One Big Vote, a website attempting the biggest ever pre-election opinion poll, has so far received over 28,000 votes (far more than any small sample newspaper poll) and as it stands the Conservatives lead with nearly 35% of the votes, followed by Labour and Lib Dems both with just under 24%. The results are shown here: http://www.onebigvote.co.uk/Results/ResultOver18.htm

What makes it all the more interesting is that it polls for how people voted last time, with Labour getting the largest chunk of that vote, hence illustrating a large scale swing. You can vote here: http://www.onebigvote.co.uk/

What does everyone else think about these poll results?

Originally posted by t020
One Big Vote, a website attempting the biggest ever pre-election opinion poll, has so far received over 28,000 votes (far more than any small sample newspaper poll) and as it stands the Conservatives lead with nearly 35% of the votes, followed by Labour and Lib Dems both with just under 24%. The results are shown here: http://www.onebigvote.co.uk/Results/ResultOver18.htm

What makes it all the more interesting is that it polls for how people voted last time, with Labour getting the largest chunk of that vote, hence illustrating a large scale swing. You can vote here: http://www.onebigvote.co.uk/

What does everyone else think about these poll results?

I think you are a wolf in very bad sheeps clothes - mods pull this thread the nazi's are back!!!!

Meh, I still think that Labour will win the election for a third term, nobody wants the Tories back in, and the Lib Dems have no notable policies.

MOD: Nothing overtly political about this, just an interesting story. Let's hope this thread doesn't degenerate, please.

I for one dont hold much hope of the tory party getting back in power although Micheal Howard does have some good ideas.
It looks like 5 more yrs of hard labour,this country deserves this bloody goverment,stupid people.

Originally posted by royjames
I for one dont hold much hope of the tory party getting back in power although Micheal Howard does have some good ideas.
It looks like 5 more yrs of hard labour,this country deserves this bloody goverment,stupid people.

Fair enough but so as not to get the thread closed, can we discuss the results of the poll specifically? I find it interesting that the biggest poll illustrates such a swing from Labour to Conservative (and Lib Dem).

Would I be right when I say that the swing has to be around 10% to the tory party for them to have a majority,I might be wrong on this but I am sure it is something of this magnitude.
As for polls in general we have had polls before showing that the end result is different to what the poll says.
Cast your mind back to 1992,labour was according to the polls ahead yet they lost?

yep, the torys need a 10% swing we are told, which at the present time would be larger then the swing which labour enjoyed back in 1997.

torys have some good policies, overshadowed by howard who has as much personality as a toothbrush.

i have a feeling that if the come back into power, they will allow the inner cities to degenerate again.

The thing with a poll like this, compared to say, the MORI poll in the FT which gave the tories a 5 point lead (in all others they are 3 points behind) - is that this is a self selecting poll, and can be relied on about as much as a poll on SF.

MORI, gallup, YouGOv etc, use relatively complex procedures to balance their raw results, and also carefully select respondents geographically and by other factors.

There is no question this is going to be a close election, but I don't think this poll can be taken as indicative - especially as it is possible to take the poll as many times as you like.

The best way to look at polls is their trends collectively. But William Hill are offering 1/12 on for a labour victory at the moment and the odds on a hung parliament are better than those of a Tory victory.

In a wider analysis - the labour vote is soft, not to say totally flaccid, and they are already losing 10 seats through border changes in Scotland so the challenge for them is to get the disillusioned labour vote out.

For the Tories, publicly they want to win the election, but in private I reckon, discounting totally left field scenarios, they are trying to make this election a 'recovery' election without any serious hope of a win, depsite the ministrations of Lynton Crosby.

Originally posted by t020
What does everyone else think about these poll results?

Where did you get the sample size from? I can't find it.
All I got via email was percentages which are pretty meaningless without the sample size.

From a statistical poll point of view a few points:

1) It's a self selecting sample - MORI polls etc may be small sample sizes they are carefully chosen in an attempt to reflect a true cross section. More often than not its the barometer constituancys that give the best idea of what will happen.

2) I just voted in it twice - no safegaurds against vote rigging

3) As we all know its a first past the post system - you can get more votes in total but still lose due to the number of wasted votes.

Nomme

I read that, because of the distribution of constituencies, even a majority share of the vote for the Tories would likely to be insufficient to win overall. A majority of several percentage points would be required.

