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

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

Wards	Elected Candidates	Elected Party or Parties
Abbey Hulton and Townsend	Councillor Gwen Hassall	Labour
	Councillor Adrian Knapper	Labour
Baddeley, Milton and Norton	Jack Brereton	Conservative Party
	Andy Lilley	Labour
	Councillor Duncan Walker	Labour
Bentilee and Ubberley	Sheila Pitt	Labour
	Alison Ruth Wedgwood	Labour
Birches Head and Central Forest Park	Paul Derrick Breeze	unaffiliated
	Mark Joseph Meredith	Labour
Blurton East	Glenys Ward	Independent
Blurton West and Newstead	Neil Douglas Day	Labour
Boothen and Oakhill	Andy Platt	Labour
Bradeley and Chell Heath	Gurmeet Singh Kallar	Labour
Broadway and Longton East	Councillor Tom Reynolds	Labour
Burslem Central	Alan Edward Dutton	Labour
Burslem Park	Councillor Joy Garner	Labour
Dresden and Florence	Shazad Hussain	Labour
Eaton Park	Terry Crowe	Labour
Etruria and Hanley	Councillor Majid Khan	Labour
Fenton East	Councillor Paul Shotton	Labour
Fenton West and Mount Pleasant	Karen Christine Clarke	Labour
Ford Green and Smallthorne	Councillor Matt Wilcox	Labour
Goldenhill and Sandyford	Martin Garner	Labour
Great Chell and Packmoor	Councillor Janine Bridges	Labour
	Ann James	Independent
Hanford and Trentham	Councillor Terence Follows	Independent
	Peter Frederick Hayward	Independent
Hanley Park and Shelton	Councillor Amjid Wazir	Labour
Hartshill and Basford	Shaun Patrick Pender	Labour
Hollybush and Longton West	Kathleen Mary Banks	Labour
Joiners Square	Alastair Scott Watson	Labour
Lightwood North and Normacot	Councillor Bagh Ali	Labour
Little Chell and Stanfield	Councillor David Conway	Independent
Meir Hay	Muhammad Aumir	Labour
Meir North	Councillor Ruth Rosenau	Labour
Meir Park	Councillor Abi Brown	Conservative Party
Meir South	Deborah Ann Wheeldon	Labour
Moorcroft	Councillor Mohammed Pervez	Labour
Penkhull and Stoke	Councillor Randolph Conteh	Independent
Sandford Hill	Councillor Olwen Hamer	Labour
Sneyd Green	Councillor Debra Gratton	Labour
Springfields and Trent Vale	Councillor Sarah Hill	Labour
Tunstall	Lee Wanger	Independent
Weston Coyney	Matthew Thomas Fry	Labour

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!

Stoke Council elections troubled with pre-election address problems

The Sentinel today reported how 100 houses on London Road have been caught up in an address mix-up. But it's looking like the problems aren't ending there...

Check out The Sentinel's article here: http://bit.ly/jc5WnN

Councillor Roy Naylor revealed on twitter further problems arising whilst visiting residents in Blurton today.

"Some addresses in Finstock Avenue have been placed into the New Blurton East Ward, but recently whilst delivering flyers for the Non-Aligned Candidate Nina Hulse, we noticed that these addresses appeared in the Electral Register for Blurton West & Newstead."

Follow Cllr. Naylor on twitter at http://twitter.com/BlurtonNews

_____________________________________________________________________

UPDATE MAY 3:
Cllr Naylor has updated his twitter feed:

"Just had a call from a reporter at the Sentinel Newspaper and it would appear I was correct on Saturday that about 35 homes on Finstock Avenue, Blurton, have been put in the wrong ward, they should be in the New Blurton East Ward but have been issued polling cards for Blurton West & Newstead. Apparently they can still vote but not for their wards candidates. Not Democratic at all."

And I have been kindly informed by Community Voice candidate Mike Barnes that similar issues are arising in Abbey Hulton & Townsend as well as other areas across Stoke-on-Trent.

