h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I WAS posting about MY personal odds. Using two supposedly learned studies by people that do know what they are talking about.

About the broad scale, that first assessment of odds doesn't seem to account for variations of life styles and body conditions developed over the years from work, sport, any health conditions that are hereditary or general self abuse.

And what is a Kokwomble? Something obviously that you are more familiar with than I.

Kok Womble is a character in a fantasy gaming site
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/14654341/

There's an interesting article here:
http://ukandeu.ac.uk/votes-at-16-what-effect-would-it-have/
... from before the referendum that looks at the effect of 16-17 year olds being given the right to vote in the then "upcoming referendum".

Two issues - which way would 16-17 year olds vote, and would they turn out to vote? There's some data there on their likely views, but it looks thin and is from before the campaign. And while the Scottish referendum seems to have energised younger voters, would the EU referendum (as it was at the time, when it looked like a safe bet for remain, not how we see it now) have engaged them in the same way?

Conclusion?
"Comprising a small percentage of the total electorate and being somewhat heterogeneous in their views, 16- and 17-year-olds, if enfranchised, could swing the referendum result only if the vote is very tight."

Frustratingly, they don't define "very tight". But... if we assume that there's a small effect of these 16-17 year olds joining the electorate and another small effect of older voters leaving both the electorate and this mortal coil... can we justify saying that we're probably already at or past that point?

Someone with more time and greater stats aptitute can probably crunch some numbers... there are some useful links in that article to other resources.

As I recall, there was some obfuscation of allowing young voters to actually vote. Like making them have a settled address before they could register, which they disproportionately don't have since they're off at uni and such.

Gerrymadnering has many forms.

Or was that the last general election? I don't fully recall.

Perhaps the scrambling to allow them/disallow them to vote had some excessive effect on the Leave campaign's budget

The stats I saw in the first post covered age groups up to 64. What about voters 65 and above?

I think there are voter participation issues here. In my own country (the U.S.), we have a vigorous organization of elderly people, the AARP, which can motivate sizable numbers of elderly people to get out there and vote on matters that are seen as affecting them.

What I didn't know is whether the British have a comparable organization, nor whether, with or without such an organization, elderly voters consistently become involved in elections and referenda.

Elderly voters would tend to have fewer years remaining, but we can't know from the data given how robust their numbers were in Brexit.

Over-65s were more than twice as likely as under-25s to have voted to Leave the European Union

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/06/27/how-britain-voted

We don't need people to die, we need them to get old.

Orcus - the reason for requiring a settled address is because there was an issue with students voting twice at the last election

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/17/watchdog-investigates-claims-of-people-voting-twice-at-general-election

Thankfully, being students and therefore the brightest and best of our society, they then went on to boast about it on social media.

I think what we need is, not for people to get old, but for people to get educated. The bizarre figure in those statistics is the 5% of UKIPers who voted Remain...

Let's face it, if you polled ALL of them, 5% of UKIPers would probably vote to receive a punch in the face every day for the rest of their lives.

" if we assume that there's a small effect of these 16-17 year olds joining the electorate and another small effect of older voters leaving both the electorate and this mortal coil... can we justify saying that we're probably already at or past that point? "

That's precisely what I'm asking - if you had let 16 (or in fact, by now, 15.5) year olds vote, AND they'd voted in similar proportions to 18 year olds generally, AND you discounted all the votes from people who've died since polling day - does that swing it? And if not, just how long will it be until it does?

I think this is a very important number, because the case for re-running the referendum would, I think, be massively helped by it, IF you can show that all things being equal the result would change, purely from demographic change, and equally, if the number turns out to be such that it wouldn't swing for twenty years, then there's your justification for not running it again. It leaves out any question of the lies of the Leave campaign or everything we've learned in the last two years, but I when I talk to or otherwise interact with Leave voters I get the impression most of them have learned nothing much since primary school.

Is there an element of the following to the voting pattern?

1) Younger voters are more idealistic and open to change than
2) Middle aged voters who are more focused on self and family but
3) Older voters see the bigger picture.

Based on the evidence that middle aged voters voted to leave but younger voters voted to remain and older voters even more so?

If this is true, then it doesn't matter if you wait 5, 15 or 50 years.

The question is predicated on the assumption that nobody changes what they voted in 2016.

Because hey - "the people have decided".

" when I talk to or otherwise interact with Leave voters I get the impression most of them have learned nothing much since primary school." [Hoovooloo]

The geography I learned in primary school is very different from the geography we have now. What used to be Yugoslavia is a cluster of small countries, and the U.S.S.R. is gone. Burma is Myanmar, and so on. The science they used to teach is much less accurate than the science they would be teaching now.

I find this very depressing. It takes a lot for me to try to stay on top of the things that are changing, and it's not cool that there are people who aren't trying.....

The problem is.

Just less than 28% of registered Brits did not vote in the June EU referendum, that is about 13 million people. And those not resident in the UK were excluded from voting.

That has caused a rift in the UK and add to that the damage to the economy has shown that leave is at least a daft idea.

The UK has not left yet but its costing the economy £320 millions a week. It has been suggested that the London markets alone will loose more than that every day.

The EU do not rule the UK we all work together with other member countries they all pay their contributions at the same rates as the UK.

The problems the UK negotiators are not going to get a better deal and there is every chance the now educated UK population might just want to change there minds, now all the facts and consequences are known.

Re run the referendum. What have we got to loose the politicians are there to follow the wishes of the people, so lets hear what they think before its to late.

I'm not in a position to be part of that solution, but I wish you well.

@bobstafford:

" the politicians are there to follow the wishes of the people"

That's what they're doing. "Brexit means Brexit".

Here's your problem:
If we stop Brexit, Leave voters will be pissed off.
If we plough on, Remain voters will be pissed off.

Leave voters, as a mass, are not like Remain voters, as a mass.

Case one risks riots, large scale civil disturbance, and more incidents like what happened to Jo Cox.

Case two risks some sternly worded letters to the Guardian and some loud tutting.

If you were a politician, which would you do?

Tutting loud enough to be heard across the Atlantic.

Those damn Liberals are showing their teeth these days

I'm surprised they can find their teeth...