I have been sent a list of the results for the city that I have not checked and which does not include the result for Kingstanding.
It makes it possible, however, to calculate the percentages across the city for all parties. I also have found 2002 and 1998 figures.
There were some Green and BNP candidates previously, but I have not tried to get the city wide totals. The citywide results show a movement towards extremes and a fragmentation of the mainstream vote with only the Lib Dem Citywide vote standing up against that. The point about the Citywide vote is that it is comparable as the boundaries of the city have not changed even though ward boundaries have changed.
It remains to be seen whether there will be one or more election petitions this time (one from mathematics the others potentially from fraud). It appears that personation has been the name of the game this time rather than postal vote fraud still. However, work needs to be done to be certain.
I am amazed that the Kingstanding result was allowed to be declared with 12,329 votes in total when there were only 4,981 ballot papers with a maximum of two votes on them allowing 9,962 maximum votes.
When there are multiple X elections there is a need to add up the votes from different sources. Some people vote for a party with two (or three votes) others mix and match (which is why doing comparisons to 2004 is difficult). In practise only 9,265 votes were actually cast in Kingstanding. Lots of the mix and match votes appear to have been double counted.
I can understand people being tired at the count. I was very tired on Thursday and Friday as a result of election campaigning, but I am surprised that this overt error was allowed to occur.
It makes it possible, however, to calculate the percentages across the city for all parties. I also have found 2002 and 1998 figures.
| Party | 1998 | 2002 | 2006 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | 44.1 | 39.9 | 31.0 |
| Conservatives | 31.9 | 30.4 | 26.4 |
| Lib Dem | 18.3 | 21.6 | 22.1 |
| BNP | 11.0 | ||
| Green | 4.4 |
There were some Green and BNP candidates previously, but I have not tried to get the city wide totals. The citywide results show a movement towards extremes and a fragmentation of the mainstream vote with only the Lib Dem Citywide vote standing up against that. The point about the Citywide vote is that it is comparable as the boundaries of the city have not changed even though ward boundaries have changed.
It remains to be seen whether there will be one or more election petitions this time (one from mathematics the others potentially from fraud). It appears that personation has been the name of the game this time rather than postal vote fraud still. However, work needs to be done to be certain.
I am amazed that the Kingstanding result was allowed to be declared with 12,329 votes in total when there were only 4,981 ballot papers with a maximum of two votes on them allowing 9,962 maximum votes.
When there are multiple X elections there is a need to add up the votes from different sources. Some people vote for a party with two (or three votes) others mix and match (which is why doing comparisons to 2004 is difficult). In practise only 9,265 votes were actually cast in Kingstanding. Lots of the mix and match votes appear to have been double counted.
I can understand people being tired at the count. I was very tired on Thursday and Friday as a result of election campaigning, but I am surprised that this overt error was allowed to occur.
Comments
Labour and Tories went down.
I think Labour did well to hang on as well as they did. Probably all the stories about meltdown brought out their voters and discouraged others.
Labour and Tories went down.'
Not entirely true.
In fact, not true at all.
I've got some rather more interesting figures on the blog. All three parties' vote shares are down on 2003 (a year you conveniently ignore) and I'd argue that Labour and the Tories are up on 2004 while the LDs are down. In terms of best performance in 2004, the LD vote figures are actually down in all but three wards in the City.
Not a good year for the LDs anywhere, especially in Birmingham.