Friday, June 5, 2009

Devon Election Results

Some reflections yesterday's elections to Devon County Council...

On the face of it, a clear transfer of councillors from LibDem to Tory:


Caveat: These figures, taken from DCC's website, include the results of three by-elections since 2005.

These figures might lead you to a headline of "Conservatives up by 78%, LibDems down by 58%". A massive endorsement of David Cameron, you might think.

But if you look at share of the vote, rather than councillors, a different story appears:


Some observations:
  1. The massive majority LibDems have enjoyed in Devon over the last four years was based on slightly fewer votes than the Conservatives received.
  2. Far from a massive endorsement of Cameron, the Tory vote went up by just 4%.
  3. Support for Labour halved, yet they received the same number of councillors.
  4. Almost four times as many voters supported UKIP, the Greens and others as supported Labour, but their views are represented by fewer councillors than Labour.