Tag Archives: colin rallings

Mark Pack

Opinion: 20 years of going nowhere, Liberal Democrat gender balance in council elections

By Mark Pack | Wed 10th July 2013 - 11:55 am

Twenty years of progress, followed by twenty years of stalling. That’s the overall picture of Liberal Democrat (and before that Alliance / Liberal Party) progress towards gender equality at local government elections, whether measured in terms of candidates or people elected.

Looking at local elections in England, a mere 20% of the Liberal Party’s candidates were female in 1973 and the figure was even lower, 18%, amongst those elected. By 1991 both figures had risen to 34%. Since then, however, the figures have bounced up and down around a long-term flat trend, with both hitting 30% in the latest figures for …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 18 Comments
Stephen Tall

Were you a 2012 election candidate? Then don’t forget to fill in The Election Centre’s questionnaire

By Stephen Tall | Sat 19th May 2012 - 1:55 pm

If, like me, you were one of the 12,000 people who was a candidate in 2012’s local elections you may have received a letter recently from Plymouth University’s Elections Centre, run by Professors Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, inviting you to take part in an online questionnaire:

This year the centre has ran its seventh annual candidate survey for the Local elections. Over 12,000 candidates stood for election to local government this year and we are lucky enough to have sampled 6,450 of them (i.e. sent a letter inviting them to participate in the survey). We do this to collate information

…

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Mark Pack

The 2010 general election: it’s a game of three halves

By Mark Pack | Wed 13th January 2010 - 10:20 am

Political coverage and blogging in the UK has a rather odd love-hate relationship with electoral numbers. On the one hand, the latest opinion poll figures get reported, re-reported and mis-reported at length, with the mere fact that a change in ratings is well within the margin of error not being reason enough to stop a cavalcade of comment.

Yet despite this love of talking electoral numbers, those that are talked about come from a fairly narrow range of sources.

So here instead are three other numbers – all simple in concept, but interesting in implication.

First, since 1970 49% of Parliamentary …

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Posted in General Election and Op-eds | Also tagged | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

Book review: British Electoral Facts

By Mark Pack | Wed 9th December 2009 - 11:50 am

For decades, FWS Craig was the doyen of British electoral statistics. His reference works were widely used and often contained facts and figures that he had created from original sources. Yet today he is almost completely unknown.

The reason? He died just before the internet took off. His hard work was locked away in reference volumes either sat on the shelves in libraries beyond the reach of an internet connection or available to purchase – at eye-wateringly expensive prices.

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Posted in Books | Also tagged , and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

What do the academics say? Ballot paper ordering

By Mark Pack | Sat 12th September 2009 - 4:55 pm

Welcome to a new occasional series covering what academics have to say about politics, elections and public opinion. As with most things in life, academic research comes in various flavours, including the good, the bad and the stating the bleeding obvious (though investigating ‘what everyone knows’ does have a role, as just sometimes it isn’t true after all).

Today’s selection is about the order in which names appear on ballot papers can affect election results.

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Posted in Election law and What do the academics say? | Also tagged | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Labour-Tory two-party politics is now the minority

By Mark Pack | Tue 10th April 2007 - 5:33 pm

Bad news for Labour and Conservative activists who don’t like those pesky liberals. Sorry folks.

I’ve been taking a look at the recently published Thrasher and Rallings projected results for the new Westminster Parliamentary boundaries.

Take all the seats where Labour and first and the Conservatives are second, or vice-versa, strip out the three-way marginals and … voila … you only have a minority of the seats in Parliament. Or to put it the other way round – the majority of Westminster constituencies are now not straight-forward Labour/Conservative contests.

Anyone fancy a bet on how long it will take the media to notice?

Posted in News | Also tagged | 5 Comments
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