Scottish Independence Referendum - 18 September 2014

[afleitch]

So after the polls of just the last couple of days alone we can all happily pick our own realities. Isn't that fun.

It's a big unknown. Pollsters might not get it right and they will never need to get it right again.

On that note its 50-49 No (not sure where that missing 1% goes) with Panelbase.

50.6 to 49.4

[afleitch]

Scotland goes through periods of political dominance; the Liberals from 1832 to the 20's. the Unionists from the 20's to the 50's and Labour from the 50's to the 2000's. Westminster aside, the SNP is already the 'party of government'; it's won every national election bar the 2010 GE since 2007

[afleitch]

That said, I could support a requirement that YES wins, say, at least 45% of all registered voters - so as to make sure that independence is won through voter apathy.

In the 1979 referendum, it was required that 40% of all registered voters had to vote Yes. Which meant, technically, that if you weren't voting at all you were voting No, or if you had died in the weeks and months prior to the vote without the register being updated your vote was also technically a 'no' (despite you being dead) While the Assembly passed, it didn't get over 40% of the electorate so was shelved.

Which is why registration based thresholds are a generally bad idea!

[afleitch]

The most important question that we, the Atlas Forum, should be asking is... What kind of detail of results maps can we expect to see?  By Westminster/Holyrood constituency?  By council ward?? 

By council and probably (if councils make the data available) by constituency. It should be possible using the polling data and adjusting it to the result and then applying that across each council to 'guesstimate' how wards would have voted. Which I will probably do.

[afleitch]

The BBC has just kind of abandoned the idea of neutrality, apparently, at least based on their reporting of the story.

They did that a few years ago;

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/john-robertson/bbc-bias-and-scots-referendum-new-report

[afleitch]

In the three polls last night, the undecided voters are split by 57,60,62 to Yes. The split in 1979 was 60:40 to Yes but in 1997 it was 83:17 to Yes.

[afleitch]

It's amazing how every poll shows such a narrow No lead. You'd expect MoE would have a fluke Yes lead or No at 55 or something.

I found that a bit weird too. 4/5 polls this week have shown the exact same result, 52-48, while the fifth had 51-49. Particularly considering that the polls used to diverge a lot for this election.

They have converged. This campaign isn't like a 50/50 campaign because it hasn't been 50/50 since day one. Yes were behind. So you've only started to see occasional Yes leads/drawing equal as it's narrowed in the past few weeks.

[afleitch]

Is there any worry about potential "bad behavior" from some nationalists if the vote fails?

Only by those that think we are guilty of bad behaviour. And by bad i mean; heckling and egg throwing.

[afleitch]

Scottish people is fine. The Scots is fine. Scotch is a no no.

I have been sceptical about this, but this gives it a lot more weight. And its a big chunk of the Scottish oil (60% if I remember correctly), thats within Shetland waters.

The Orcadians and Zetlanders may vote no to independence. That is not the same as a 'no' to Scotland or a 'yes' to the UK. It's politically cheeky to infer such things.

[afleitch]

Voted. Had to wait in a line. Never had to do that in the past twelve years.