Talk:2008 London mayoral election

Election Infobox
An election infobox should definitely be added. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.194.145.223 (talk) 22:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm reverting the election infobox (with parties) as it's a bit arbitrary... Why are the BNP listed, and not Left List..?--Gordon (talk) 13:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually I'll leave it, but I think the candidates on it may need to be reviewed, at least to add Lindsey German.--Gordon (talk) 13:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The top 7 candidates (i.e. those scoring more than 1%) last time around were Labour, Tory, LibDem, UKIP, Respect (with Lindsey German), BNP, Green and Christian Peoples Alliance, in that order; see London mayoral election, 2004 for details. If 6 candidates are to be listed in the infobox, one obvious decider of which six are the results from last time, i.e. Lab, Con, LDem, UKIP, BNP and L. German (now standing under the Left List label following the schism in Respect, with the other half of Respect not putting up a mayoral candidate), and thus notably excluding the Green's Sian Berry. On the other hand, Berry has clearly been getting more media coverage than UKIP, BNP, Left List or Respect, and the Greens did come 4th in the Assembly list vote (followed by UKIP and BNP). That said, several major hustings have been restricted to just Lab, Con and LDem.
 * So, one can construct an argument for the current 6 candidates listed (it's based on the Assembly result last time around; or it's based on the Mayoral vote last time around but there's no Respect mayoral candidate so the Greens get in), but I think both of those are somewhat spurious. The safe thing to do would be to be inclusive (i.e. anyone who got more than 1% last time, so Lab, Con, LDem, UKIP, Left List, BNP, Green and CPA) or to restrict it to the three main candidates (those who got more than 10% last time; and as recognised by the media). Anything in between seems dubious to me (e.g., why include Left List but exclude CPA?). I will be bold and do the latter, but feel free to revert me! Bondegezou (talk) 13:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

London mayoral election, 2012
It may be premature to start an article for the 2012 mayoral election, but there are two items of information which relate to it:


 * In September 2006 the government rejected calls for the 2012 mayoral election (scheduled for May 2012) to be delayed until after the 2012 Summer Olympics GOL: 2012 Election Date Unchanged


 * In November 2006 Ken Livingstone confirmed his intention to seek a fourth term as Mayor of London by announcing his candidature for 2012 Livingstone in the running for four-term marathon
 * I don't think that this can be confirmed as it would be likely to change if he loses the 2008 election

213.86.122.5 18:43, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

English Democrats
User 81.2.97.151 keeps adding unsubstantiated claims about Garry Bushell and deleting citation requests so I propose to delete this paragraph shortly if citations are not provided. All other mayoral candidacies here are backed by third-party citations. AFAIK Garry Bushell has not stated he is standing - indeed his own website makes no mention of it. 213.86.122.5 13:38, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, no citations forthcoming so I have deleted the papagraph on the English Democrats. Please feel free to put it back if reliable third-party citations can be provided. 213.86.122.5 15:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Brian Haw
I've been searching around for any evidence that Brian Haw is standing for Mayor in 2008 and can't find any. There are two places I've found it cited as a rumour (a blog and Indymedia) but even Brian's own site doesn't carry the news. I think this should be removed until a reputable citation can be provided. (Jim Jay) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.21.96.168 (talk) 14:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Respect/Left List
I have updated Lindsey German's party according to:

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/regulatory-issues/regpoliticalparties.cfm?frmGB=1&frmPartyID=818&frmType=partydetail --Gordon (talk) 22:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC) --Gordon (talk) 22:54, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The section also contains a claim that seems POV. Lindsey German used the name Left List, not necessarily to distance herself from Respect Renewal, but because she doesn't have the right to use the name Respect according to the Electoral commission.
 * I've had a go at updating the section appropriately.--Andehandehandeh (talk) 14:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Cheers --Gordon (talk) 00:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

One London Withdrawal
I'm going to rewrite the One London section a little, for now I'll leave it where it is, bit should it be moved to the bottom of the list?

How is the order decided? I'm happy to leave the top 8 as they are, but should the others be done alphabetically? --Gordon (talk) 16:19, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I've added a new section of Nominated candidates and re-titled the old one. Maybe best to leave it as it is as a historical record? 213.86.122.5 (talk) 17:44, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Voting system
Having chosen the mayor in the way described, are there any other consequences for the electorate having voted as it did? - Kittybrewster  &#9742;  12:52, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, don't know what you mean?--Gordon (talk) 17:22, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Clean up
I've reordered it so candidates come before those who are not standing. We could probably do with putting the candidates into an order - alphabetical of candidate or party names perhaps?

Is there a legal distinction between 'Withdrawn' and 'did not stand'?Pontificake (talk) 21:51, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

And I think some of the selection process section is too long for this article.Pontificake (talk) 22:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Andehandehandeh (talk) 01:04, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Only the 10 official candidates should be refered to as withdrawn, if any of them do. The rest should just be referred to as did not stand. I also think a lot of the stuff about people who didn't stand should now be removed. The most noteworthy events related to the election aren;t about the individual party selection procedures (even for the main three).

