Available in English Commercial No Current status Online | Owner Martin Baxter Registration No | |
Website electoralcalculus.co.uk | ||
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.
Contents
History
The site was developed by Martin Baxter, who is a financial analyst specialising in mathematical modelling.
Main features
The site includes maps, predictions and analysis articles. It has a separate section for elections in Scotland.
Methodology
The site is based around the employment of scientific techniques on data about Britain'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.
Reception
It was listed by The Guardian 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 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 noted in his observations from a 2010 Personal Democracy Forum event, that Mick Fealty 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 The Guardian. John Rentoul in The Independent referred to the site after the election.