UK Election 2010

[J. J.]

When will we start to see results coming in?

Polls close at 10pm

Our time our their time?

There time.  Our time it will be 5 or 6 in the afternoon.

[CARLHAYDEN]

The Telegraph has an interesting interactive map which appears to confirm the information I previously shared that the boundaries of the constituencies appear to produce significantly more Labour members than the raw vote (nationwide) would indicate.

I know that many decades ago the 'rotten boroughs' where supposed to help the conservatives, but, does the U.K. have a similiar problem favoring Labour today?

[Verily]

When will we start to see results coming in?

Polls close at 10pm

Our time our their time?

There time.  Our time it will be 5 or 6 in the afternoon.

5pm Eastern. Are people really so bad at time zones? First results will come out around midnight BST, or around 7pm Eastern. All results that will come out this evening should be out by around 4am BST, or around 11pm Eastern.

[Franzl]

The Telegraph has an interesting interactive map which appears to confirm the information I previously shared that the boundaries of the constituencies appear to produce significantly more Labour members than the raw vote (nationwide) would indicate.

Good discovery there!

[Јas]

I quite liked this video blog entry from Tom Harris (Glasgow South) this morning.

[ilikeverin]

The Telegraph has an interesting interactive map which appears to confirm the information I previously shared that the boundaries of the constituencies appear to produce significantly more Labour members than the raw vote (nationwide) would indicate.

Good discovery there!

A veritable genius, that one.

[Verily]

I quite liked this video blog entry from Tom Harris (Glasgow South) this morning.

Hilarious, and clearly a Simpsons fan. But not the sort of video one could pull off outside of a Scottish safe seat.

[minionofmidas]

The Telegraph has an interesting interactive map which appears to confirm the information I previously shared that the boundaries of the constituencies appear to produce significantly more Labour members than the raw vote (nationwide) would indicate.

Good discovery there!

A veritable genius, that one.

Yeah, common knowledge to anybody who actively follows British elections over the past twenty years or so.

Since we can't presume everybody does so...

their are several reasons why that is, some perfectly benign, some not.

-Turnout in strong Labour areas tends to be quite a bit lower. (These people would vote Labour if forced to vote - this basically means that Labour's national vote share is artificially deflated and that deflation has no effect on seat totals.)
-Though this has declined again in 2005, most constituencies in the generally more Con-friendly part of the country are either Labour vs Conservative or Lib Dem vs Conservative battles - and the Conservatives hold fewer of the former; for reasons related to why these are the Labour rather than LD seats in the first place.
-No gerrymandering (that would be recognized as such in the US), Seats attempting to follow communities of interests as far as practicable. This does have the side-effect of increasing the number of such turnout-immune, low-turnout, safe Labour seats.

So much for the benign reasons (and they're the larger part of it, really)... now to the less benign ones:

-Britain's redistricting process is pretty longwinded; there's a considerable timelag. The Commission's proposals are also frequently relatively "conservative" (ie suggesting only the minimum amount of change to keep things broadly in line).
Because most (by no means all) fast-growing regions lean Conservative and all or near-all seriously declining places are utterly safe Labour seats... Labour-held seats have, on average, somewhat smaller electorates in the first place.
-Wales is overrepresented. By law. Pretty strange, that. Scotland used to be too, until 2005. That's an extra ~5 to 8 or so Labour seats we're talking. (the Scottish Highlands remain overrepresented to a ridiculous degree, but that affects just four seats, and three of them are safe Liberal Democrat while the fourth is now SNP.)

[Torie]

Some of the same things obtain in the US vis a vis Congressional districts (and with respect to Hispanics, the census counts illegal aliens and Hispanics tend to turn out in relatively low numbers anyway).  However, all of that is largely offset by the legal requirements regarding creating minority majority districts  which tend to pack Dem voters in specific districts, thereby "wasting" a lot of Dem votes when it comes to winning CD's. 

[minionofmidas]

However, all of that is largely offset by the legal requirements regarding creating minority majority districts  which tend to pack Dem voters in specific districts, thereby "wasting" a lot of Dem votes when it comes to winning CD's. 

Yeah; the point here is that while Hispanics have low turnout, US Black turnout isn't all that far below White (and Black Ghetto turnout is a lot higher than that of Whites of comparable social status.)

[J. J.]

5pm Eastern. Are people really so bad at time zones? First results will come out around midnight BST, or around 7pm Eastern. All results that will come out this evening should be out by around 4am BST, or around 11pm Eastern.

I never know which county is on daylight savings time, or isn't.

[Torie]

5pm Eastern. Are people really so bad at time zones? First results will come out around midnight BST, or around 7pm Eastern. All results that will come out this evening should be out by around 4am BST, or around 11pm Eastern.

I never know which county is on daylight savings time, or isn't.

I had to look it up to see if the UK was on daylight savings time myself (it is), to confirm that difference between PST and Greenwich mean time is 8 hours rather than 7.

[afleitch]

Don't worry about timezones; we'll tell you when it's started

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

For those who aren't aware, UKIP MEP and Buckingham candidate Nigel Farage was very nearly killed in a plane crash this morning.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/northamptonshire/8664260.stm

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Go Tories!

[afleitch]

Just under 2 and half hours to go...

[Tender Branson]

Is there some kind of Exit Poll just after 11pm ?

[Meeker]

Will the seat projections from the exit poll be any better than the UNS? Do the exit pollsters make an active attempt to nail down what's going on in marginal seats or are they just more interested in the national vote share?

[Franzl]

Will the seat projections from the exit poll be any better than the UNS? Do the exit pollsters make an active attempt to nail down what's going on in marginal seats or are they just more interested in the national vote share?

I think they do make that effort....after all, in 2005, their seat projection was spot on.

[afleitch]

Will the seat projections from the exit poll be any better than the UNS? Do the exit pollsters make an active attempt to nail down what's going on in marginal seats or are they just more interested in the national vote share?

I think they do make that effort....after all, in 2005, their seat projection was spot on.

Think of it as a 'reverse' opinion poll. The exit poll data comes mostly from the marginals to give an idea of the seat tally and then they extrapolate a projected national share from that.

[Meeker]

Will the seat projections from the exit poll be any better than the UNS? Do the exit pollsters make an active attempt to nail down what's going on in marginal seats or are they just more interested in the national vote share?

I think they do make that effort....after all, in 2005, their seat projection was spot on.

Think of it as a 'reverse' opinion poll. The exit poll data comes mostly from the marginals to give an idea of the seat tally and then they extrapolate a projected national share from that.

Interesting. Sounds excellent.

[KuntaKinte]

Is there some kind of Exit Poll just after 11pm ?

[You kip if you want to...]

Is there some kind of Exit Poll just after 11pm ?

There'll be one released at 10:02pm, just after the polls close.

[KuntaKinte]

Is there some kind of Exit Poll just after 11pm ?

There'll be one released at 10:02pm, just after the polls close.

Great.

[Tender Branson]

Is there some kind of Exit Poll just after 11pm ?

There'll be one released at 10:02pm, just after the polls close.

Where can we watch it ?

Does any news company have a live stream that can be viewed outside the UK ?