2013 senatorial election: where did the votes come from?

Do you remember the (in)famous "60-30-10" pattern that Rappler.com that debunked in not just one but three articles? Have you compared it with the 2010 senatorial election results? Now, do you wanna see where the candidates got their votes?

60-30-10: Compare it with 2010!

So you've heard of the 60-30-10 conspiracy theory. You can choose to believe whatever explanation there is, but one thing has bugged as: has it always been this way? A pattern when you add up per party totals in senatorial elections? First, a refresher. Here's the 2013 Senate election results per region: 

 

The national pattern quite holds, but there are minor differences now per region. Something to the tune of 6%. The pattern deviates further when you break it down into provinces and cities which were directly canvassed by the NBOC:

   

Now, here's the 2010 presidential election per region: 

 

As seen here, the 42-26-16-11-5 national ratio does not hold up in most regions. But this is a single-winner election, and we can't compare this one to the 2013 senatorial election. What we can compare it with, is the 2010 senatorial election. 

Here's the chart of the 2010 senatorial election, and compare it to the 2013 results per province.

But first, there were several shared guest candidates here, so it's imperative that I disclose how I came up with this chart.

For LP: Acosta, Bautista, M., Biazon, Drilon, Guingona, Hontiveros, Lacson, Lao, Lim, Recto, Roco.

For NP: Cayetano, Defensor-Santiago, Marcos, Maza, Mitra, Ocampo, S., Ople, Pimentel, Querubin, Remulla, Tamano

For PMP: Bautista, JV, De Venecia, Enrile, Estrada, Lozada, Plaza, Tatad.

For Lakas-Kampi: Bello, Guico, Lambino, Langit, Lapid, Revilla.

For others: Entire KBL, Kapatiran, Bangon Pilipinas slates, Caunan, Osmena, E., Osmena, S., Palparan, Princesa, Sotto. 

Data came from Ateneo's mirror of the now dead COMELEC-Smartmatic website for the 2010 election results (for provincial-level results), and the official COMELEC website for the national total per candidate. Unlike the "Transparency server" that was used in 2013, the results in this website were the actual results used by the board of canvassers. The reason I came up with this conclusion is that the vote totals here are identical with the vote totals of the winning candidates displayed on the official COMELEC website.

I realized you haven't read most of what I've said above and went directly here. Can't blame you LOL

 

(National totals at the far right.)

Time to draw up your own conclusions!

2013 elections: You compute the results!

In legislative (or parliamentary) elections, the popular vote totals of every party is computed. This is the sum of votes each party participated at on every district it participated in. For some reason, that hasn't been done in the Philippines. In fact, even the most basic of election results, such as the number of seats a party won in the lower house elections isn't published anywhere. Not by the media, not by the parties themselves, or even by the COMELEC.

This 2013, that changes.

With the power of the internet, and the power of Smartmatic and COMELEC, we can now compute the popular vote totals for every party that participated in this year's elections to the House of Representatives. With this, we can also compute how many seats a party wins.

This is actually pretty easy. First, we'd need the stats from COMELEC. Starting in the 2010 elections, we have been supplied by the COMELEC and Smartmatic vote totals up to the precinct level in the internet. Without those, this project won't be possible.

Then, on this document, you can encode/paste the vote totals from the official COMELEC website. The Microsoft Excel spreadsheet automatically detects which party wins the district.

With that, the only thing we'd need are vote totals. Once we get those, just encode, and voila, we'd know the party standing for the upcoming 16th Congress.

Be a part of this project that has never been attempted before. Be a part of history. Now, your vote really counts.

2013 elex: SWS survey beatdown

You already know it's election season already, right? Election season won't be complete without our election surveys. SWS, Pulse Asia, even the likes of StratPolls and the Center, and whatever "scientific" survey I can get my hands on. Our pollsters aren't plentiful, and they only release monthly surveys on election seasons, so there aren't that many surveys we can dig data upon; in fact, most of the time, the media only reports surveys published by SWS and Pulse Asia.

What's the point of this post, you ask? It's about time to aggregate all of these surveys into one survey of surveys, or the "poll of polls", one figure you can use to represent all surveys within a certain time period. What separates a non-scientific survey from supposedly "scientific" ones? It lies in the sampling. In non-scientific surveys, like phone-in surveys, Facebook and internet polls and the like, not everyone (or every voter) has an equal chance of participating. For example, those who do not wish to join the survey, or those who are physically (did not watch TV show that encouraged viewers to vote) or technologically capable (does not have Facebook) would not have been given a chance to participate. This is opposed from scientific surveys where everyone (or every voter) supposedly has an equal chance of participating.

There lies the caveat: sampling is the heart and soul of surveys. If the population was sampled wrongly, such as getting a "heavier" sample than what would've been recommended from places where a candidate particularly strong, this will distort the figures of the survey. That, and what happens between from data gathering, to publication.

But aren't surveys condition the minds of the voter? In a perfect world, it shouldn't. In fact, the only minds the surveys should be conditioning are the campaigns per se. Surveys are meant to determine where the candidate stands; this allows the candidates' campaigns to strategize on what gimmick to do.

