Sunday, 8 May 2011

Thanks & Goodbye

Above is a photo I took on the way out of the King's Hall when all was finished on Friday evening. As chairs were stacked and papers tidied, I realised - it was done. My first, and perhaps last, chance to report a large-scale election in Stoke.

I'm a first-year student at Staffordshire University and I set up StokeElect2011 to get some real reporting experience under my belt. It's been much better than sitting at home watching daytime TV!

So, I would like to express my sincere thanks to everyone who has supported StokeElect2011 on twitter and here on the blog. I've had a great time writing and reporting for everyone in Stoke-on-Trent.

A month ago today I set up the blog and twitter account and now that it's business-as-usual on Monday, I feel StokeElect2011 has naturally come to its end.

If you would like to keep in touch with and/or find out a bit more about me, please send me a message or join me on my personal twitter account @sam__alexander .

Thanks again, and here's to a successful City Council!

All the best,

Sam

Ward Activity On Polling Day

Stat-Crunch 4: Ward activity on polling day

Here's a link to a table I've compiled to show ward activity, with respect to turnout on election day.
There's a wide range of result in Stoke-on-Trent with the highest being 49.13% and the lowest being Springfield & Trent Vale with a 20.18% turnout at the polls.

I've also highlighted on the list where a non-Labour candidate was successful and there is a clear correlation between activity at the polls and Labour success.

Here's the spreadsheet containing a list of wards by turnout.

http://bit.ly/jyQWn3

How many Councillors would keep their seats with AV?


Stat-Crunch 3 - How many Councillors would have keep their seats with AV?


I'm aware that the AV referendum only applied to parliamentary elections, but as a bit of fun - let's see how Thursday would have turned out if AV was in place.

Only 8 winners of 44 received support from over 50% of their community.


The AV debate is now getting old however, and such a resounding 'No' in the polls from Stoke-on-Trent citizens suggests they are perfectly happy with this system for electing to council (After all, changing the parliamentary rules could have been a trigger for a larger reform).

But as a stat-crunch, I thought this might make interesting reading as a post-referendum comment.


Saturday, 7 May 2011

Exclusive interview with Paul Hackney, Returning Officer

Just after the AV result was announced, Returning Officer, Paul Hackney (the man in charge of the running of the election) kindly gave me a few minutes of his time.

We discuss the election process, turnouts, who has been counting votes and the importance of quick fingers.

We also spoke about council election & AV awareness , the shift of power in Stoke-on-Trent City Council and the atmosphere around the chambers.

Mr Hackney hopes a clear mandate will work to the advantage of the city and explains how he feels about elections by thirds being replaced by the four-year electoral system.

I would like to voice my own thanks and appreciation to not only Mr Hackney but to everyone involved in the elections and referendum in Stoke-on-Trent.

Check out the full audio interview below.

(First question cut off because of background noise. I asked about how long Paul had been at the Council buildings...)

Interview with Paul Hackney - Returning Officer for Stoke-on-Trent Council by sam__alexander

Labour have twice the power in council than in polls

Stat-Crunch 2 - Representation In The Council Chamber

This stat-crunch doesn't look at Labour as a political force, so much as a component in the council chambers. Rather than analysing party politics, this is more to do with representation of public opinion in the council chambers.

So as a bit of fun, let's see how far away from proportional representation the next 4 years at the Council will be.

It's clear to see that Labour support in the polls ends up almost doubled in the Council.

Ironically, the Conservatives are the biggest sufferers under the first past the post system used, getting less than 5% input in council votes despite over 15% public support.

And over 20% of Stoke votes have zero input in the city council.

40% Labour support inflates to 77%
20% Other support (incl. Lib Dems) shrinks to 0%


Nevertheless, the AV referendum proves that voters in Stoke-on-Trent are happy with this system (even if the referendum was specifically for parliamentary elections).

Friday, 6 May 2011

The Top 5 - Most & Least Successful Candidates


Thanks to re-elected Councillor Matt Wilcox for this stat-crunch idea.

Stat Crunch 1 - Most & Least Successful Candidates.

In my first analysis of the results, I've highlighted the 5 most and least successful candidates at the polls. I have done this by calculating margins for each ward's winner and bottom-place candidate.

To work out the winner's margins I deducted the second-place candidate's vote % from their own, to give a % difference. For 2 and 3 member wards, I decided to take each winner's % and deduct the top-placing non-elected candidate's %.