Urgent need for clean up
In its current post-nominations close state it's an absolute mess. I have given up on trying to fix what is ostensibly vandalism.

For the future, I think a section on current candidates (with or without their selection histories -- might be needed as the campaign develops) and then a separate section on those who attempted a run but didn't, would be best. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Municipalist (talk • contribs) 09:48, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, that's better! Thanks to whoever sorted it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Municipalist (talk • contribs) 09:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Voting System
Is RodCrosby's update to the page a question of semantics?

If there are only two candidates left, one of them is bound to have a majority, if not of the entire vote, of the 2nd round.--Gordon (talk) 11:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The winner will have a majority of the 'remaining' votes, but may not have been backed by the majority of all voters. There will be many voters who decline to use their second preference vote, or whose second preference candidate was eliminated. In 2000 Ken Livingstone finished with the support of 776,427 out of 1,752,303 voters (44.3%). In 2004 he finished with the support of 828,380 out of 1,920,533 voters (43.1%). My preference would be to ditch the last sentence - not sure it really adds anything and may be misleading as to the purpose of that voting system. Pontificake (talk) 16:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I think most election analysts consider the majority as a "majority of all those casting a (valid) ballot in the election." The French two-round system is different in several respects from the London SV system, most noticeably in that it is really two separate elections a fortnight apart. Clearly the French system will (barring a tie) always deliver a majority in the second election, although it may be comprised of different and fewer people than who voted in the first round, perhaps also voting differently than they did first time! So the change I made may not just be a question of semantics, but it is certainly the conventional analysis. RodCrosby (talk) 16:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clarifying. I think that last sentence should be made a little more explicit or removed altogether. After all, there are many things this could allow for but not guarantee. Cheers,--Gordon (talk) 11:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Opinion Polling
Would anyone abject to opinion polling?

Other elections such as the US Presidential election (yes I know its bigger/"more important" though) has polling? Samaster1991 (talk) 21:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I fixed the april poll result for batten, there's a question mark on the uk polling report reference given and the original results are given here: http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/pdfs/2008_april_london_mayor_poll.pdf --Gordon (talk) 13:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

E-counting
I think that it is worth mentioning that votes will be counted by machine in this election, this is the first major election in the UK to be doing something like this since the may 2007 elections in england and scotland where e-voting and e-counting failed miserably. The Open Rights Group was observing these elections and did not express confidence in the results a fairly damning report was submitted to and discussed in the house of commons on the matter. This is of fairly large concern to many people and i feel is worth mentioning. --Stoman101 (talk) 19:57, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

This sentence is confused and potentially misleading: "A digital image of the ballot paper was also taken so if there were problems with any of the papers, they could be examined by humans." What is 'they' ('they could be examined by humans')referring to? The paper ballots? Or the digital images of the paper ballots? The digital images were not created to deal with problems (which is what the text suggests): they were created to count the votes. Where there were problems with the digital images (such as artifacts or extraneous paper super-imposition on the ballot), no reference was made by count staff to the original paper ballot at all. All this is fully documented in the Open Rights Group report. A worthwhile read for anyone writing about this stuff.

Wrong flag
This is not an election for the City of London but for London. - Kittybrewster  &#9742;  22:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * A better image is Image:Arms_of_the_Greater_London_Council.svg. - Kittybrewster  &#9742;  17:15, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Instead somebody has now hoisted the Flag of England. Why????? Kittybrewster  &#9742;  15:12, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Full Second Preference Figures
Full second preference figures have now been posetd on the London Elects website (http://results.londonelects.org.uk/Results/MayoralResult.aspx). I have added figures and percentages to table.

Second Preferences don't tell the whole story
We have only been given where the votes went 'to' under 2nd preference - not where those votes came 'from' (in terms of 1st preference). Yes, that isn't strictly relevant since all the 'minor' candidates are eliminated in a single stage under the rules but the information is intriguing never-the-less (such as how many 2nd pref votes Boris Johnson collected from the BNP). This correlated data may exist - or it may never have been collated. The 'images' of voting papers were initially retained by the election authority - but have they since been deleted? Also there were a lot of uncounted 'Rejected - 2nd preference' ballots (412,054) whilst there was a similar number of 'No 2nd preference' (407,840) ballots. I take it the latter figure sits entirely within the former figure? If it does, then there is little effect on the result.


 * The official results don't go into the kind of detail you're looking for, though it's clear from the totals given that the number of "Boris Johnson 1, Ken Livingstone 2" votes was 168,109, and "Ken Livingstone 1, Boris Johnson 2" 132,815. There are some figures in "Boris vs. Ken" that are in circulation which I have listed on my blog at: http://timrollpickering.blogspot.com/2009/03/boris-didnt-win-because-of-bnp.html
 * I haven't seen the book myself but assume that if it has this kind of detail it will probably have as full a set of results as any, including methodology. Timrollpickering (talk) 10:38, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

"Final Votes"
The column listing the number of final votes seems to have a bit of an issue: Only combined totals for the top two candidates were released AFAIK, and the "final" votes for the LibDem and Green candidates are arrived at by simply adding the first and second preferences for those candidates. This overstates the results compared to what Livingstone and Johnson won, vote-share wise since some of the second preference votes for the LibDems and Greens likely came from either Johnson or Livingstone's supporters (which would, in turn, increase Johnson and Livingstone's share of the vote by removing redundant votes).

