Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill - Alternative Vote System
This article analyses the potential impact of a change to the Alternative Vote system. It describes
the system, how to model it, and analyses its fairness on the basis of its possible effect on previous
election results.
Posted 23-Dec-2010
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill - Analysis of Boundaries
The government has proposed changes to the way that constituency boundaries are drawn up, as well as
plans for a referundum on AV. This article analyses the changes to constituencies and discusses how much
benefit the changes will produce and at what cost.
Posted 12-Sep-2010
Track Record - 2010 Model Comparisons
Comparison of various models. How did our Strong Transition Model compare against
the Uniform National Swing model and others?
Posted 1-Jul-2010
Track Record - 2010 Election
Comparison of the actual 2010 election result against our prediction. What did we get right and wrong,
and what lessons can be learnt.
Posted 16-May-2010
Track Record - Overview
Summary track record of Electoral Calculus predictions against actual election results for
1992 to date.
Posted 02-May-1997, updated 9-May-2010
Slide-o-meter 2010: Describing our special election night companion -
the Electoral Calculus Slide-o-Meter. Lets you follow the unfolding seat declarations and compare them
with our predictions.
Posted 2-May-2010
Election Campaign 2010: Campaign model improvements
We have introduced two special improvements to our prediction model for the duration of the general
election campaign. We are using a regional swing model (rather than the crude uniform national swing), plus
looking at prices from spread betting markets.
Posted 24-Apr-2010
Hung Parliament: How likely is it and what could happen?
There is a chance that the next election will result in a hung parliament. Just how likely
is this to happen, and if it does how much real choice will Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats have?
Posted 27-Nov-2009
Safe Seats: Are MPs really at risk?
An MP stands a risk of losing his or her job at every general election. If their electorate is
dissatisfied they can be sacked. But how many MPs are genuinely at risk of losing their seat? This analysis
looks at the facts from history and estimates which current MPs are immune from public opinion.
The analysis also involves some intereting extreme scenarios.
Posted 13-Sep-2009
Regional Swing Prediction
Using a large-sample YouGov poll we are able to measure regional swing and discover that
previous "depolarisation" trends are continuing. Labour are relatively losing ground in the north,
and gaining in the south. The overall effect is for the Conservatives to gain about 10 seats at the
expense of Labour.
Posted 22-Aug-2009
Strong Transition Model
Description of Electoral Calculus' advanced prediction model, which builds on the basic
transition model, but with extra features to incorporate incumbency and local party strength. The model
has been particularly designed to cope with weakened parties, such as the Lib Dems in autumn 2007.
Posted 28-Oct-2007
Election History and Commentary
Overview of all election results from 1900, along with some commentary on elections
since 1997 and comments on how to use the site.
Posted 21-Oct-2007
Liberal Democrat wipeout?
Predictions in October 2007 show the Lib Dems with no seats, which is obviously a bit low.
This analysis looks at why the model says this, the history of predicting Lib Dem results, and why the
outlook for them looks bad under any model
Posted 14-Oct-2007
Gap analysis
Even when Labour and the Conservatives have equal support, Labour still wins about 90 more seats than
the Conservatives. Our new gap analysis explains the causes of this "gap", considers its fairness and
predicts whether it will last.
Posted 03-Sep-2006
New boundaries for England and Wales 2006
The Boundary Commissions for England and Wales have redrawn many of the parliamentary seat boundaries.
This analysis gives an overview of the political impact of these changes, along with lists of the seats which
are disappearing and the new seats which are created.
Posted 05-Feb-2006
Track Record - 2005 Election
Comparison of the actual 2005 election result against our prediction. What did we get wrong, and what
were the cause of the errors.
Posted 06-May-2005
Scenarios for 2005 Election
In the run-up to the 2005 election, we analyse likely scenarios by examining the final opinion polls,
betting markets, Electoral Calculus users' trends, and tactical voting.
Posted 01-May-2005
Track Record - 2001 Election
Comparison of the actual 2001 election result against our prediction. What did we get wrong, and what
were the cause of the errors.
Posted 13-Mar-2005
Tactical Voting Model
A description of our tactical voting model, along with numerical evidence from the last four election results.
We focus on the differences between the actual result and our basic prediction, and see how much of the
difference can be explained by tactical factors.
Posted 02-Jan-2005
Science of Opinion Polls
A brief note on the science of opinion polls. How much error can be expected due just to random chance?
Posted 31-Jul-2004
Transition Model for Predictions
A full description of Electoral Calculus' basic transition model for predicting elections.
The new model avoids some problems of the additive swing model, whilst retaining its good properties,
and making very similar predictions for which party will actually win each seat. Backtesting each model
against the 1987-2001 elections showed quite good performance from both, with the Transition Model being
slightly, but not significantly, more accurate.
Posted 08-Jul-2004