How are the results calculated?
The basic method is as follows:
- Look at the result of the 2017 general election in the constituency, and who currently holds the seat (which may be different if there has been a byelection).
- In Tory-held seats, recommend a vote for the second-place party – for example, Hastings and Rye or Brecon and Radnorshire.
- In seats where the Tories are in second place, recommend a vote for the party that currently holds the seat – for example, Central Ayrshire.
- In seats the Tories are unlikely to win (ie. where there is no right wing party in first or second place), we point out that there is probably no need for tactical voting here – for example, Brighton Pavilion.
- We may make some adjustments for special cases, such as seats where there are Independent candidates. This will always be stated clearly.
Have a look through the
constituency A-Z to see the results in different kinds of constituencies.
Why are the results different to another tactical voting list I saw?
There are many different ways that you could potentially work out the 'best' tactical vote in each constituency, and many different factors to take into account. Each list and site circulating uses a slightly different method, but we believe ours meets these key criteria:
- It can be simply understood, so the results are transparent.
- It is based on maths and data, not intuition or anecdote.
- It produces the results that most people would expect.
What's important here is that we didn't decide these results seat by seat – we first came up with what we believe to be the best method, and then applied it across the board. We believe that any changes to the method should be applied to all constituencies, not having one rule for some and a different rule for others.
In particular, we will not be swayed by people writing to us claiming this or that local candidate anecdotally has "more support in the area" – we believe our recommendations need to be based on hard data about actual votes, not speculation.