May 12, 2008
More or Less
Today’s “More or Less” looks at whether - after successfully predicting the results of the London Mayoral election - Internet-based opinion polls are the future. Also, 400,000 rejected votes in that election: is the British National Party justified in saying something fishy is afoot?
Also, is it really true that the death rate rises when doctors are on strike? And we may also be asking how anyone figures out the street price of drugs.
4.30pm BST, Radio 4 - or thereafter streaming from the website.
There were not 400000 rejected votes in the election.
http://results.londonelects.org.uk/Results/MayoralTechnicalTurnout.aspx has the number of rejected votes as 41,032 first preference and 412,054 second preference, which is down somewhat from 2004. This time round they have provided a seperate stat for blank votes, and for second preference its 407,840 votes, so it seems that the vast majority of rejected second preference votes come from people who chose not to nominate their second preference at all.
That seems perfectly reasonable and not at all fishy to me.
Posted by: Sean Hunter | May 13th, 2008 at 10:24 am | Report this commentSean, exactly.
Posted by: Tim Harford | May 13th, 2008 at 10:47 am | Report this comment