KCL • CCH • Minor programme • AV1000 • Numerical and graphical analysis

AV1000
Fundamentals of the digital humanities
Voting in the General Elections 1974–2005

This exercise concerns voting patterns in the U.K. General Elections of 1974 through 2005. (The source is the website of the Electoral Commission, but the “other” figures are computed from their data rather than copied directly.) After entering the data that follows into a spreadsheet and adding the appropriate labels to identify each column and row as appropriate, do the following:

  1. Create a chart or charts to show the results in a useful way.
  2. Compute the percentage of the total number of votes in each of the elections. Devise the formula such that you get no more than 2 decimal places of accuracy. Pay close attention to the type of addressing you use (relative or absolute).
Year Party Votes
1974 Labour 11,456,597
  Conservative 10,464,675
  Liberal 6,346,800
  Scottish N.P. 839,628
  Plaid Cmyru 166,321
  Others 195,065
1979 Labour 11,506,741
  Conservative 13,697,753
  Liberal 4,305,324
  Scottish N.P. 504,259
  Plaid Cmyru 132,544
  Others 188,063
1983 Labour 8,457,124
  Conservative 13,012,602
  Liberal/S.D.P. 7,780,587
  Scottish N.P. 331,975
  Plaid Cmyru 125,309
  Others 198,383
1987 Labour 10,029,944
  Conservative 13,760,525
  Liberal/S.D.P. 7,341,152
  Scottish N.P. 416,873
  Plaid Cmyru 123,589
  Green 89,753
  Others 37,576
1992 Labour 11,560,484
  Conservative 14,093,007
  Liberal Democrat 5,999,606
  Scottish N.P. 629,564
  Plaid Cmyru 156,796
  Green 170,047
  Others 1,004,570
1997 Labour 13,518,167
  Conservative 9,600,943
  Liberal Democrat 5,242,947
  Scottish N.P. 621,550
  Plaid Cmyru 161,030
  Green 63,991
  Others 2,077,656
2001 Labour 10,724,895
  Conservative 8,357,622
  Liberal Democrat 4,812,833
  Scottish N.P. 464,305
  Plaid Cmyru 195,892
  Green 166,487
  Others 1,646,764
2005 Labour 9,552,436
  Conservative 8,784,915
  Liberal Democrat 5,985,454
  UK Independence Party 605,973
  Scottish N.P. 412,267
  Green 283,414
  Democratic Unionist Party 241,856
  British National Party 192,745
  Plaid Cymru 174,838
  Other 914,612

revised January 2008