To calculate the least successful performers, I deducted their vote % from the candidate who placed above them's vote % giving a negative number for their margin.

I hope that makes sense anyway! Here are the Top 5 (all Labour) and lead impressively by current Leader of the Council Mohammed Pevrez. Also, 3 of the 5 were re-elected.


And below are the 5 least successful candidates at the polls. 4 are Lib Dems, 1 Conservative.


If you have any requests for stat-crunches for either the Council elections or the referendum, let me know on twitter (@stokeelect2011) or leave a comment below (no need to sign-up, just post!)

Election Results & Today's Plan

I'm sure everyone has read about the Labour landslide victory last night at the election results already, but just in case you've missed it, here's a list of all duly elected members of the council.

Also, I'll be doing a radio interview later on today with StaffsLive at around 3pm.

And later on as part of my StokeElect2011 coverage, I'll be doing some statistics crunching.

AND hopefully I'll be updating with AV results along the way!

Here are the Stoke-on-Trent City Council election results by ward:

Labour 34
Independent 7
Conservative 2
Unaffiliated 1

WardsElected CandidatesElected Party or Parties
Abbey Hulton and TownsendCouncillor Gwen HassallPolitical party colour Labour
Councillor Adrian KnapperPolitical party colour Labour
Baddeley, Milton and NortonJack BreretonPolitical party colour Conservative Party
Andy LilleyPolitical party colour Labour
Councillor Duncan WalkerPolitical party colour Labour
Bentilee and UbberleySheila PittPolitical party colour Labour
Alison Ruth WedgwoodPolitical party colour Labour
Birches Head and Central Forest ParkPaul Derrick BreezePolitical party colour unaffiliated
Mark Joseph MeredithPolitical party colour Labour
Blurton EastGlenys WardPolitical party colour Independent
Blurton West and NewsteadNeil Douglas DayPolitical party colour Labour
Boothen and OakhillAndy PlattPolitical party colour Labour
Bradeley and Chell HeathGurmeet Singh KallarPolitical party colour Labour
Broadway and Longton EastCouncillor Tom ReynoldsPolitical party colour Labour
Burslem CentralAlan Edward DuttonPolitical party colour Labour
Burslem ParkCouncillor Joy GarnerPolitical party colour Labour
Dresden and FlorenceShazad HussainPolitical party colour Labour
Eaton ParkTerry CrowePolitical party colour Labour
Etruria and HanleyCouncillor Majid KhanPolitical party colour Labour
Fenton EastCouncillor Paul ShottonPolitical party colour Labour
Fenton West and Mount PleasantKaren Christine ClarkePolitical party colour Labour
Ford Green and SmallthorneCouncillor Matt WilcoxPolitical party colour Labour
Goldenhill and SandyfordMartin GarnerPolitical party colour Labour
Great Chell and PackmoorCouncillor Janine BridgesPolitical party colour Labour
Ann JamesPolitical party colour Independent
Hanford and TrenthamCouncillor Terence FollowsPolitical party colour Independent
Peter Frederick HaywardPolitical party colour Independent
Hanley Park and SheltonCouncillor Amjid WazirPolitical party colour Labour
Hartshill and BasfordShaun Patrick PenderPolitical party colour Labour
Hollybush and Longton WestKathleen Mary BanksPolitical party colour Labour
Joiners SquareAlastair Scott WatsonPolitical party colour Labour
Lightwood North and NormacotCouncillor Bagh AliPolitical party colour Labour
Little Chell and StanfieldCouncillor David ConwayPolitical party colour Independent
Meir HayMuhammad AumirPolitical party colour Labour
Meir NorthCouncillor Ruth RosenauPolitical party colour Labour
Meir ParkCouncillor Abi BrownPolitical party colour Conservative Party
Meir SouthDeborah Ann WheeldonPolitical party colour Labour
MoorcroftCouncillor Mohammed PervezPolitical party colour Labour
Penkhull and StokeCouncillor Randolph ContehPolitical party colour Independent
Sandford HillCouncillor Olwen HamerPolitical party colour Labour
Sneyd GreenCouncillor Debra GrattonPolitical party colour Labour
Springfields and Trent ValeCouncillor Sarah HillPolitical party colour Labour
TunstallLee WangerPolitical party colour Independent
Weston CoyneyMatthew Thomas FryPolitical party colour Labour

Thursday, 5 May 2011

Election Fever or Flop?