Now, for the dirty stuff: SWS just released their March 2013 survey. They interviewed 1,200 people in a matter of two days throughout the country. Some notes:

• Many are harping the sharp drop of Chiz's numbers. From 62 to 48; in fact, SWS implies that Chiz is now at 4th, as his name appears after JV. Chiz's numbers have been constant at the 61% to 62% range, and consistently second behind Loren.
• Alan's numbers were statistically identical (down by 1%) from the previous survey, but he jumped from 3rd to 2nd due to Chiz's massive drop in the latter's preferences.
• One thing constant in the surveys is the separation between #2 and #3 in the survey. It still holds true now, although it is now reversed: Alan is #2 and Chiz is now tied for #3. JV's numbers went up (6%) from the last SWS survey, but he jumped from 9th-10th to 3rd-4th. This comes after a massive drop for his preferences on February vs. his January numbers, which are his personal high. This also means those ranked from 4th to 13th are separated by the thinnest of margins.
• Honasan, who is running a guerrilla campaign, jumps back into the Magic 12 after losing ground in February. Honasan is traditionally an independent, and doesn't participate in "air wars", but joined UNA this year as a full candidate.
• Bam's numbers are unchanged at 42%, interestingly, 42% of the voters voted for Noynoy in 2010. Is this the peak of his support?
• MTRCB's numbers saw a noticeable drop (8%) that saw her ranking fall from 5th-6th to 11th. Amongst the three erstwhile UNA guest candidates, only Loren Legarda, and her army of Facebook commenters, managed to hang on to their respective positions; even Loren's preferences herself went down by 5%.
• JunMag's preferences are steadily going up. Though its rise is not as spectacular as Bam's, Nancy's, or MTRCB's, the son of the former beloved president is within the margin of error of the #12 candidate.
• Every since the campaign started, Migz's numbers have been free falling. From 47% in January, 39% last month and 35% now.
• The Team Patay label on Risa seems to have worked on her favor as her preferences are rising steadily, from 21% in December to 29% now. The 13th-place candidate is at 39% and unlike in 2010, she might not make it even to the margin of error, if her 2010 voters will vote for her again in 2013. In senatorial elections in presidential years, the 13th placed candidate ("the quota") usually gets >30% of the vote, as opposed to midterms, where the "quota" is <35%. (For a more detailed explanation, see my PEX post.)
• UNA's tailenders, Tingting, Ernie and Mitos, who have to move if they want to win. Tingting has to show the big guns in Mikey Cojuangco and even Dudut Jaworski, or even the Big J himself. Ernie and Mitos would also have to step up to catch the big boys. Tingting and Mitos have been constant with their preferences at the mid-teens, while Ernie's preferences drop with a tie with Hontiveros at 25% on January.
• Bro. Eddie's and Hagedorn's preferences are constant at the 10%-15% range. Everyone whose numbers are below Maceda's are stuck in a muck.
• Teddy's numbers are hovering in the range of votes received by Liza Maza and Satur Ocampo in 2010. Perhaps that's the peak of the support of Left in this country for the meantime. If Teddy wants to win, he has to attract support outside his base.
• It's a massive battle for scrubs between Ang Kapatiran, DPP and the independents below 10%. These haven't broke through above 5% in any survey (except for JC de los Reyes in a StratPolls survey where he got 12%). It remains to be seen if AKP's numbers would go up due to the publicity garnered by the Team Buhay/Team Patay campaign.

In the coming days: the aggregate poll of polls. All of the polls in one handy statistic you shouldn't use.

2013 Senate election primers

Much has been said about the 2013 elections' lack of party structure, political maturity and party switching that is endemic of Philippine politics since the Spanish were overthrown by the Americans. The politics of this country has been described as "clientelistic": a politician, or the "big man" is the provided of basic services to his constituents, not unlike feudalism of Europe in the Middle Ages.

In fact, voters have much to be blamed on the current mess that is called Philippine politics. Not only are the politicians benefiting from the current setup, but voters themselves are beneficiaries of this feudalism in the 21st century. Provide services, and we'd vote. Well of course, this shouldn't be the case, at least in legislative elections. Elections to legislature are meant to provide us a voice.

Which means that whomever you'd vote for in legislative elections isn't someone who'd give you favors for the next three years: it's someone you'd agree with on every issue you can think of. This is the purpose of these series of posts. Here, you'd see the voting records of senatorial candidates in the 15th Congress. Here, it is not what they'd promise they'd do, but what they actually did while in office. This avoids the ambiguity of motherhood statements that is predominantly used by politicians.

The websites of the Senate and the House of Representatives (aka "Congress.gov.ph", even though both chambers is "the" Congress") provide the voting records of every member of Congress on every bill that has been tackled on the plenary floor. This means we can assign "votes" on every candidate that has served in the 15th Congress. There are usually 5 types of votes: for, against, abstentions, did not vote as a Speaker, and absent. In the lower house, in keeping with Speaker Denison's rule, the Speaker (or the presiding officer) is officially neutral and doesn't vote unless to break ties. I dunno if there had been any tied vote in the lower house, as most bills are passed unanimously (as you'd see below); this means the second part of Speaker Denison's rule, in which the speaker would vote against, has been tested. However, no senatorial candidate has sat as the presiding officer in the House of Representatives, so it is not listed here.

There are limitations, though: not all senatorial candidates have been members of the 15th Congress, or have been members of Congress at all. This means we'd only limit these voting records, on naturally, those who were able to vote in the 15th Congress. These are the following:

Team PNoy

• Juan Edgardo Angara
• Alan Peter Cayetano
• Francis Escudero
• Loren Legarda
• Aquilino Pimentel III
• Antonio Trillanes

UNA

• JV Ejercito
• Jack Enrile
• Gregorio Honasan
• Mitos Magsaysay
• Juan Miguel Zubiri

Makabayan: Teddy Casiño

These will be the bills and laws that will be initially be under consideration. Additional bills and laws might be added upon popular demand.

• Reproductive Health Law
• Sin Tax Law
• Cybercrime Prevention Law
• Amendments to the Intellectual Property Law