Methodology

This page explains our methodology for local elections.

To see our methodology for the 2024 General Election, click here.

Our Objectives

1. Get the Tories out!
2. Help voters influence their elected representatives.
   Rather than let the think thanks & press barons lead the agenda
3. Support a diversity of voices at all levels of government.
4. Promote a better voting system so:
   Politicians are accountable
   All votes count equally
   Tactical voting is unnecessary
5. Stop having to make this site every election!

Our Methodology

1 - We collate data on the outcome of previous elections in each ward for the past 5 years.

2 - Using this data, we automatically judge every ward with an upcoming election:

• Could the Tories realistically win this seat?

  If the Tory party hasn't won any seats in the ward in the past 5 years, and the Tory party were significantly behind the top opposition party in the most recent 2 elections (going back a maximum of 5 years), then we assume the Tory party cannot realistically win any seats in this ward.

  If any of the above are not true, we assume the Tory party could potentially win one or more seats in this ward.

• Is there a clear lead opposition party in this seat?

  We order parties by their performance in the most recent election in the ward, and look for the best performing non-regressive party.

  We only recommend major opposition parties - we define this as Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens, SNP & Plaid Cymru.

  If the top-performing non-regressive party is a progressive party, and they performed significantly better than the next best performing party, we will recommend that party. If they are not standing enough candidates for all seats which are up for election, we will move on to the next best performing party and repeat the process until we have either made a recommendation for all seats which are up for election, or cannot make any further recommendations.

3 - Having automatically judged every seat, we then publish advice using the following flow chart:

4 - In seats where automatic advice cannot be given, or where we have specific local intelligence, we may manually override the advice:

• We always make it clear on the website and in our published data when we have made a manual override.
• We always cite the reasons for manually overriding advice.
• When making a decision about whether to manually override, and the advice to give, we will look at various other data, including but not limited to:
• Other recent election results in the surrounding wards
• Historical voting patterns in the ward & council in question

Methodology FAQ

For questions not related to our methodology, please see our main FAQ page.