On The Scottish Euro Elections 2014
May. 29th, 2014 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
danieldwilliamA bit of voting nerding on the Scottish results of the European Elections.
I wanted to see who was the runner up to UKIP for the sixth Scottish seat, using my Scotland d’Hondt Table. Initial guess was that it was going to be a close run thing between the SNP and Greens with the Lib Dems a distant fourth. Initial guess turned out to be right.
UKIP won 140,534 votes. They won the seat on the 1st divisor.
The Greens won 108,305 votes. On their 1st divisor, therefore needing 32,229 votes to overtake UKIP and win the seat.
The SNP won 389,503 votes. Having already won two seats they are competing for the sixth seat on their 3rd divisor, of 129,834 leaving them 32,099 votes short of overtaking UKIP.
Lib Dems polling 95,319 votes puts them 45,215 votes short of UKIP. Well short.
So the SNP are runners up for the sixth seat, Greens third by 130 votes and Lib Dems a fairly distant fourth. No one got particularly close. The Greens would have had to increase their vote by nearly a third to win the sixth seat and the SNP by a little under a tenth. Even if everyone who voted for one of the fringe parties has voted for either of the two closest contenders UKIP would have won the seat.
So far so good. If there was an anti-UKIP tactical vote going on it was split between the SNP and the Greens and probably not large enough to prevent UKIP winning.
In terms of the theory of victory for each party I think the Greens will be very disappointed and the SNP a bit miffed. The Euros are an important election for the Greens. PR gives them a decent chance of picking up a seat if they can pick up the votes. A few extra MEP’s would help to secure them a decent platform for the longer term.
The SNP? I think the Euro elections are probably their least most important election at the moment. What do the SNP want?
1) Win the referendum
2) Deliver competent, leftish government. (That’s their job, they are the government.)
3) Win the 2016 Scottish General Election.
4) Pick up a few extra seats at Westminster so that, if not 1) they can negotiate for more devolved powers and if 1) they can negotiate for a better separation deal.
I think their entire focus is on winning the independence referendum. After that, they are focused on delivering competent left-ish government and then winning the 2016 Holyrood election. Sure, they would have liked to have won the third seat but offer them 30,000 extra votes at the Euros or on the 18th of September and I think they’d take the referendum votes without looking back. If you offered them an extra 30,000 at either the Euros or at Westminster again I think they’d take winning the extra seats at Westminster.
What I think the SNP mainly wanted from the Euro election was to be able to talk about Scotland being different from the rest of the UK in rejected UKIP. Nearly, mostly got that. UKIP polled nearly 1 vote in 3 in England and only 1 vote in 10 in Scotland. It would clearly have been better if UKIP hadn’t won the seat but, there you go. I blame the voters.
As it is, they did okay in the Euros. Total vote up, vote share only a fraction down. Only an extra 2,000 votes would have seen their vote share unchanged. Held two seats.
So I don’t think the SNP will be that upset about not winning the last Euro seat.
The Greens, pretty gutted I’d have thought.
One final point to note.
In 2009 the BNP polled 27,613 votes. In 2014 the BNP and Britain First combined vote was 23,855. Down, but not down by a huge amount.
I wanted to see who was the runner up to UKIP for the sixth Scottish seat, using my Scotland d’Hondt Table. Initial guess was that it was going to be a close run thing between the SNP and Greens with the Lib Dems a distant fourth. Initial guess turned out to be right.
UKIP won 140,534 votes. They won the seat on the 1st divisor.
The Greens won 108,305 votes. On their 1st divisor, therefore needing 32,229 votes to overtake UKIP and win the seat.
The SNP won 389,503 votes. Having already won two seats they are competing for the sixth seat on their 3rd divisor, of 129,834 leaving them 32,099 votes short of overtaking UKIP.
Lib Dems polling 95,319 votes puts them 45,215 votes short of UKIP. Well short.
So the SNP are runners up for the sixth seat, Greens third by 130 votes and Lib Dems a fairly distant fourth. No one got particularly close. The Greens would have had to increase their vote by nearly a third to win the sixth seat and the SNP by a little under a tenth. Even if everyone who voted for one of the fringe parties has voted for either of the two closest contenders UKIP would have won the seat.