In short, the "final vote" numbers for both of those candidates ought to be removed and the vote shares reverted to what they were before, as neither the LibDem nor Green candidates were in the second round of counting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.72.100.64 (talk) 08:46, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Electoral Question
The number of spoilt ballot papers should be included (as it was a significant number)

What would have happened if, rather than creating spoilt papers, people had voted for Matt O'Connor, who withdrew? Jackiespeel (talk) 17:44, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Open Rights Group
I have removed the following text from the article:
 * Election observers have declared "there is insufficient evidence available to allow independent observers to state reliably whether the results declared in the May 2008 elections for the Mayor of London and the London Assembly are an accurate representation of voters’ intentions." London Elects have been unable to publish an audit of some of the software used in the count. The Open Rights Group reports that there was equipment directly connected to the counting servers to which observers had limited or no access to and that the presence of error messages, bugs and system freezes indicates poor software quality.

From the text I assume the Open Rights Group has been acting as unofficial observers at the election and have produced a report of their findings. Unfortunately the source used to support these statements is a self-published report by the Open Rights Group. I would be a bit less wary if the report was picked up by a reliable, third party source, but at the moment its inclusion looks a little self-promoting. Road Wizard (talk) 00:16, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Here are some reliable, Third Party Sources. The Guardian, PC Pro, The London Assembly Elections Review Committee —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.2.190.230 (talk • contribs) 12:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Why assume when you can research? The Open Rights Group are officially accredited by the Electoral Commission as election observers. They have done similar accreditations at previous elections, and their reports have been noted and commented on officially by the Electoral Commission. Gerv (talk) 15:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Please see WP:BURDEN. "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material." If the original author cannot be bothered to provide sufficient evidence in their edit, then why should I go and spend hours researching a subject I know little about to support their laziness? For your information though, I did conduct research by reading the Open Rights Group article. There appears to be no mention of any status as official election observers.
 * However, the third party sources provided by the editor in the comment above yours appears to contain the evidence I have asked for so I am unsure why this is still an issue. If you want to add the details back into the article then I am not going to be stopping you. Road Wizard (talk) 17:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I was one of the Observers for the Open Rights Group, we where officially accredited and provided ID by the Electoral Commission. The register of Accredited Observers 2008 is here https://extranet.electoralcommission.org.uk/document-summary?assetid=57285, The Guardian news paper report is already linked to as a reliable source. Kable also state "The Open Rights Group (ORG), which was accredited by the Electoral Commission to provide observers, has released a report that identifies a number of shortcomings in the electronic counting process.". Is it possible for some one to add to article about the report? 27 election observers makes the Open rights Group election mission by far the largest observer mission at the count and the result of the report is quite significant. --GlynWintle (talk) 16:06, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * See my reply to Gerv above. I only removed the content because of a lack of third party sources. As third party sources are now available there is nothing to stop someone restoring the information to the article as long as at least one of the sources is properly cited. Road Wizard (talk) 17:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Open Rights Group also observed UK elections in 2007, when its accredited status and related access issues were covered by The Register The Open Rights Group's previous elections report was mentioned in the House of Lords by the Earl of Northesk: Written Answers House of Lords 26 June 2007, and the involvement of these observers was supported in the Government's written response to the Earl (same source). Though perhaps the record of the upper chamber doesn't count as a reliable source, eh? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Franticwatermelon (talk • contribs) 16:12, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You may wish to add details of its accreditation to the Open Rights Group article. There appears to be no mention about its recognised status as an election observer. Road Wizard (talk) 17:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Note also that Open Rights Group's work on election observation has been specifically financially supported by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust (one of several grants). These reports is not exactly a 'self-published in your back bedroom' kinda thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Franticwatermelon (talk • contribs) 16:24, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot report : Found duplicate references !
In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :) DumZiBoT (talk) 06:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "Electoralcommission" :
 * Kable - Observers criticise London e-count - 2 July 2008
 * Election observers(accessed 23 July 2008)
 * Done. References renamed to "Electoralcommission1" and "Electoralcommission2". Road Wizard (talk) 06:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

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Request to revert image of Johnson
I suggest reverting to the older image of Johnson File:Boris_Johnson_(cropped).jpg, as it is a more accurate depiction of what he looked like around the time the election took place. SnoopingAsUsual (talk) 10:14, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Mayoral opinion poll table rework
I've created a mockup for a new version of the opinion poll table (first round only). It's styled similarly to other polling tables, but I've included the party name and the candidate's name within the same cell, similarly to other articles (2023 Paraguayan general election, Opinion polling for the 2022 French presidential election). The idea for this is for it to be used for other candidate based constests (by-elections, mayors, etc.). Any thoughts?

BSMIsEditing (talk) 15:55, 20 April 2024 (UTC)