Antrim East: Seat, Ward and Prediction Details

This section gives an estimate of the votes cast in each ward of Antrim East at the general election of 2019. The official ward breakdowns are not officially tabulated or published, so these numbers are only approximate. The basic idea of the calculation is to look at the district council wards which make up the new seat, and estimate how they voted in 2019, and also to predict how they will vote at the next election. These estimates are based both on the recent local election results and the Census 2011 demography in those wards, with adjustments made to allow for different turnouts and different voting patterns for local and general elections.

Usuallly each ward lies entirely within a single constituency, but some large wards are split between several constituencies (particularly in Scotland and Northern Ireland). The electorate figure shown is the estimate of the electorate which is common to both the constituency and the particular ward, and can be very small.

Election results from a recent local election are given. This is usually the local election closest to 2015 from the period 2012-2015. For multiple-member wards, the votes shown are the sum of the votes cast for all candidates of each party. A negative number indicates candidate(s) elected unopposed.

Calculation method

There are a few problems with using the raw (actual) local election results to imply general election results ward-by-ward. Firstly, turnout can be different between local and general elections, which means that the total number of local votes cast does not equal the number of votes cast in each old seat at the general election. To correct for this, we adjust the local votes to match the general election turnout. Each ward's result is scaled, whilst keeping constant the percentage support for each party, so that the total turnout adds up to the old seat's general election turnout. All wards in the old seat are assumed to have the same percentage turnout.

Because not all parties have a candidate in each ward, and sometimes there is only a single candidate elected unopposed, the local election results can understate a party's true support. To correct for this, we also use Census demography to make an alternative estimate of how the ward voted in the general election, based on any demographic differences between the ward and the seat overall.

Both method are then combined together, and the votes are subject to a final adjustment to make sure that the totals over the wards add up to the general election seat total, as they must.

Raw vote and Estimated General Election vote

The raw vote table shows the district council election results for all the wards in the seat of Antrim East. The first block shows the actual results. The second block shows the estimated general election votes for each ward after all the processes are complete.

The raw results and adjusted for turnout and combined with the implied results from the Census Demography calculation, and then adjusted to match the general election totals. The results of these calculations are shown in the table below.