back of a spreadsheet; back of the net

So, that’s the analysis of the Unlock Democracy Council elections by Constituency.

 West

 North

 East  

London and South East

 Some broader picture points.

Turnout was quite low.

The West had the best turnout at 22.8%, London and the South East 16.9%. Overall turnout was 20.7%.

Whilst the allocation of seats by elector could not be bettered, the allocation of seats by actual voter favours London and disfavours the North with 68.57 votes cast for each seat elected in London and 110 votes cast per seat in the North. This is obviously a feature of the differential turnout.

Spoilt Ballots were 1% of the total cast which compares unfavourably with UK Westminster spoilt ballots of between 0.11% and 0.35% between 1945 and 2001.

Out of 19 members of council, 9 have not served on the council before.

Unlock Democracy operates protected seats for gender (1/3^rd at least of men and women) and ethnicity (at least 2 self-identified ethnic minorities).  All of the gender protected seats fell naturally and one of the ethnic protected seats fell naturally leaving 1 councillor elected as a result of protected seats.

Once again, thanks to Lalland Peat Worrier for his method of presentation

To London and the South East and the worst turn out in a pretty dire set of turnouts for a pro-democracy campaign group. Of 2,845 electors, only 480 or 16.9% cast a ballot.

18 candidates stood for 7 places. Quota of 59.25

Chris Carrigan, who also sits on the Council of the Electoral Reform Society was elected first. He tops the first preference polling with 53 a few votes short of the quota but it’s not until round 6 with the exclusion of Kevin McNamara that Carrigan picks up the necessary votes (60) to be elected.

In a curious twist of the Single Transferrable Vote count Carrigan’s surpluses are not distributed immediately and Tom Miller is excluded. Miller’s preferences break heavily towards Finola Kelly and she is elected with 64 votes.

This is the only constituency where the final ordering of candidates didn’t follow their first preference rank.

Carrigan overtaken by Kelly.  Susan Murray moves from 6^th place in round 1 to 5^th place.  Andrew Blick falls from 5^th on first preferences to 7^th.

However, of the 7 top ranked candidates on first preferences none failed to secure election.

Outside of the top seven there were tussles between Tom Miller and Debbie Chay and between Henderson, Colwell and Walsh with priority changing hands between candidates as transfers swung from round to round. Looking at the kinked shape of the graphs I am reminded of the economics lectures on oligopoly. A somewhat unhappy occurance whilst contemplating Unlock Democracy election results.

Elected for London and the South East

Chris Carrigan
Finola Kelly
Stephen Carter
Rosemary Bechler
Susan Murray
John Stafford
Andrew  Blick

In John Stafford I think we see a rare and very welcome Conservative in the ranks of Unlock Democracy officials.

Starting my brief electoral analysis with the West Constituency, of Wales, South West and the West Midlands.

This election looks to have been over pretty much as soon as the first preferences were counted.

Out of 1,615 voters 22.8 % cast a total of 366 votes, electing 4 members and a quota of 73.2 first preferences saw 3 of the 4 councillors elected.  Mary Southcott top billed with 99 first preferences followed by Eithne George on 83. Round 3 of the count saw the exclusion of Christine Herbert-Mosavie, who in an election with a  ban on active campaigning failed to submit a personal statement and gathered only 3 first preferences.  The final candidate elected on first preferences was Phil Starr, former Chair of Charter 88.

This left Alan Debenham and Philip Davis contesting the last seat.  Debenham had out polled Davis on first preferences by 39 to 23.  Out of a total of 43 redistributed votes he picked up 12.57 to move to 51.57 with Davis picking up 8.08 to move to 31.08.  With only a further 43 votes up for grads Davis would need to nearly ¾ of them to catch Debenham and this proved too much for him. Davis narrowed the gap but couldn’t overturn it. Davis finished on 49.91 votes. Debenham elected with 64.68.