How open data can help shape the way we analyse electoral behaviour | News | theguardian.com

" ... To add to the debate around democratic engagement, a joint research team, with data scientists from Deloitte and the Open Data Institute (ODI), have been attempting to understand what makes voters tick. Our research has been hampered by a significant lack of relevant data describing voter behaviour at electoral ward level, as well as difficulties in matching what little data is available to other open data sources, such as demographic data from the 2011 Census. Even though individual ballot papers are collected and verified for counting the number of votes per candidate – the primary aim of elections, after all – the only recent elections for which aggregate turnout statistics have been published at ward level are the 2012 local council elections in England and Wales. In these elections, approximately 3,000 wards from a total of over 8,000 voted. Data published by the Electoral Commission for the 2013 local council elections in England and Wales purports to be at ward level but is, in fact, for ‘county electoral divisions’, as explained by the Office for National Statistics. Moreover, important factors related to the accessibility of polling stations – such as the distance from main population centres – could not be assessed because the location of polling stations remains the responsibility of individual local authorities – and only eight of these have so far published their data as open data. Given these fundamental limitations, drawing any robust conclusions is difficult. Nevertheless, our research shows the potential for forecasting electoral turnout with relatively few census variables, the most significant of which are age and the size of the electorate in each ward ..."