{"id":12757,"date":"2017-06-06T11:24:31","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T10:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betangel.com\/blog_wp\/?p=12757"},"modified":"2017-06-16T21:54:55","modified_gmt":"2017-06-16T20:54:55","slug":"punting-on-politics-general-election-turnout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betfairtradingblog.com\/blog_wp\/2017\/06\/06\/punting-on-politics-general-election-turnout\/","title":{"rendered":"Punting on Politics – General election turnout"},"content":{"rendered":"

I did a little piece on the General election recently for\u00a0Betfair<\/a>. Underlying it was some work\u00a0I’d looked at recently on turnout for elections.<\/p>\n

Apathy<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the election was called the markets shifted significantly\u00a0anticipating a Conservative landslide. I immediately wondered if there would be a correlation between certainty and turnout. But first I had to work out what a ‘normal’ turnout would look like.<\/p>\n

I looked back at elections since the second world and munched through some data. The first thing to note is that turnout is falling. In 1950 nearly 84% of people voted and that had fallen to under 60% by\u00a02001. It’s climbed a little since then but the trend is definitely\u00a0down.<\/p>\n

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The recent turning point came with the re-election of the Blair government in 2001. They were expected to get a landslide victory and did, 246\u00a0seats more than the Conservatives. Surefire wins by big margins seem to bring out voter apathy. What’s the point in voting when you know the result?<\/p>\n

Different\u00a0eras?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My immediate thought when the election was announced, was OMG not again! I welcomed the fixed term parliament\u00a0as a way to avoid political contrived votes and more elections. Yet here we were, midterm, with a new election. Having been dragged back to the polls every five minutes I was a bit pissed off. My initial thought was ‘none of the above’. I still think I should start the ‘none of the above’ party as I’m sure it would get lots of votes.<\/p>\n

You can pretty much split the era of decent turnout, to apathetic quite easily. Up to 1997 turnout was generally pretty good. An average of 73.50% with a standard deviation of 6.50%. From 2001 to present it slumps to 63% with a standard deviation of 3%.<\/p>\n

Scotland had a particularly\u00a0low turnout, till the surge in support for the SNP lifted the turnout from just 58% in 2001 to 71% in 2015. So it does appear that having something to really vote for really drives turnout. Contradicting that though is the low turnout in 2015 when things looked ‘too close to call’. They weren’t.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So I conclude that people being fed up with politics is probably the only consistent theme. Getting the voters out may be key in this election. A certain re-election seems to drop turnout.<\/p>\n

Turnout<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having researched the historical data, I\u00a0mapped the historic’s onto the current and came up with numbers. I also snapshotted the odds at the time I did it, to see how they moved in the interim.<\/p>\n

Assuming a\u00a0millennium\u00a0style turnout, then this brings odds of a 60-65% turnout in at 1.76. When I looked initially, this was 3.40 but has since contracted to 2.62. Here are the full list and the moves since I took a snapshot.<\/p>\n

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If you plug in pre-millennium figures the numbers, obviously, push to the far right, 80%+ comes in at odds 6.20 and that looks completely unrealistic.<\/p>\n

Given that most don’t expect a close election, my bias it towards to lower end of the above graphic. The only thing that makes this look a weaker assumption is the shortening of ‘no overall majority’. This would imply a slighter higher turnout. But I guess most of the electorate don’t look at Betfair markets. I’d still prefer to be on the low turnout side as voting fatigue hits home.<\/p>\n

Thursday night is going to be interesting.<\/p>\n

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I did a little piece on the General election recently for\u00a0Betfair. Underlying it was some work\u00a0I’d looked at recently on turnout for elections. Apathy When the election was called the markets shifted significantly\u00a0anticipating a Conservative landslide. I immediately wondered if there would be a correlation between certainty and turnout. But first I had to work […]<\/p>\n

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