Originally posted by nomme
Where did you get the sample size from? I can't find it.
All I got via email was percentages which are pretty meaningless without the sample size.


I got an email from them earlier today, saying:

Hi {pNameFirst}

Thank you for voting in our OneBigVote poll.

Most of the polls you see in national newspapers are based on small samples of responders, nothing like the 28,000+ people who have responded to OneBigVote. Your answers have contributed to some very interesting results that we would like to share with you below.

I like the obvious coding error after the Hi! You'll have to take my word for the sample size from this email, but no doubt they'll be spamming you too soon now that you're registered!

Ive seen a poll which currently has 800 votes in it (and only one vote allowed) over a very good cross section of the UK which puts the Tory's around 10% ahead of Labour.

Or just unsubscribe like i have. I voted Labour by the way!

There's no-one else out there at the minute better than Tony Blair IMHO.

Originally posted by nomme


I just voted in it twice - no safegaurds against vote rigging



I completed the voting form, but didn't cast my vote in the end. This is because you are required to give your e-mail address. It is not therefore a secret ballot!

Nomme also demonstrated that you can vote more than once. In that case, you could choose a party (e.g., Veritas) and keep voting repeatedly until you produce a lead. But it would be statistical nonsense of course!

I agree with other contributors - this is a self-selecting ballot, which in the end is meaningless.

Originally posted by RPG
Ive seen a poll which currently has 800 votes in it (and only one vote allowed) over a very good cross section of the UK which puts the Tory's around 10% ahead of Labour.

Well I've seen a poll which currently has 20,000 votes in it (and only one vote allowed and it checks if your eligible to vote and in the country at the time of the election) over a very good cross section of the UK which puts the Labour around 23% ahead of the Torys.

Nomme

Of course, it would however take over 280 votes to impact just a 1% change in the poll. That would require some dedication.

The problem for me, as a fairly 'conservative' person (note the small c) is that I simply don't know what they stand for any more.

Howard seems to be simply the best choice by a bad lot. I thought that Michael Heseltine was the best PM we never had. How many stand down vounterily on principle!

Later on, I thought, and still think that William Hague is a direct descendant of Heseltine. Within the remit of a politician, honest, hardworking, and actually caring about trying to make things better rather than just the votes than can be gained. i have a sneaky suspicion that W Hague will one day be prime minister, and we will be glad for it.

All that said, Gorden Brown is, on the whole, doing a very good job, and TB has left him alone to get on with it for a period long enough to make a difference. New Labour are doing a reasonably good job on the economy - as good as I could expect.

I live in Hallam, so I will simply vote for Nick Clegg (Lib-Dem). Nick appears to care, is interested, experienced, listens, and acts publicly on those matters.

In Sheffield we have some good Labour politicians in Blunkett and Caborne, though they are becoming too London-centric for my liking, and pay little more than lip service to local matters. I really would like to see them get more involved instead of palming things off to the Old Labour of Sheffield simply because it is conveneint.

So my reason to vote Lib-Dem? Balance and checking.

It seems like a dichotomy when I like aspects of the 2 main parties, yet vote for a 3rd. However, I treasure our democracy, and I believe that New Labour Central is intent on removing as much democracy as possible. After all - why trust 'The People'?

So I, like many others, will vote for a 3rd hand on the tiller, to keep the course straight ahead.

The biggest probelm with this poll is that it is self selecting, can be answered repeatedly, is open to the entire world, and there is no audit facility on the results.

Even describing the poll as loosely indicative would be lending it a credibility it does not deserve.

It is a fair point, however, to say that the General Election is also a self selecting poll, but voting and voting intentions are two totally different things.

The other point about this poll, which marks it as unreliable, is that it is cumulative. MORI polls etc are repeated frequently to give a spread of results to help determine trends, and are not cumulative. One poll is concluded, another is started.

All in all, I wouldn't bother with this poll and stick to the bookies, and watch the odds change.

Tony,
You must be a very, very, very small 'c' conservative if you vote Lib Dem. Re Gordon Brown 'doing a good job'- so you think selling off our gold reserves, bleeding the middle classes dry with 'stealth taxes', and ensuring the poor are even poorer is 'doing a good job', do you? Oh dear, I've gone political, close the thread!

Miniminch,
Why is TO20 a 'wolf in bad sheep's clothing'? It sounds a bit like a Captain Beefheart track. Why does his posting signal the return of the 'nazis'? Have I missed something here? I always thought that TO20 made reasonable populist/ small 'c' conservative points, in a polite fashion.

