Posts Tagged ‘General Election’
Election Forecast for Pakatan Harapan in Peninsular Malaysia (GE14)
1. Introduction
On January 10th 2018 a detailed listing of the 165 seats being contested by Pakatan Harapan (PH) component parties in Peninsular Malaysia was published in The Star and Malaysiakini (https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/408114). Based on this listing, the seat division is as follows:
- 52 seats contested by PPBM
- 51 seats contested by PKR
- 35 seats contested by DAP
- 27 seats contested by AMANAH
This report provides an overview of the seats contested by component parties in PH, the winning odds and forecasted results for each seat under a number of different scenarios. Analysis was performed based on the 2017 1st Quarter (Q1) electoral roll, 2016 3rd Quarter (Q3) electoral roll, State and Federal seat results from the 13th General Election (GE13) and individual historical voting patterns from GE12 (2008) and GE13 (2013).
A copy of this report in PDF format can be downloaded at https://drive.google.com/file/d/16glv67fwRybQxdKS7X1fFC9R1SN0TSGy/view?usp=sharing
How Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat Performed With Voters in Sarawak (GE13)
1. Background
Prior to the 13th General Election (GE13) we came up with a methodology of predicting election results based on voting patterns in previous elections.
Our method relied on mapping polling lane results to individual voters. This process assigned probability values (chance of turnout; chance of voting for each coalition) to the voter that was not affected if they migrated to another constituency. This is important because between GE12 and GE13 527,849 voters migrated to different constituencies.
The impact of voter migration cannot be measured for a single seat just by comparing results of GE12 and GE13 for that seat. An analysis of the whole country needs to be performed. New voter registrations, voters passing away and voters no longer eligible to vote are other factors that require deep analysis.
After GE13 we were able to apply the same estimation method to voters based on GE13 results. By comparing the shift in probabilities we are able to calculate the swing in support for each coalition. Because we base our calculations on individual voters, we are able to calculate shifts in support based on combinations of the following dimensions:
- By Age
- By Race
- By Gender
- By Urban Development Category (rural / semi-urban / urban)
- By Parliament/State Assembly Seat
- By Polling District
- By Locality
- By Seats Won by Specific Parties
Any voter whose level of support cannot be determined is assigned a probability of 50% and categorised as a fence-sitter. The most reliable metric is age because voters are separated into polling lanes based on age. Additionally we have also categorised the 222 Parliament constituencies as rural, semi-urban or urban based on satellite imagery. The descriptions of each category are:
Rural = villages (kampungs) / small towns / farmland distributed within the seat. Rural seats tend to be physically large with a low population.
Semi-urban = larger towns and/or numerous small towns, may include villages as well
Urban = cities where a majority of the seat is covered by some form of urban development
For this report we will focus on how Pakatan Rakyat (PR) and Barisan Nasional (BN) performed with regular voters (pengundi biasa) in Sarawak. 31 of the total 222 Parliament seats are in Sarawak.
Our analysis will focus on Malay, Chinese and Bumiputera Sarawak voters. Other ethnic groups such as Indians, Orang Asli and Bumiputera Sabah voters will be counted under the ‘Others’ category unless otherwise specified. This is due to their low numbers within the electorate and the lack of detail within the National Census data.
Postal and early voters are not part of this analysis, other than the section on polling lanes. Postal voters need to be analysed separately due to their different voting process and difficulties in campaigning to both groups.
The predicted support for PR based on GE12 was estimated to be low. This is because in GE12 the PR component parties did not contest all seats. SNAP and Independents contested BN in some seats with no PR candidates. There were also seats that were won by BN uncontested. PR was effectively untested in Sarawak.
We tested analysis using SNAP and Independent results as ‘pro-Opposition’ in place of PR. However this approach made little impact on the analysis. A vote for SNAP or Independents also cannot be assumed as a vote for PR. To keep analysis consistent with a ‘BN versus PR’ perspective we did not treat SNAP and Independent candidate results as PR results.
We will also present analysis of seats at the state (DUN) level based on individual voting at the Parliament level. It is not as accurate as performing analysis based on state-level results but it should be applicable for constituencies where voters voted for the same coalition (BN / PR) for both state and Parliament.
Please remember that unless otherwise stated, all statistics in this analysis refer to regular voters in Sarawak only.
Analysing Pakatan Rakyat’s Performance with Malay Voters in Peninsular Malaysia (GE13)
1. Background
Prior to the 13th General Election (GE13) we came up with a methodology of predicting election results based on voting patterns in previous elections (reference).
Our method relied on mapping polling lane results to individual voters. This process assigned probability values (chance of turnout; chance of voting for each coalition) to the voter that was not affected if they migrated to another constituency. This is important because between GE12 and GE13 527,849 voters migrated to different constituencies.
The impact of voter migration cannot be measured for a single seat just by comparing results of GE12 and GE13 for that seat. An analysis of the whole country needs to be performed. New voter registrations, voters passing away and voters no longer eligible to vote are other factors that require deep analysis.
After GE13 we were able to apply the same estimation method to voters based on GE13 results. By comparing the shift in probabilities we are able to calculate the swing in support for each coalition. Because we base our calculations on individual voters, we are able to calculate shifts in support based on combinations of the following dimensions:
- By Age
- By Race
- By Gender
- By Urban Development Category (rural / semi-urban / urban)
- By Parliament/State Assembly Seat
- By Polling District
- By Locality
- By Seats Won by Specific Parties
Any voter whose level of support cannot be determined is assigned a probability of 50% and categorised as a fence-sitter. The most reliable metric is age because voters are separated into polling lanes based on age. Additionally we have also categorised the 222 Parliament constituencies as rural, semi-urban or urban based on satellite imagery (reference). The descriptions of each category are:
Rural = villages (kampungs) / small towns / farmland distributed within the seat. Rural seats tend to be physically large with a low population.
Semi-urban = larger towns and/or numerous small towns, may include villages as well
Urban = cities where a majority of the seat is covered by some form of urban development
For this report we will focus on how Pakatan Rakyat (PR) and Barisan Nasional (BN) performed with regular Malay voters (pengundi biasa) in Peninsular Malaysia. 184 of the total 222 Parliament seats are in Peninsular Malaysia, where most of the Malay electorate is concentrated.
Elections are won based on the number of seats. However our analysis will mainly be on the Malay electorate treated as a set of voters ignoring constituency boundaries. We will examine this at the state-level and for Peninsular Malaysia. This will allow us to see patterns that are not obvious at the seat-level.
Postal and early voters are not part of this analysis. They need to be analysed separately due to their different voting process and difficulties in campaigning to both groups.
Please remember that unless otherwise stated, all statistics in this analysis refer to regular voters in Peninsular Malaysia only.