank		Name	Adjusted %
1		Watterson	42.443%
2		Poole-Wilson	42.442%
3		Cannon	41.45%
4		Ashford	40.08%
5		Callister	36.29%
6		Lord-B	35.67%
7		Moorehouse	35.58%
8		Glover	32.54%
9		Corlett	31.72%
10		Edge	30.92%
11		Thomas	29.88%
12		Maltby	29.70%
13		Christian	29.64%
14		Hooper	28.87%
15		Allinson	27.13%
16		Crowther	26.63%
17		Quine	26.12%
18		Heywood	24.68%
19		Caine	23.71%
20		Johnston	23.55%
21		Smith	23.50%
22		Peters	22.91%
23		Young	21.58%
24		Ciapelli	21.54%
25		Kemp	20.71%
26		Perkins	20.52%
27		L-N	19.74%
28		Faragher	19.31%
29		Wannenburg	19.26%
30		Crookall	18.81%
31		Lynch	18.80%
32		Barber	18.03%
33		Harmer	17.80%
34		Cowen	17.75%
35		Peake	17.44%
36		Coussens	14.19%
37		Baker	13.88%
38		Josem	13.24%
39		Higgins	13.18%
40		Keeran	13.13%
41		Cregeen	13.07%
42		Cherry	12.93%
43		O-S	12.58%
44		Joughin	12.43%
45		Smith (J)	12.17%
46		Cowell	11.83%
47		Parker	11.57%
48		Weatherall	10.57%
49		Livingstone	10.12%
50		Williers	9.82%
51		Mann	9.67%
52		Hackman	8.36%
53		Gilmour	8.16%
54		Spencer	7.63%
55		Corkill	7.40%
56		Singer	7.06%
57		Kinrade	6.01%
58		Walker	5.66%
59		Boot	4.53%
60		Leather	4.01%
61		Urquart	3.96%
62		Fowler	3.87%
63		Boussougou	3.70%
64		Lee	3.33%
65		Westall	3.29%

 

 

There's basically less than a vote between Watterson and Poole-Wilson. For me the take away is the top four are quite away from fifth, Callister would have needed more than 10% extra votes to catch Ashy.

[Roger Mexico]

2 hours ago, Andy Onchan said:

The day before the vote She Who Speaks was walking through the Lakeside estate (Garff) and met a candidate armed with a list of 200+ households that had been 'missed' off the original register. I suspect they weren't all from our estate but it does make you wonder how many others, Island-wide, were also 'missing' 24 hours before the vote!

They wouldn't have been missing at that point (there would be no point in chasing their votes if they were).  What I suspect happened was that they were missed off the April register but had their names added later. Candidates would have started by working from the April ones, but should have been supplied with updated ones when they were produced

The Cabinet Office should have produced new lists in July (they're supposed to be updated quarterly) and certainly for the local elections on 22 July, though we didn't see any stats from them.  Maybe they forgot to send them out to candidates, though I suppose it's possible there was a last minute rush of registrations.

[Declan]

One aspect of the it being advantageous to be a sitting member to be considered is that sitting members have the experience of having successfully been elected in that constituency before. Liverpool may not have bought in Ronaldo or Grealish, but are still contenders because their staff and players know what it takes to win. Watterson has won four elections in Rushen - his manifesto doesn't contain any shiny new Ronaldos but he knows what it takes to win. A sitting candidate has already convinced people to vote for them. He just needs to remind them why they did in the first place. 

But name recognition seems to help - P-W, L-B, Glover, Peters, Maltby (nee Cretney), Crookhall 

Even having a local profile - Heyward, Lynch (local councillor), Kemp, Crowther, Smith (previous campaigns), Cowin

Party / Group role also raises profile - Maltby, Faragher, Young, L-N, Cousins (Labour and Green) and Johnston (Farmer's Union role) 

So if you look at my list from Josem in 38th upwards only Ciapelli in 24th and Wannenburgh in 29th didn't benefit from at least one of these factors. 

 

 

 

[Declan]

x

Edited October 1, 2021 by Declan
freshers can't delete

[Andy Onchan]

3 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

They wouldn't have been missing at that point (there would be no point in chasing their votes if they were).  What I suspect happened was that they were missed off the April register but had their names added later. Candidates would have started by working from the April ones, but should have been supplied with updated ones when they were produced

The Cabinet Office should have produced new lists in July (they're supposed to be updated quarterly) and certainly for the local elections on 22 July, though we didn't see any stats from them.  Maybe they forgot to send them out to candidates, though I suppose it's possible there was a last minute rush of registrations.

But why would there be a last minute rush to register? 

There's something very odd about that episode. 

[Declan]

14 hours ago, Kopek said:

Roger, Philip and >Declan.

 

No offence taken!

You make an interesting point Kopek. Firstly, now that we have equal representation across constituencies and more equal constituencies sizes has made this comparison more relevant.  I'm not sure it can ever be perfect - you can't say whoever tops this list should be CM because the strength of the opposition will be different across constituencies. I worry about single seat constituencies that they will mean single candidate ones, and the salami slicing of Douglas East could mean candidates getting in on a couple of hundred votes. 

This sort of analysis is best for drawing out stories like in ACM, where Crageen's unpopularity seems to have uplifted the others, it looks like few people plumped for Crageen.