Utterly tedious thread on student voting starts now... (1/16)
In 2017/18, there were 1,885,000 UK students studying in higher education. Of these, 1,442,000 were studying full-time researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefi… (2/16)
Assume all these students were 18 or older & registered to vote => wd mean students were between 3.1 and 4.1% of the Dec. 2017 electorate. ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati… (3/16)
Assume (for sake of argument) that turnout is 10% lower amongst students "out of term" compared to in term (4/16)
That would be a big effect: three times bigger than any get-out-the-vote fx we know of (5/16)
That wd mean that we would see between 144,200 and 188,500 fewer votes in an election where *all unis* are out-of-term (6/16)
What about the partisan impact? A Youthsight poll suggested ~ "38% of students would vote for Labour... 19%... Lib Dem, 18% Green, 12% Conservative, 3% SNP and 4% Brexit Party" (youthsight.com/blog/labours-v…) (7/16)
This means that an out-of-term election would cost the Labour party between 54,796 and 71,630 votes (i.e., the figures from before, multiplied by 38%) (8/16)
By the same logic, an out-of-term election would cost the Conservative party between 17,304 and 22,620 votes (9/16)
This means that an out of term election would decrease the Labour margin over the Conservatives by between 37,492 and 49,010 votes, or between 0.12% and 0.15% of the 2017 vote. (10/16)
These figures give the partisan impact of changes in turnout due to an election being called when *all* students are out of term. (11/16)
But, as @WonkHE / @dkernohan has very helpfully demonstrated, most universities are still *in term* in the week beginning the 9th December: wonkhe.com/blogs/will-the… (12/16)
@Wonkhe @dkernohan The following universities are out of term: Royal Academy of Music, Cambridge, Univ. College of Osteopathy, UAL, City University London, the Courtauld, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Royal College of Music, Oxford, the Royal Agricultural University, York and Warwick (13/16)
@Wonkhe @dkernohan These institutions collectively teach 87,280 UK nationals (source: HESA hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analy… ). (14/16)
@Wonkhe @dkernohan If all of them are UK students who are registered to vote, then the impact of turnout, according to assumptions about the fx on turnout of being out of term, is 8,729 fewer votes, and a decrease in the Labour-Conservative margin of 2270 votes *nationwide* (15/16)
@Wonkhe @dkernohan So it's probably not one to go crazy about. Unless you're @MattWestern_. G'night! (16/16)