______________________________________________________________________

Stoke-on-Trent City Council have remapped their wards ahead of next week's elections. When the list of polling station locations (see here) was revealed, many residents complained of long distances making it difficult to vote in their new ward.

Now it seems some residents will be voting for their neighbours' councillors and in effect having a zero say in who their councillor for the next 4 years will be - after all the 100 votes caught up in the mix-up on London Road could have affected the result in a big way.

A similar incident occurred in 2003, when 30 homes in Harborough, Leicestershire, were sent polling cars with the wrong wards on. However, the Returning Officer in that case was able to send correct cards before the election. Read about that incident here.

Questions are now being raised if an election held without the inclusion of the 100 London Road households will be lawful or not.

Legal challenges may be raised by candidates who are not elected if they believe the number of voters affected by the mistake would have resulted in a different election result.

The Returning Officer Paul Hackney, told The Sentinel in the above linked article "Discrepancies will be dealt with immediately after the election."

The register for this election was first published on March 1 and it is unclear where any blame lies for the mistake.

If you know of any other houses caught up in address/ward mix-ups, please let us know at stokeelect2011@live.co.uk or post a comment below.

SoT Council Elections - The last 15 years of confusion

Hello all,

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a Stokie and only moved here recently. It didn't take me long to pick up the political hype of the area and it's got me hooked. Because I'm analysing the May 2011 elections - I thought it best to research a brief history of Council elections and get to grips with the system in place here.

What a headache that's caused me!

I'm writing this post to summarise my findings for the changes implemented in the last 15 years. I've also been looking more at specific ward results over the years, but this post is just about the election/councillor/wards systems.

I've used legislation.gov to find most of this information out and a bit of brain-power to work things out. If I've got something wrong, please tell me!

1995

The big reform of the Stoke-on-Trent local government system happened in 1995 when the 'Staffordshire (City of Stoke-on-Trent) (Structural and Boundary Changes) Order' was enacted.
It meant that Stoke-on-Trent would become a county in its own right and not be part of Staffordshire (in a legal sense) any long

er. This would mean a transfer of most responsibilities (excluding the police for example) to Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

This would all happen in reality on April 1 1997.
In 1996, elections would be held to elect a completely new set of councillors (although I believe they could stand to be elected again? Will be checking it out at the City Archives)

These 60 Councillors across 20 wards would then hold elections every year for one-third of the Council. In practice, it meant that the councillor in each ward with the lowest number of votes in 1996 would have their place put up for election (they could stand again for re-election) in 1998 - after two years of service.

In 1999, the councillor with the second lowest votes from back in 1996 would have their seat contested again.
And in 2000, the original most voted-for candidate in 1996 would have their seat contested.

I've put those words

into a table to make things a bit clearer on screen...
Councillor A received the most votes, B the second and C the least of the three.

As you can see, after four years, a whole new selection of councillors is possible. But remember, councillors could stand for re-election. So 'D' could in fact be 'C' for example.

2001
By this point, the previous system had proved effective in that there was no major malfunctions in the system. However, The City of Stoke-on-Trent (Electoral Changes) Order 2001 made a slight alteration as well as a few boundary shifts.

It also meant the system would restart with a whole new Council (an 'all-out' election')

The pattern would now be that there would be no two-year grace period for all three councillors and the least successful of the three would ha

ve their seat contested after 1 year.
To keep the 4-year term rule going, this would mean no election further down the time-frame as follows...

This all followed in reality with the lack of election in 2009 (mirroring 2005 because of the 4-year rule).

2009
By 2009, many had grown tired of voting every year for just one councillor. The City of Stoke-on-Trent (Scheme of Elections) Order 2009 is a very small piece of legislation which makes a big difference.

From 2011 (this election!) the "election every year by thirds" system would be abolished in favour for four-yearly all-out elections. A much simpler way of selecting a Council. As with the previous reforms, all current councillors lose their seat in may but may stand again.

