Electoral Calculus

Short description: British political forecasting web site

Electoral CalculusAvailable in| English

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Owner| Martin Baxter
Website| electoralcalculus.co.uk
Commercial| Yes
Registration| No
Current status| Online

Electoral Calculus is a political forecasting web site that attempts to predict future United Kingdom general election results. It considers national factors and local demographics.

## Contents

* 1 Main features
* 2 Methodology
* 3 Predictions
* 4 Reception
* 5 References
* 6 External links

## Main features

The site was developed by Martin Baxter,[1] who was a financial analyst specialising in mathematical modelling.[2]

The site includes maps, predictions and analysis articles. It has separate sections for elections in Scotland and Northern Ireland.[3]

From April 2019, the headline prediction covered the Brexit Party and Change UK – The Independent Group. Change UK was later removed from the headline prediction ahead of the 2019 general election as their poll scores were not statistically significant.

## Methodology

The site is based around the employment of scientific techniques on data about the United Kingdom's electoral geography,[1] which can be used to calculate the uniform national swing.[4] It takes account of national polls and trends but excludes local issues.[5]

The calculations were initially based on what is termed the Transition Model, which is derived from the additive uniform national swing model. This uses national swings in a proportional manner to predict local effects.[6][|permanent dead link|dead link}}] The Strong Transition Model was introduced in October 2007, and considers the effects of strong and weak supporters.[7] The models are explained in detail on the web site.[6]

## Predictions

Across the eight general elections from 1992 to 2019:[8]

* EC correctly predicted the party to win the most seats in seven out of eight (all except 1992).
* EC correctly predicted the majority party or lack of a majority, in five (1997, 2001, 2005, 2010 no majority and 2019).
* The mean polling error for the two largest parties was 4.8%.

## Reception

It was listed by The Guardian in 2004 as one of the "100 most useful websites", being "the best" for predictions.[9] In 2012 it was described by PhD student Chris Prosser at the University of Oxford as "probably the leading vote/seat predictor on the internet".[10] Its detailed predictions for individual seats have been noted by Paul Evans on the localdemocracy.org.uk blog.[11] Academic Nick Anstead noted in his observations from a 2010 Personal Democracy Forum event, that Mick Fealty of Slugger O'Toole considered Electoral Calculus to be "massively improved" in comparison with the swingometer.[12]

With reference to the 2010 United Kingdom general election, it was cited by journalists Andrew Rawnsley[13] and Michael White[14] in The Guardian . John Rentoul in The Independent referred to the site after the election.[15]

The founder of Electoral Calculus, Martin Baxter, and its sole employee, Marwan Riach, have regularly appeared on UK and international media to offer polling expertise to their audience.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Electoral Calculus". Intute. http://www.intute.ac.uk/cgi-bin/fullrecord.pl?handle=20100408-11403823. "An independent UK election prediction site maintained by Martin Baxter. He attempts to apply scientific techniques to the electoral geography of Britain to predict the future general election results."
2. ↑ Ruppert, Evelyn (16 April 2010). "Data mobilisation and the UK 2010 Election". CReSC: The Social Life of Methods. Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change. http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/cresc/?p=17.
3. ↑ "Scottish Government and Politics on the Internet". School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy website. Keele University. http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/por/scotland.htm.
4. ↑ Young, Toby (7 May 2010). "Who predicted the result correctly?". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100038566/who-predicted-the-result-correctly/.
5. ↑ "MP's on course to lose his seat". thisiskent.co.uk. 27 April 2012. http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/MP-s-course-lose-seat/story-15932772-detail/story.html.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Baxter, Martin (8 July 2004). "Transition Model". Electoral Calculus. http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/newmodel.html.
7. ↑ Baxter, Martin (28 October 2007). "Strong Transition Model". Electoral Calculus. http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/strongmodel.html.
8. ↑ Electoral Calculus https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/trackrecord.html
9. ↑ "Cream of the crop". The Guardian. 16 December 2004. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2004/dec/16/onlinesupplement.shopping.
10. ↑ Prosser, Chris (7 May 2012). "Predicting the next UK general election". Politics in Spires. http://politicsinspires.org/2012/05/predicting-the-next-uk-general-election/.
11. ↑ Evans, Paul (30 March 2010). "Election websites to watch". localdemocracy.org.uk. http://blog.localdemocracy.org.uk/2010/03/30/election-websites-to-watch/.
12. ↑ Anstead, Nick (15 May 2010). "General Election 2010 – Action Replay (Personal Democracy Forum Event at the Royal Society for the Arts)". nickanstead.com. http://www.nickanstead.com/blog/?p=1886.
13. ↑ Rawnsley, Andrew (22 November 2009). "Why it's very likely the next parliament will be doubly hung". The Guardian (London). https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/nov/22/andrew-rawnsley-general-election-hung-parliament. "The different formulas used by Electoral Calculus and Swingo both translate a six-point Tory poll lead into a Commons in which the Conservatives are short of a majority."
14. ↑ White, Michael (30 April 2010). "Tony Blair's back. But it's too late for Labour". The Guardian (London). https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2010/apr/30/tony-blair-labour-cleggmania-michael-white. "How is Cameron 'winning' when Tory share of the vote is – on current measure – about 1% to 1.5% up on 2005 (source Electoral Calculus)?"
15. ↑ Rentoul, John (17 October 2010). "John Rentoul: Clegg drives his voters away". The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-rentoul/john-rentoul-clegg-drives-his-voters-away-2108775.html.

## External links

* Electoral Calculus

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