As readers have seen, I am into psephology: I am now busy collating and analysing the May election results. My task from the Euro election is complete (see my article on it here) and I have moved onto the Council results, a much more laborious task. I have a workbook that was used to collate results on election night and the day after, but it does have quite a few errors and omissions in it, so for a full and accurate analysis I am checking the whole thing… little by little.
And this means going to Council websites and finding their election results, which are presented in all sorts of different formats, but that’s another story. As it happens, the picture below is in the “official” format the Electoral Commission requires, but only some authorities put a PDF of this format online.
Now, take a look at it carefully and what do you see? Ignore the low turnout, there are lower ones! Can you see that there are only Labour and Conservative candidates? Excellent! Never mind how many votes they each got, you have noticed the number of spoilt papers, haven’t you? Top of the class!
While this particular one is exceptional, it holds the record (144) of all those I have seen where papers have been spoilt, but what I can say is that there is a trend here. That trend is that in certain wards around an average of 60 papers are spoilt, whereas in other wards the average is down at around 10.
Have you worked it out yet? Yes, well done! When there is no UKIP candidate, a lot of people spoil their ballot papers and one can imagine what they do with them:
- Leave them blank
- Scrawl “Vote UKIP” on them
- Write rude remarks about the LibLabCon party
When a UKIP candidate stands, the number of spoilt papers is within the “normal” range, so this is no coincidence.
Now, what we do not know is how many of these voters went to the polling station blissfully unaware there would be no UKIP candidate. Did they, on seeing the ballot paper, suffer from a fit of pique? More worringly, how many of them just shrugged and voted for one of the others? We will never know.
In this election, those determined to vote UKIP still had their opportunity to vote UKIP on the European election ballot paper, but in a year when there is no Euro or Westminster election, one wonders if this effect would be greater?
The moral of this story is, I believe, that we must provide all voters in all elections with the opportunity to vote UKIP. Even in no-hoper seats we can put up “paper” candidates: don’t even bother to leaflet if the branch is strapped for resources, but those who support us can feel satisfied they have done their bit for democracy.
And, as a free bonus we get information on relative levels of support by ward to guide us in future elections.
All well and good but sometimes paper candidates get elected. Personally I’d rather not have a candidate than end up with an unsuitable councillor who did not want the job. It’s hard to find good candidates and the media hate campaign has frightened off perfectly respectable people. We need to try harder to persuade people to come forward and to challenge the smears and lies.
Many people don’t like the idea of paper candidates – what if you get,elected? Are you going to do the job, if not UKIP are going to look bad!
However, paper candidates do allow others to be challenged – ‘if you think you can do better – go ahead!’.
Most branches will have a realistic appreciation of the potential level of support in each ward, and chances of a paper candidate being elected are very slim. There was one elected in the County elections in 2013, and apparently that person has stepped up to the plate, so pleased they were at finding out almost accidentally.
I would say that in “true blue”, wealthier, more rural areas the chances are slim. Also, areas with strong independents who re-stand (or Resident’s Association candidates), the risks are very low.
But for poorer districts with low immigrant counts, or those with competing independents, the risk of actually being elected is significant, so serious candidates would be advised.
I was talking to one of our members who was at the EP count. He noted that a good many of the spoilt ballots were caused by people accidentaly voting for the Nattrass spoiler party and then attempting to correct the mistake. I hope some further action will be taken to sort out these clowns before the GE
My ward Atherton only had Labour, Conservatives or WIN(Wigan independent network) so i had WIN to try keep the Lab&Con out and voted UKIP in the European.
The nearest local election to me which had a UKIP candidate was Lowton East (Wigan Council) – 2014 Electorate 9934 (2011 electorate 9742) Turnout 35.09% (2011=39.29%) Conservative 1603(2011=1546) Labour 1137(2011=1561) UKIP 589(2011=na) CAP 144(2011=710) Spoilt 13(2011=11) So UKIP knocked labour out
“And, as a free bonus we get information on relative levels of support by ward to guide us in future elections.”
Not only that but they may even get elected. A slim chance is much better than no chance.
Yes, it would be very good if there was a UKIP candidate for every seat in every election, but where do you suggest we get these candidates from?
We need 44 candidates next year to cover every Ward in the local elections. In the County Council elections last year, even with paper candidates, we only managed to put up 11 candidates.
A great labour of love, Brian, and the results of that are of huge importance for our future strategy locally and nationally.
Btw – this article has been picked up by BreitbartLondon:
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/06/14/Evidence-People-Spoil-Ballots-When-No-UKIP-Candidate-Stands
I am part way through my task. The source workbook I had only had results for wards where UKIP stood. I have nearly completed doing 4 regions now (Eastern, SE, NE and West Midlands). Out of around 1178 wards in these regions, 237 had no UKIP candidate, and I was not deliberately collecting the spoiled votes as a statistic, especially as many councils do NOT publish the up-to-date electoral and ballot papers issued figures. However, the trend became evident.
The numbers of 10/60 are gut feelings of what the average is, not scientifically arrived at, and bear in mind ward sizes vary enormously from 1000(rural) to 15000(inner city) and more, but they are definitely in the right ball park.
i spoiled my ballot in the ponders end ward for enfield council elections.
i couldnt bring myself to vote for the big 3.