Originally posted by timo

Miniminch,
Why is TO20 a 'wolf in bad sheep's clothing'? It sounds a bit like a Captain Beefheart track. Why does his posting signal the return of the 'nazis'? Have I missed something here? I always thought that TO20 made reasonable populist/ small 'c' conservative points, in a polite fashion.

T020 is not a Nazi, I have sparred verbally with him and can vouch that he is no Nazi.

Timo,
Come on mate, don't lecture us on making the poor poorer. Ask any pensioner who they are better off under.

PM your answer as we are now not allowed to discuss.

Originally posted by t020
Of course, it would however take over 280 votes to impact just a 1% change in the poll. That would require some dedication.

Or 5 minutes of coding...

Originally posted by t020
One Big Vote, a website attempting the biggest ever pre-election opinion poll, has so far received over 28,000 votes (far more than any small sample newspaper poll) and as it stands the Conservatives lead with nearly 35% of the votes, followed by Labour and Lib Dems both with just under 24%. The results are shown here: http://www.onebigvote.co.uk/Results/ResultOver18.htm

What makes it all the more interesting is that it polls for how people voted last time, with Labour getting the largest chunk of that vote, hence illustrating a large scale swing. You can vote here: http://www.onebigvote.co.uk/

What does everyone else think about these poll results?

I am alarmed you are required to give your email address to vote. That means unless you use a fake address they know who you are, where you live and who you will vote for. Do we really want a private company (if that is what they are?) knowing this?

Originally posted by nightrider
I am alarmed you are required to give your email address to vote. That means unless you use a fake address they know who you are, where you live and who you will vote for. Do we really want a private company (if that is what they are?) knowing this?

It's good to have a junk email address that you can use for anything that requires registering but you think you'll only use once or you don't want them knowing your name or other details. I use a free web based one as a junk address for these purposes. Almost everything online now requires registration as it helps to spam you legally. My pet hate is forum sites that require registration just to read posts!

Originally posted by t020
It's good to have a junk email address that you can use for anything that requires registering but you think you'll only use once or you don't want them knowing your name or other details. I use a free web based one as a junk address for these purposes. Almost everything online now requires registration as it helps to spam you legally. My pet hate is forum sites that require registration just to read posts!

well my point was what if most people dont use a fake address?

Originally posted by nightrider
well my point was what if most people dont use a fake address?

It's unlikely that anything would happen anyway but I see your point.

Anyone could post that web address to any specific party forum and simply say "Go to this site and vote". With that, if you post to enough forums you could easily swing it 11% the other way.

Who to say it wasn't done in the first place?

Originally posted by John
Anyone could post that web address to any specific party forum and simply say "Go to this site and vote". With that, if you post to enough forums you could easily swing it 11% the other way.

Who to say it wasn't done in the first place?

That's true, but it's the swing that it illustrates that I find most compelling. It asks which way people voted last time around, with Labour having a clear majority similar to the actual result. So it's not all about some over active Tory campaigners, IMO.

ultimately who cares? for all of the reasons above one may assume any level of accuracy for it, from wildly innaccurate to a total fiction.

If it does coincide with the actual result, proportionally rather than just predicting a 1/3 outcome correctly, then that will be a *startling* coincidence.

it's cumulative.
it's self selecting.
it permits multiple votes.

I don't really even think it counts as a poll, anymore than the polls on SF are in anyway representative of sheffield.

nommes link is far more useful. especially with the 3% margin of error assumed - its going to be close as it stands now.

the police are promising to rigourously investigate and prosecute cases of fraudulent postal ballots.

I am wondering when the international observers will be arriving.

"Who you gonna call? Vote rigging ******* busters!"

I think labour will have a majority of about 90 so this is irelevant isnt it?

Despite all the flaws of the poll though, I still think it is useful. The swing could be indicative of the swing to come on May 5th, although I would very much doubt it would be to the same extent.

There are also other interesting issues raised by the poll, such as only 9% preferring postal voting and 63% indicating that they feel their local candidates aren't communicating with them enough. I'm disappointed with the Tory campaign in Hallam so far - they're supposedly putting more money into it to try to win it back from the Lib Dems and have more of a chance with Richard Allan standing down but I don't see too much action on this front. Perhaps it will start to step up now the election date has been announced.