The Virtual General Election

Welcome to the UK Virtual Election 2010

What is it?

The UK Virtual Election is a social experiment designed to predict the winner of the 2010 general election. We are hoping to receive one million virtual votes which will make this the largest poll in UK political history.

We are using a highly sophisticated SMS voting platform for this experiment which will provide us with highly detailed statistics and will allow us to predict the winner on both a national and per constituency level.

Why?

We think it will be interesting to see how our results differ from the actual general election results. We also hope it will go some way to proving that electronic voting would be viable in future elections.

How do I vote?

Simply click "VOTE" below the party you wish to vote for above. You will then be provided with instructions.
We only require your age, gender and the first part of your post code, we will not ask for personal details.

Election Rules (Important)

In order to make this experiment as accurate as possible please keep to the following rules.

1: You must be over 18 and be registered to vote in the UK.

2: You should be intending to vote in the real general election.

3: You must only vote once.

We have no way of policing some of the above rules however we do ask you to please abide by them. If you do not intend to vote in the real general election then there is no benefit in you contributing to our data.

Why SMS?

We chose text messaging as the method of voting for two reasons, the first being that it's the UK's favourite method of communication with over 10 billion texts sent every month in the UK.

More importantly however it allows us to prevent fraudulent voting - our software will only allow one vote per mobile phone, multiple votes would be more difficult to prevent with an internet voting system.

Why should I vote?

We hope you share our curiosity in finding out whether the result can be predicted accurately using a large sample of voting data - traditional polls are often very small and as a result - inaccurate.

In addition our sponsor has kindly agreed to donate an Apple iPad as a prize. We will select a mobile number at random on June 5th (The iPad will be purchased and provided to the winner upon release in the UK).

The winner of the Apple iPad will have their status verified on the electoral register - this is to ensure people do not break rule number one above for the purposes of entering the prize draw.

Will I have to pay to vote?

Of course not! You will not be charged any fees for voting in the virtual election, the mobile networks may charge you for a standard text depending on your mobile tariff - on some tariffs it will be inclusive.

Important Information

We will be accepting votes for a period of 14 days only. We believe the closer to the election we do this the more accurate the results will be. We must also ask you once again to keep to the rules - even if only a few percent of voters submit false votes or are not entitled to vote - the result data could be contaminated.

Virtual Voting Begins : Monday 19th April 2010
Virtual Voting Ends : Monday 3rd May 2010
Virtual Results Announced : Wednesday 5th May 2010
Real General Election : Thursday 6th May 2010

We will publish the results of the virtual election on this web site and in a press release on Wednesday 5th May 2010. This data will include the overall winner and also our prediction on the result per constituency.

If all goes to plan we hope to accurately predict the EXACT results of the general election.

We would also like to point out that we are not affiliated with any government department or political party nor do we support any one political party. We are completely impartial.

Thank you for taking the time to visit this web site and we hope you will spare a few seconds of your time to vote. You will be contributing to a very exciting experiment with a chance of winning an iPad also.