Electoral Calculus is a political forecasting web site which attempts to predict future United Kingdom general election results. It considers national factors but excludes local issues.

Main features

The site was developed by Martin Baxter, who was a financial analyst specialising in mathematical modelling. The site includes maps, predictions and analysis articles. It has separate sections for elections in Scotland and

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. North ...

. From April 2019, the headline prediction covered the Brexit Party and

Change UK – The Independent Group The Independent Group for Change, also known as Change UK, was a British centrist, pro-European Union political party, founded in February 2019 and dissolved ten months later, shortly after all its MPs lost their seats in the 2019 general el ...

. 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, which can be used to calculate the uniform national swing. It takes account of national polls and trends but excludes local issues. 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. The ''Strong Transition Model'' was introduced in October 2007, and considers the effects of strong and weak supporters. The models are explained in detail on the web site.

Predictions

Across the eight general elections from 1992 to 2019:Electoral Calculus https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/trackrecord.html *EC correctly predicted the party which won the most seats in seven out of eight (all except 1992). *EC correctly predicted the majority party in four (1997, 2001, 2005, 2019) and the hung parliament outcome in 2010. *The mean polling error for the two largest parties was 4.8%.

Reception

It was listed by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'' in 2004 as one of the "100 most useful websites", being "the best" for predictions. In 2012 it was described by PhD student Chris Prosser at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...

as "probably the leading vote/seat predictor on the internet". Its detailed predictions for individual seats have been noted by Paul Evans on the localdemocracy.org.uk blog. Academic

Nick Anstead Nick Anstead (born 24 May 1981) is a lecturer in the Department of Media and Communication at the London School of Economics, focusing on political communication. He was previously a politics lecturer at the University of East Anglia. He is a dir ...

noted in his observations from a 2010 ''Personal Democracy Forum'' event, that

Mick Fealty Mick Fealty (born 1959) is a communications consultant and founding editor of the Northern Ireland-based blog Slugger O'Toole. Fealty was born in Belfast and grew up in Holywood, County Down, but now lives in Gloucestershire, England. He has be ...

of Slugger O'Toole considered Electoral Calculus to be "massively improved" in comparison with the swingometer. With reference to the 2010 United Kingdom general election, it was cited by journalists Andrew Rawnsley and Michael White in ''

''. John Rentoul in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

'' referred to the site after the election.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Electoral Calculus
British political websites Elections in the United Kingdom Electoral geography Opinion polling in the United Kingdom Psephology Mathematical modeling