Independence day

[Scooter]

That's an exit poll (or a composite of exit polls) and the difference would be within the margin of error.

[Gob]

For your consideration;

The general election of 2015 in the United Kingdom was held on May 7 to elect the country’s 56th Parliament. Voting took place in all 650 parliamentary constituencies, each electing one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons.


Right up to election day, polls and commentators were predicting that the election was too close to call and, most likely, would result in a hung parliament. That’s what happened in 2010, when no party succeeded in winning a majority of seats and the Conservatives had to govern for the next five years in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

Of course, the polls and commentators were quite wrong. The Conservatives won 330 seats and 37 percent of the vote, giving them a clear 15-seat working majority.

This was the biggest poll upset in the UK since the Conservative vote was similarly underestimated in 1992. Analysis of that result by the Market Research Society settled on three reasons as to why the polls and pollsters got it wrong:

1. Conservatives are less likely to reveal their loyalties than Labour voters (see Figure 2). This phenomenon has become known as the “Shy Tory” effect.

2. Polls can be fooled by a late swing; that is, by voters who change their mind after being polled.

3. Samples have to be sufficiently large to represent the electorate accurately. In 1992, some samples were not large enough.

However, there is no reason to suspect that any of these were significant factors in the 2015 fiasco:

Sample sizes: These varied, of course, from poll to poll, but all 92 polls in the BBC collection sampled at least 1,000 respondents. That’s enough to justify the usual error margin of ±3 percent, and some polls were much larger.


http://www.ftijournal.com/article/the-2 ... were-wrong

[Lord Jim]

Remain is in serious trouble based on early returns...

Newcastle, a Remain stronghold, only went to Remain with 50.7% of the vote, much less than expected....

Sunderland, a Leave stronghold, (Leave was expected to win by 10%) went for Leave by more than twice that; 61%-39%....

ETA:

Nigel Farage was conceding Brexit's defeat right after the polls closed...

He may want to rethink that...

ITV has also reported that turnout in Scotland has been lower than expected, which is also bad news for Remain, since Scotland is where Remain has been the strongest...

[Lord Jim]

One thing's been funny to watch...

I've been switching back and forth between ITV carried on CSPAN, and BBC World News...

And before the votes actually started coming in, the pundits and anchors were all upbeat and chipper and practically glowing as they talked about Farage saying he expected Brexit to lose, and how confident the Remain camp was...there was even one report that the Remain camp thought they would win by 10 points...

What a difference some actual votes coming in has made...

Their whole tone has turned around...

Not so upbeat anymore...

[MajGenl.Meade]

South Tyneside votes to LEAVE

Remain 38%, Leave 62%

Watch very exciting ballot counting live!!!! Here!!!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06 ... ults-live/

[Guinevere]

50/50 now....

[Lord Jim]

Here's a link that updates the vote more quickly:

http://www.itv.com/news/

Leave: 53.3 Remain: 46.7 About a 140,000 vote for Leave....

[Guinevere]

Whatever the result, it seems apparent GB is as divided as the US and along similar rural v urban lines.

[Gob]

Agreed.

[Lord Jim]

The Northern Ireland vote, (another strong Remain area) had a less than 50% turnout...

With 39 of 382 jurisdictions reporting, some clear patterns are emerging...

In Leave areas, voter turnout is higher than predicted, and Leave victory margins are larger than expected...

In Remain areas, voter turnout is lower than predicted, and Remain victory margins are lower than expected...

Really not looking good for Remain...

[Gob]

This is good.

[Guinevere]

The Northern Ireland vote, (another strong Remain area) had a less than 50% turnout...

With 39 of 382 jurisdictions reporting, some clear patterns are emerging...

In Leave areas, voter turnout is higher than predicted, and Leave victory margins are larger than expected...

In Remain areas, voter turnout is lower than predicted, and Remain victory margins are lower than expected...

Really not looking good for Remain...

It's still going to come down to London.

[Guinevere]

Some London and Scotland results push remain back up 51/49.

[Lord Jim]

It's going to come down to whether or not the turnout in London is going to be sufficiently high enough to offset the relatively low turnout in Remain localities in pretty much the rest of the UK...

And of course London is the place that was hardest hit by the storms today....

[Long Run]

50.01 to 49.99, less than 1,000 vote difference with almost 6 million votes in. Do they have chads in the U.K.?

[Guinevere]

50.01 to 49.99, less than 1,000 vote difference with almost 6 million votes in. Do they have chads in the U.K.?

They are hand counting the votes.

[Gob]

Do they have chads in the U.K.?

Chad is in Africa?

[Gob]

$Au just jumped 2p against the £ sterling!

Great stuff.

[Scooter]

ITV News results analysis: 75% probability of leave to win the EU Referendum

[Gob]

According to this analysis by Professors John Curtice and Stephen Fisher, these are the councils where the result could be tight:
High Peak, Derbyshire (estimated 02:30 declaration time)
Isle of Anglesey (02:30)
Woking (02:30)
Worcester (03:00-04:00)
Portsmouth (03:30)
Rhondda Cyon Taff (03:30)
Harrogate (04:00)
Vale of Glamorgan (04:00)
Slough (05:00)