Wednesday, 21st November, 2012
Gloating voter
The morning after the recent Police and Crime Commissioner election I received an email from a reader. He asked me if I thought there would be anybody within Dyfed-Powys are regretting not standing as an independent, seeing as two of the four Welsh posts were won by independent candidates.
As a regular reader of my blog, he should already be aware that Christopher Salmon has a record of beating independent pretenders, so I wouldn’t bet against him beating a non-party member adversary a second time around.
The count, at Fishguard. Source: Twitter/@aledscourfield
I also base this on the likelihood that, in the two-horse race we had, Gwyther soaked up more of the traditional Plaid Cymru or Lib Dem voters (who had no candidate of their own) than Salmon.
Had an independent been on the ballot paper I suspect his or her share of the vote would have been on a par with Gwyther’s, splitting the anti-Tory vote, handing Salmon a larger winning margin. The fact that the number of spoilt ballot papers was almost three times greater than the winning margin must also be a sore point among Labour supporters.
When I went to my polling station at 2pm I was told that voters had been trickling through very slowly and I was around the 40th of the day. Famously one polling station in Newport, Gwent failed to attract a single voter.
With an overall turnout across Dyfed-Powys of 17.1%, questions are inevitably raised about the public endorsement of these new elected officials. One tweet I stumbled across, posted by a Carmarthenshire councillor, Labour’s Calum Higgins, seemed to complain about the mandate with which Salmon will assume his new role:
Christopher salmon is elected by 8.3% of the total electorate of dyfed Powys #sham #pccelections absolutely no mandate for this!
— Calum Higgins (@calumhiggins) November 16, 2012
Somehow I doubt such questions would have been raised over the mandate had Christine Gwyther won by the same margin, and there are many candidates in local elections who receive the backing of smaller percentages of the electorate than 8.6%!
We’re told by the Home Secretary Theresa May that turnout will be much bigger at the next election as it will be held in May 2016, combined with the assembly elections in Wales and local elections across England.
Candidates and agents in a huddle around the area returning officer before the final declaration. Source: Twitter/@sazradio
There were a number of tweeters a-tweeting including journalists, Stephen Crabb MP for Preseli Pembrokeshire, and Christopher Salmon himself. Some posted live photographs from the sports hall, and from one tweeter I learned that Christopher Salmon rolled up at the count at 10.16am, over an hour after proceedings commenced! Something tells me he knew progress wasn’t going to be swift.
There seemed to be a bit of confusion caused by the way the votes were revealed, which was county-by-county, and not all together. I noticed a few tweeters offered up their congratulations to Salmon on becoming the inaugural PCC for Dyfed-Powys, after only Pembrokeshire’s vote had been declared – where he got around 3,000 votes more than Gwyther. Similar well wishes for landing the ‘new role’ went to Gwyther when the announcement came that she flattened Salmon in Carmarthenshire where she gained around a 5,000 majority.
There was a long period of nothingness before the third declaration, Powys, which was a 60/40 split to Salmon. As Powys is Salmon’s home county, I was quite surprised how many votes Gwyther achieved there, and I wonder if Labour made a concerted effort campaigning there. With three of the four counties declared, Salmon had a slim 408 vote lead and it all came down to Ceredigion.
Dyfed-Powys was one of only three police forces where the votes for Police and Crime Commissioner were cast first past the post (as there were only two candidates.) I would have thought this would have made the job of counting much more straight-forward than the other areas using preferential vote, many of which had to count the second preference votes if there was no overall winner.
For instance, the most famous candidate across the UK, and strong favourite for the Humberside role was John Prescott. Whilst he topped poll on first preference voting, he was below 50% of the vote, and was beaten by the Conservative candidate when the second preference votes were taken into account.
Whilst the media has banged on about how few voters turned out, I haven’t picked up on any sources questioning why the counting of the votes up and down the UK took so long. Granted, these have far larger electorates than parliamentary constituencies, and preferential votes can take longer to be counted, but even so, there were a number of counts at 5pm on the Friday which still hadn’t declared a result.
I shudder to think how much longer we would have been biting our fingernails in anticipation had voter turnout been around the 60-70% mark!
Gloating voter
I laid down a wager on the outcome of the election. At stake was a County Hall canteen lunch. To save any blushes, I won’t reveal who took me up. Let’s just say he had to support his own, and is pictured wearing a black coat somewhere on this page.
He was pretty communicable pre-election, telling me how increasingly convinced he was becoming of a Labour victory. I was having none of it, though between you and me, I must admit that when both candidates were separated by only 408 votes after the Powys declaration I thought he might be in with a chance with only Ceredigion left to declare.
Fortunately for my wallet (and my stomach) the Ceredigion voters came up trumps, delivering a 55/45 split in Salmon’s favour. Ever since, my man’s been very evasive.
I suspect he thinks the only reason I’m trying to call him is to gloat. That’s not the case at all. I’m just not very familiar with the County Hall canteen menu and I wondered if he knew when salmon’s on the menu.
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I was one of those who made the decision to spoil their ballot paper. The first time EVER since I was 18 in 1977…and I have ALWAYS voted in every election/by-election. No matter how humble.
The election did go as I predicted as well, although I did vote and not for Salmon. I am not sure that I agree with your analysis over an Indie candidate and it could have been interesting if John Davies had stood as an Indie. I think a different result may have been on the cards, perhaps he may give it a go next time?
Do you think an independent candidate would have won then?
I’ve spoken to quite a few people who believe that, but I can’t see it myself. However, with three candidates we would have had preferential voting and as John Prescott knows, anything can happen.
A similar thing happened in Hampshire Constabulary. The Tory candidate, an ex-MP, won the most first preference votes (and would have won using first-past-the-post) except the independent candidate trounced him on the second preference votes. We’ll never know!
I wouldn’t necessarily have expected JD or any other Indie to win, but given what happened elsewhere and given the relatively high profile of JD in much of the area who knows what might have happened.
He would have done ok, in Pembs and Ceredigion. A lot of Tory votes would have gone to him and perhaps people who normally vote Plaid Cymru. He would have also garnered a lot of 2nd preferences.
Is it 4 or 5 years when the next Commissioner election is due? Perhaps he might think about having a go then. (Not that he would get my vote I should make clear!)
As I put in the post, it’s in May 2016, less than four years away and also a year before the next council elections.
Will he stand then? I reckon you could be on to something there. Time will tell!
Thanks for the mention JW!
I’m an avid reader!
Calum.
I believe that if an independent third candidate had stood in this election that he/she would have got in on the second choice ballot. It would have been highly unlikely that any candidate would have achieved over 50 percent on the first vote.
Given that scenario, and as Labour and the Conservatives are poles apart, the supporters of either would be highly unlikely to vote for the other party’s candidate as second choice, and would probably have voted for the independent as second choice?
Hence allowing the independent to get in through the back door so to speak.
Well well Calum, so that means I can add Carmarthenshire councillors to my readership. Haven’t you got anything better to be doing with your time?!
I notice there aren’t any Carmarthenshire councillor-bloggers. If you set up your own blog, you could exploit your monopoly. Sell advertising to Sainsbury’s, perhaps?
John, in that hypothetical three-horse race I reckon the independent candidate would get fewest first preference votes than either Labour or Conservative.
Using the supplementary vote, that independent candidate would be eliminated there and then. His/her voters’ second preference votes would then be allocated and would tip either one of the two leading candidates over the 50% mark. I’d still say the Conservative is more likely to capture more of the independent’s second preference votes than the Labour candidate would.