• **** EMBARGO : not for publication before election polls close at 10pm on Thursday, May 6, 2021 *****

The Conservatives are forecast to win the West of England metro mayor election because the other parties have failed to grasp the tactics needed under the quirky voting system, an expert has concluded.

Independent statistician Nigel Marriott, whose 2019 General Election prediction turned out to be more accurate than exit polls, has crunched the numbers to come up with the most likely scenarios at the polls today (Thursday, May 6).

He says the way residents cast their ballots under "supplementary voting" is ideally suited where the top two candidates are clear beforehand.

But five different parties have topped the poll in the last seven elections where everyone in Bristol, South Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset – the three councils comprising the West of England Combined Authority (Weca) – has had their say.

The Tories had the most votes across the Weca patch in the 2015 and 2019 General Elections, as well as the 2017 metro mayor contest, but the most popular party in the region were the Greens at the 2019 EU polls, Labour at the 2017 General Election, UKIP in the 2014 EU elections and Lib Dems at the 2010 General Election.

Mr Marriott, from Bath, says the open nature of the contest means it is far from obvious who will be the top two candidates to go through to the second and final round of counting for metro mayor.

In supplementary voting, residents cast a vote for their favourite candidate and then have the option of marking a second preference.

Assuming no one wins more than half of the votes, the two with the highest number go through to a second round of counting and the rest are eliminated.

But only the second choices of voters whose preferred candidates are knocked out in round one are then added to the totals of the two remaining hopefuls, while those for any candidate eliminated are effectively wasted.

Mr Marriott says Labour, Lib Dems and Greens do not seem to understand the implications of this because none of them have indicated who their supporters should be putting down as their second choice, mostly because even they are in the dark about who it should be.

He says the likely outcome is that this will split the vote between them and that Samuel Williams will succeed fellow Conservative Tim Bowles as regional mayor, beating Labour's Dan Norris, Lib Dem Stephen Williams and the Greens' Jerome Thomas, all of whom have a decent chance of getting through to round two.

In a blog explaining his forecast, Mr Marriott said: "It will be close but I am predicting that the Conservatives will hold onto the metropolitan mayoralty.

"By rights, they should not be winning but the three parties opposing them do not seem to understand the subtleties of the supplementary vote and they will end up splitting their votes to their detriment."

He said based on national polls and previous elections he expected the Tories to win at least 35 per cent of the vote in round one and Labour to come second with about 30 per cent.

But Mr Marriott said the Greens were the "wildcard" because current polling trends showed the party's vote was about double what it was just two years ago and that the Lib Dems, who, like Labour, had nominated a former government minister, also had a decent chance of being in the top two.

He said: "History shows that, at most, 40 per cent of the votes from the eliminated parties after round one have their second preferences counted in round two.

"The Conservatives only need a one-third of the second preferences to win and they got 43 per cent in 2017.

"I think this is eminently achievable since it is not clear to Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters which party they should be giving their second preferences to.

"In part that is because of Weca's diverse history that gives all three opposition parties a plausible chance of being in the top two.

"The effect is that not only are they splitting the anti-Tory vote in the first round, they are also splitting the vote in the second round and it seems that the three opposition parties do not understand this."

Mr Marriott said the problem with supplementary voting in a region where all four parties have topped the poll at some point since 2010 was that it was hard for voters to guess which two parties would go through from round one.

"In Weca, the Greens have a decent chance of second place, so it would make sense for the Greens to tell their voters to give their second preferences to Labour and for Labour to tell their voters to give their second preferences to the Greens.

"However, the Lib Dems have chosen an ex-minister as a candidate, they are in control of B&NES Council, so what happens if the Lib Dem comes second?

"Then Labour and Greens will have ended up with mutually assured destruction with none of their second preferences counting and yet again the Conservatives are home and dry.

"What should have happened here is that if the three opposition parties were determined to oust the Conservatives, one of them should have stood down for this election.

"Of course, that is easy for me to say and extremely hard for the three parties to agree upon, so yet again the Conservatives win because the opposition are not taking into account the subtleties of supplementary voting."

The results of round one are expected around midday on Saturday, with round two (if required) mid-afternoon.

Mr Marriott's blog is here: https://marriott-stats.com/nigels-blog/weca-mayor-2021-election-forecast/