It's not only the weather that's giving me mixed messages today. I've found it very hard to gauge the general atmosphere towards the elections today...

I woke up to a grey sky and switched onto BBC Breakfast to be told about fruit orchards and some new films and TV dramas. I checked my twitter feed, and by 10ish it sounded like Polling Stations across the country had been very empty. Nevertheless, the sun was trying to break through the clouds and I made my commute to work.

In the office, there was zero mention of local elections or the referendum all day.

By the time I was commuting home it had rained and it wasn't only the atmosphere in the clouds which changed. My twitter feed was tweeting tweets suggesting attendance at polling stations was on the up. It didn't seem so at my local station as I walked past though.

Then it chucked it down around half 5 in the afternoon. As soon as the rain cleared, I thought I'd go have a look at my station again, and to my surprise there was a small queue inside and a fairly steady flow of voters young and old trickling in and out the station like the summer rain trickling off the nearby leaves.

Now, I wait anxiously like many others in Stoke-on-Trent to see if it tongiht will bring us 'shephard's delight' or a heavy thuderstorm...

Tuesday, 3 May 2011

A typo or just honesty?

The Bolton News reported a few days ago on one of their local election's candidate's rather unfortunate typo printed in his election leaflets...

"My priorities will be to bring:
Greater transparency in local government
Economic regeneration
Unemployment
..."

Woopsie! I suppose some anti-Tory supporters may conclude he is just a very honest Conservative?

The photograph can be seen through the link below (for copyright reasons I can't publish it here)

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/9001706.Oops__Candidate_in_election_leaflet_gaffe/



Sunday, 1 May 2011

Some early predictions...



I spent 15 minutes after lunch drawing up a couple of tables containing some improvised calculations to hopefully give an indication as to how voting may result on Thursday night.

I've used data collected by Pits n Pots on their poll (click here to have a look).
The poll has had just over 1000 votes since becoming active last Sunday so I thought now would be a good point to do a quick analysis.

Firstly, I'll show you my maths and then explain it and some of the factors making it unreliable after.


In my first table, I have simply taken the number of votes on the poll and divided it by the number of fielded candidates to give 'support per candidate'. This comes about because there are x amount of candidates per party across x amount of wards. The more votes for fewer candidates suggests a stronger amount of support for that party overall and perhaps more chance of scoring top at the polls.













As you can see, TUSAC and the Conservatives come top in the poll suggesting strong support overall with a score of 10 and 9.4 repectively.

Labour, the Independents and UKIP score the mid-points suggesting very good support.

And the Lib Dems lead the lower half of the board with a score of 2.4.

The nationalist parties all place near the bottom.

My second table uses percentages and is a bit more complex.
Here, I have calculated each party's % of total candidates first.
Next, I noted each party's % of votes on the PitsnPots poll.
Then I calculated the difference between % support and % of candidates.

This gave a score comparing the support for the party and the number of seats they're contesting. Essentially the same as above but calculated on % and not number of votes.

I believe the second table is more accurate in showing support for parties overall but I'm not a statistician, a mathmetician or a trained political commentator so I have no idea which (if either) is more accurate but they make interesting reading I think!


This table almost reflects the results of the previous except a few key differences.

Most notable are the opposite ends. It appears that the Conservatives are likely to have great support for their % of seats contested. On the other hand, the Lib Dems make up 22% of candidates but have only 10% support giving a score of -12.

The nationalist parties fare slightly better but this may be because they have a low number of fielded candidates.

Overall, the Conservatives (10), TUSAC (3), Labour (3) and Independents (2) are the only parties to have more % support than % of total candidates, suggesting they are the most likely to win seats on Thursday.

But remember...

The poll is open on the web but of course website users do not reflect the whole electorate for example, senior citizens are a large section of the voting community and often believed to be the least online. The data may only relfect how internet users who have voted on the pits n pots poll would vote but 1000 votes is a good sample to look at some trends.

Also, some users may vote more than once (how undemocratic!).

And then there's the wards issue. Who knows, the 1000 voters may only come from 5 wards across Stoke-on-Trent. It's impossible for the 1022 (to be exact) strong poll is ever going to be a fair reflection of the real result but the tables have certainly highlighted some trend and topics for discussion!