fleetfootmike: (Default)
fleetfootmike ([personal profile] fleetfootmike) wrote2010-05-06 10:40 am

A thought.... provoked by [livejournal.com profile] filklore_on_lj

What percentage of the folks who don't vote in a supposedly 'sure' seat don't vote because they don't think voting against the clear favourite will make any difference?

What if they all voted?

[identity profile] plaid-dragon.livejournal.com 2010-05-07 08:23 am (UTC)(link)
75% turnout. 47.4% tory, 34.1 % liberal, 10.2% labour.

Voting against the clear favourite would have made a difference if they had turned out and voted liberal. If the votes had been split between liberal, labour and others it wouldn't have made any difference. If you assume that the people who don't vote are likely to have a distribution weighted in favour of the underdog, we'd have got the same result with slightly different numbers.