2011

The Stoke-on-Trent (Electoral Changes) Order 2011 made the final update to the rules just in time for the May election. The Order changed the boundaries and number of councillors electable to each ward - the changes I'm sure you're all familiar with as they have been the subject of much media and political coverage in the local area.

Read the orders for yourself here: http://bit.ly/gmXpDT

So there you have a brief guide to how Stoke-on-Trent has had its elections for the last 15 years. Who knows how we'll be voting in 15 more to come?

Is the 'new' councillor system better?

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has been reshaped ahead of the May election in respect to wards and councillors, as many of you are already aware.

It means that the Stoke-on-Trent area will be served by 44 councillors, across 37 smaller wards.

The majority of wards will be represented by individual councillors, but a few will have two or three.

Of course, no-one can say for sure how the new system will work out because we simply don't know yet but some concerns have risen making it all the more important voters consider their candidate carefully.

The main concern appears to be - what happens in the event of a councillor (in an single-councillor ward) falling ill, or having to take a long-term break from their duties. In the worst case scenario, what happens if a lazy or incompetent councillor is elected?

In the old system, a councillor would always have a colleague in the ward to help out, so what will become of wards which aren't fully represented in whichever way?

It would be expensive to hold elections for a temporary councillor to cover someone off sick and arguably not democratic to appoint somebody not elected by the electorate...

Another issue is workloads - what if an elected councillor is also required to serve on other panels or in other roles (such as Lord Mayor). One ward may have a Councillor able to commit more or less of their time to different jobs or tasks.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council have adopted the change subject to the Local Government Boundary Commission for England recommendations.

Below are a few opinions shared with StokeElect on twitter earlier today.

"I think it's the fact that we've got them for four years that is more the issue. Get a lazy one and it will be hard work"

"does mean one councillor is going to have to be all things to all men in a lot of places..."

"all depends how active they are, 1 active councillor is far better than 3 pen pushers"

"would have preferred 100% single member (or even dual member) wards - think there are +ve & -ve for old & new system."

Location of Polling Stations

If you're not sure if your local polling station in Stoke-on-Trent has moved with the ward boundary changes this year, take a look at this .pdf document produced by the council.

It is the bottom file under the list: Related Files

Click here to follow the link!

Unfortunately it isn't ordered in a very reader-friendly way and includes rather confusing codes referring to 'descriptions of persons entitled to vote'.

Also it is not clear which of the new wards (or the previous wards) each polling station represents -especially confusing for someone who hasn't voted in Stoke-on-Trent before.

Hopefully a more understandable source will become available or more information delivered direct to the public.

Nevertheless, a good source if you want to check where the action will be (as long as you are familiar with Stoke-on-Trent geography!)

New Wards - Maps & Demographics

Follow this link here to have a nose at some demographic detail of your local ward.

City Council Ward Demographic Pages

The Stoke-on-Trent City Council website is hard to navigate a lot of the time (in my opinion) but there are some real gems to be found inside.

The link above takes you to a rather empty looking page but in fact the list on the right can take you on to view .pdf files containing the following based on data collected by the Council:

Household estimates
Population (incl. Male/Female) estimates
Age category population breakdown estimates
Household Income averages (incl. % with <£10k and >£50k)
Index of deprivation
Employment %s
Ethnicity
And socio-demographics (in other words what type of people live in which types of houses)

Fantastic for researching your local area and the sorts of people living in it.

Especially good for election candidates in understanding their areas more.

Welcome

Welcome to the blog extension of the @StokeElect2011 twitter account.

Here you'll find some extra bits and pieces from around the web as well as any material I create myself regarding the upcoming elections on May 5 2011.

Stoke-on-Trent citizens will be taking to the poll booths to vote not only on the national UK referendum about the adoption of Alternative Vote but also to elect an entire new array of councillors to the City Council.

To mix things up even more this May, ward boundaries and councillor numbers have changed resulting in a drop of total councillors but an increase in the number of wards. The result of this: smaller wards with independent councillors to represent.

There are exceptions - with 5 wards keeping the traditional two-councillor election and 1 ward having a three-councillor election.