So far so good. If there was an anti-UKIP tactical vote going on it was split between the SNP and the Greens and probably not large enough to prevent UKIP winning.
In terms of the theory of victory for each party I think the Greens will be very disappointed and the SNP a bit miffed. The Euros are an important election for the Greens. PR gives them a decent chance of picking up a seat if they can pick up the votes. A few extra MEP’s would help to secure them a decent platform for the longer term.
The SNP? I think the Euro elections are probably their least most important election at the moment. What do the SNP want?
1) Win the referendum
2) Deliver competent, leftish government. (That’s their job, they are the government.)
3) Win the 2016 Scottish General Election.
4) Pick up a few extra seats at Westminster so that, if not 1) they can negotiate for more devolved powers and if 1) they can negotiate for a better separation deal.
I think their entire focus is on winning the independence referendum. After that, they are focused on delivering competent left-ish government and then winning the 2016 Holyrood election. Sure, they would have liked to have won the third seat but offer them 30,000 extra votes at the Euros or on the 18th of September and I think they’d take the referendum votes without looking back. If you offered them an extra 30,000 at either the Euros or at Westminster again I think they’d take winning the extra seats at Westminster.
What I think the SNP mainly wanted from the Euro election was to be able to talk about Scotland being different from the rest of the UK in rejected UKIP. Nearly, mostly got that. UKIP polled nearly 1 vote in 3 in England and only 1 vote in 10 in Scotland. It would clearly have been better if UKIP hadn’t won the seat but, there you go. I blame the voters.
As it is, they did okay in the Euros. Total vote up, vote share only a fraction down. Only an extra 2,000 votes would have seen their vote share unchanged. Held two seats.
So I don’t think the SNP will be that upset about not winning the last Euro seat.
The Greens, pretty gutted I’d have thought.
One final point to note.
In 2009 the BNP polled 27,613 votes. In 2014 the BNP and Britain First combined vote was 23,855. Down, but not down by a huge amount.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-30 05:37 am (UTC)If the Lib-Dem/Green vote had either gone to each other, or to the SNP or Labour then UKIP wouldn't have got a seat.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-30 08:59 am (UTC)The quota is 191,927 – so the SNP, Labour, Conservative and SNP 2 all win seats in the first round on first preferences. Leaving Labour 2, UKIP, the Greens and the Lib Dems duking it out for the last two seats.
SNP 1 Elected
Labour 1 Elected
Conservative Elected
SNP 2 Elected
No2EU Eliminated
Britain First Eliminated
BNP Eliminated
Conservative 2 Eliminated
Green Eliminated
Labour 2 Elected
UKIP beat Lib Dems by 198,249 to 185,598.
The assumption is that makes a difference to the outcome is that the latter preferences from the two far right parties (23k) all flow to UKIP and aren’t exhausted or go to some one else and that in the final round, when the extra votes for Labour 2 are allocated they fall 60% to Lib Dem and 40% to UKIP. If you assume that some of the far right votes end up with the Lib Dems (flowing through Labour) and the split of Labour high preferences favours the Lib Dems more then the Lib Dems could just sneak it.
I’m also assuming that preference flow within parties i.e. that all of first preferences for Labour 1 go to Labour 2 and none go to the Lib Dems or Greens. If you change that assumption you might swop the Greens in for the Lib Dems. So UKIP would still beat the runner by some.
I’ve also assumed that parties have only put up one or two candidates. This isn’t a very safe assumption give that the SNP at least would aspire to three seats but I think the net effect of this assumption is just to make the model less complex but still fundamentally sound. There aren’t enough votes to elect three SNP MEP’s if you assume in party flows are strong and unionists tend not to vote for the SNP. I’d have no way of distinguishing between three SNP candidates.
Usual caveats about trying to extrapolate actual votes using one system to another, very different system.
Conclusion UKIP probably still win the last seat. The runner up is more likely to be the Lib Dems than the Greens but this could change quite easily.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-30 09:33 am (UTC)I think I'd still be happier with STV as a voting system over D'Hondt. And open lists, of course :->
no subject
Date: 2014-05-30 10:23 am (UTC)