voting

As we build up to the national election – I find this article really fascinating. I wonder if such an approach could be developed to find out how high rural rates as an issue in terms of the build up to the election? It tells us:

Economists in Glasgow believe they can predict future election results using Google search data after they accurately forecast the vote in last year’s Scottish independence referendum.

Analysing live data on Google searches for the name Alex Salmond combined with commercial polling figures allowed the researchers to predict the yes vote would hit 45% – five days before that actual result in the referendum on 18 September.

Prof Ronald MacDonald, an economist and currency expert at Glasgow University, said they were able to track the yes vote rise with several complex methods routinely used by financial markets to analyse Google Trends’ “big data” to predict movements in stock markets and commodity prices.

In a study likely to catch the eye of political strategists who already mine internet and social media data during campaigning, MacDonald said the same methodology could be used to forecast the result in elections.

A further test for May’s general election was now being considered, he added. “Potentially, it’s a very useful tool but it’s complementary to the main pollsters. It would be feasible to do it on the day [of an election],” he said.

MacDonald, who backed the pro-UK group Academics Together during the referendum, added that an election was a more complex political event than a referendum, so the tracking would need to be more complex too. A forecast also assumed there was no cataclysmic event in the last days of campaigning.