Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1118959
17 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 19 MAY 2019 NEWS EUROPEAN ELECTIONS Projection still sees Labour holding on to fourth seat Step 1: Eligible voters There are 371,625 Maltese peo- ple aged 16 and over registered as voters for the European Parlia- ment election. These include EU citizens in Malta who will vote here. Given that the May election is for the European Parliament, EU citizens in Malta can also vote. The number of EU citizens regis- tered to vote is 18,160. Step 2: Basis on which EP vote is projected For the purpose of this exer- cise, the EP election result is be- ing modelled on the findings of the mid-May MaltaToday survey. The numbers in the brackets rep- resent the change over the start- of-May results. The raw MT survey results produced the following relevant numbers: No vote: 9.2% (-0.6); Don't know: 18.6% (+6.2); No answer: 0.9% (-0.9); PL: 41.3% (-2.8); PN: 27.9% (-1.1); Others: 2.2% (-0.8). If the people who did not de- clare a voting intention are re- moved from the equation, the projected results for the political parties would be: PL: 57.8% (-0.2); PN: 39.1% (+1); Others: 3.1% (-0.9) Step 3: Key assumptions Those who said they will not vote, are unsure and did not an- swer – a total of 28.7% (+4.7) – will stay at home on 25 May. This gives a turnout of 71.3% (-4.7), which is lower than the turnout of 75% in the last EP election of 2014. It is assumed that from those who turn out to vote, 98% will cast a valid vote. This percentage is based on the last EP election in 2014. These figures will give a nation- al quota of 37,096 votes, which is the number a candidate has to reach to get elected. The quota is calculated by di- viding the number of valid votes cast by seven (one more than the number of seats that have to be elected), plus one. Eligible voters: 371,625 Turnout at 71.3% 264,969 Valid votes cast 98%: 259,670 Quota to get elected: 37,096 Step 4: Projected seats in May 2019 The projected results obtained by the political parties in the MT survey are used to calculate the projected number of votes they could be ex- pected to receive in the election. This is worked as a percentage of valid votes cast. The votes projected for each party are divided by the quota to deter- mine how many quotas the party is expected to have totted up at the first count. This is indicative of the number of seats that are likely to go the party's way. MEP 2019 (MT 19 May survey) Party Vote share Votes Quotas Projected seats PL 57.8% 150,089 4.05 4 PN 39.1% 101,531 2.74 2 Others 3.1% 8,050 0.22 0 MEP 2019 (MT 5 May survey) Party Vote share Votes Quotas Projected seats PL 58% 160,536 4.06 4 PN 38.1% 105,455 2.67 2 Others 4% 11,071 0.28 0 The results of the 2014 MEP election show how the number of projected seats the parties started with at the first count was a good reflection of how they eventually ended up. The quota in 2014 was 35,979. MEP 2014 Party Vote share Votes Quotas Actual seats PL 53.4% 134,462 3.74 3 PN 40% 100,785 2.80 3 Others 6.6% 16,604 0.46 0 The Projection SIX days before the European elec- tion, MaltaToday is projecting that the Labour Party will win four seats against the Nationalist Party's two. The projection is based on the sur- vey being published today, which is the last poll before Saturday's vote. Translating the survey results into actual votes shows that the gap be- tween the PL and the PN will be in the range of 48,558 votes. The PL is projected to hold on to four quotas at the first count, while the PN will have two quotas. The projection shows the PN still falling short of the third seat despite an im- proved result. To retain the third seat, the PN will need to ensure that it does not lose votes during the transfer process, inherit the votes of third parties and hope that PL voters ditch their par- ty's plea to vote for all Labour can- didates. KURT SANSONE THE Labour Party leads the Nationalist Party by 13 points with six days to go for the Eu- ropean election as voter ap- prehension grows, a MaltaTo- day survey found. The results show that both major parties experienced declines since the last survey published a fortnight