London: Whose second preferences went where?

Adam Bienkov over at Politics.co.uk has flagged up the official first and second preference matrix from London Elects. This is a rare chance to examine the relationships between support for different parties using hard data, as opposed to relying on polls or inferring relationships from statistical patterns.
London 2016: Whose second preferences went where?What it shows are some stark (and in many cases, unsurprising) differences. Sian Berry’s (Green) second choice votes went about 5:1 for Saddiq Khan, while Peter Whittle’s (UKIP) went about 4:1 for Goldsmith. Caroline Pidgeon’s (Lib Dem) voters broke about 3:2 for Khan on second preferences, pretty close to the 57-43 overall result after both votes.
None of the add up to anywhere near 100 per cent, because plenty of voters used their second preference on candidates that didn’t make it to the first round. UKIP voters gave more second preference votes to the BNP than to Labour, while more of Sophie Walker’s (WEP) voters opted for the Greens on their second vote than for the Conservatives. Despite Zac Goldsmith’s much-touted environmental credentials, more Green second preferences went to the Lib Dems and the WEP than for the Tory candidate.
Also, many voters either didn’t use their second preference or used it for the same candidate as their first preference (which doesn’t spoil the ballot, but doesn’t count either).





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