ago. The PL polled 41.3%, a drop of almost three points, and the PN scored 27.9%, one point less than the last survey result. If the survey results are pro- jected onto the eligible voter population by excluding from the equation those who have not declared their vote, the PL is set to win the European election with 57.8% and a vote difference with the PN of al- most 49,000. The PN would obtain 39.1% of the vote (See separate article). The survey was held between Thursday 9 May and Wednes- day 15 May. The number of people who said they were unsure who to vote for grew to 18.6% from 12.4%. But the number of peo- ple who said they will not vote on Saturday continued to slide to 9.2% from 9.8%. Norman Lowell's Imperium Europa, which registered for the first time at the start of May, maintained its result, scoring 1.1% and polling high- er than Alternattiva Demokra- tika and the Democratic Party together. Support for AD and PD de- clined, while the Maltese Pa- triots Movement registered a lowly 0.1%. This is the first time since August last year that support for MPM was captured by the survey. PL loses ground in south, strengthens in Gozo The Labour Party is leading the PN among men and wom- en and across all age groups. The PL's strongest showing is among the elderly where it scored 59.9% against the PN's 31.5%. Among those aged be- tween 18 and 35, the PL leads the PN by 15 points (35.2% v. 20.1%). Labour also trumps the PN across all regions but for the first time it registered signifi- cantly less strong results in the traditional hinterlands in the South East and Southern Har- bour regions. The PL's losses in these two southern regions appear to have shifted to the 'No Vote' category, which may explain the Prime Minister's unrelent- ing emphasis over the past few weeks on the importance of going out to vote. In the South-Eastern region, the PL scored 49.3% against the PN's 19.4% and in the Southern Harbour region it scored 42.8% against the PN's 28.6%. Significantly, Gozo has be- come a stronghold for the PL, with the party reg- istering 47.1% against the PN's 29.3%. Imperium Europa appears to draw its strength from the Northern region, where the party polled 2.2%, and the South-Eastern region, where it polled 3%. Both regions in- clude localities that have large communities of foreign resi- dents living there. The PL managed to retain 76.3% of those who voted for it in the 2017 general election, as opposed to the PN that only managed 65.6%. Significantly, 2.1% of those who voted PL in 2017 will now vote for the PN but these are cancelled out by 4.7% of PN voters who will support Labour this time around. Unsure voters up as PL takes 13-point lead Southern Harbour Western 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 53.5% 19.6% 23.2% 48.3% 21.5% 27.1% Joseph Muscat Adrian Delia Neither Don't Know Which political party would you vote for if a general election were to be held tomorrow? PL PN AD PD Patriots Imperium Europa Do not know No vote 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 41.3% 27.9% 18.6% 6.2pp 9.2% May (%) PP change from 5 May 2019 Voting intentions among different categories of voters ALL PL 2017 PN 2017 AD 2017 Did not vote 2017 M F 18-35 36-50 51-65 65+ Primary Secondary Post-Sec Tertiary Gozo Northern Northern Harbour South Eastern Southern Harbour Western 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 41.3% 27.9% 18.6% 9.2% 76.3% 10.8% 8.6% 65.6% 23.3% 20.4% 56.3% 23.4% 100.0% 11.4% 8.6% 43.3% 31.9% 38.3% 29.7% 16.4% 11.0% 44.7% 25.8% 21.1% 7.1% 35.2% 20.1% 31.6% 9.0% 38.3% 27.7% 15.6% 14.0% 38.4% 34.9% 13.5% 10.7% 59.9% 31.5% 7.8% 63.6% 19.2% 14.7% 44.7% 29.4% 12.7% 10.0% 42.7% 19.4% 25.4% 9.5% 24.7% 34.1% 27.0% 10.2% 47.1% 29.3% 15.7% 7.9% 38.9% 24.4% 22.6% 7.6% 39.1% 32.7% 19.1% 7.9% 49.3% 19.4% 15.2% 11.6% 42.8% 28.6% 11.3% 12.6% 34.1% 28.8% 29.7% 6.6% PL PN AD PD Patriots Imperium Europa Do not know No vote -5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 12-May-19 07-Apr-19 03-Feb-19 11-Nov-18 2-Sept-18 3-June-18 4-Mar-18 19-Nov-17 1-June-17 21-May-17 07-May-17 Mar-17 Sep-16 Apr-16 Feb-16 Oct-15 Jan-15 PL PN AD PD Far-right (Patriots/IE) Don't know Not Voting mt survey 0.7% 0.3% 1.2% 0.1%