Polls close after day's voting: Exit poll suggests George Ferguson is in the lead
Polling stations across Bristol have now closed after a day's voting across the city for Bristol's first directly elected mayor and the region's first police and crime commissioner.
Early indications today suggested that total turnout could be high, but full figures will not be released by the city council until tomorrow morning.
-
Polling station at Newton Street, Easton
A poll conducted by ThisisBristol over the last few weeks saw 1,550 people respond to the question: "Will you be voting?"
A total of 56 per cent of people said they would be, 34 per cent said no and 10 per cent were undecided.
Contact us today for a 50% Reduction off of our Management Set Up Fee
Terms: For full Terms & Conditions, contact us today
Contact: 0117 370 7570
Valid until: Saturday, June 06 2015
The presiding officer at St George library said turnout had been better than expected there, with a constant flow of voters.
As of 10.30am they had had three per cent of 2,000 voters - which they said was better than normal.
By midday they had had nearly five per cent - when in other elections they would only have expected to see half that number.
ThisisBristol conducted a small exit poll of voters as they left the polls during the day.
A total of 100 voters were asked who they had given their first vote to, at four different polling stations - St George Library, Redland Library, Brunel Fields in Ashley Down and Tyndale Baptist Church in Clifton.
The results (below) show that George Ferguson was the most popular choice out of the voters we asked with 55 of the votes, with Marvin Rees in second place with 20.
Green Party candidate Daniella Radice had nine votes, Lib Dem Jon Rogers had seven, independent Tim Collins had three, Tory Geoff Gollop had two, with Neil Maggs, Philip Pover, Stoney Garnett and Tom Baldwin with one apiece.
In our exit poll, no votes had been cast for Spud Murphy, Owain George, Rich Fisher, Dave Dobbs and Tony Britt.
The count of votes cast starts tomorrow morning - you can follow live coverage of how the day unfolds on ThisisBristol and get involved with some live debate.
How close will our poll - of only 0.03 per cent of the electorate - come to the actual result? Check back at ThisisBristol tomorrow to find out.
Comments
by katachua
Friday, November 16 2012, 10:38AM
“Utterly meaningless - waste of bandwidth and newsprint.”
by november15
Friday, November 16 2012, 9:28AM
“@123bristol are you blinkered? The Post couldn't have helped Marvin Rees more, the only thing that the reporters didn't do was feed and put Marvin to bed, apart from this The Post has helped him all the way while his wife puts his clothes on for him.
Do we really need a mayor who cannot clothe himself?”
by DennisB2012
Friday, November 16 2012, 9:10AM
“Now we really can see the Post's grasp of reality displayed.
Surely they must have know with such a statistically stupid mix of polling stations, the derisory numbers of voters willing to reply to the question (even if they were honest about how they actually voted in private) and the time of day when they were asked.
We should also be told how many refused to answer such a silly question.
But the proof of the pudding will be seen when the results are finally declared. Then we can see how much we should trust the "judgement"/opinion of the Post.
Incidentally, the BBC say there was a 28% turnout to vote in Bristol - which does not agree with the Post's "predictions" from their earlier poll (quoted in this article) of 56%.
So there are statistics and Post statistics.
The best that can be said about this (and so much else in the Post) is that it filled up space and kept one of their reporters busy....”
by 123bristol
Friday, November 16 2012, 7:35AM
“the evening post and george ferguson have a beautiful thing going on...”
by Angus_G
Friday, November 16 2012, 1:02AM
“100 votes from 4 polling stations, 2 of which face each other across Whiteladies Road - it's so unrepresentative as to be really ot worth publishing.”
by RobCrewsHole
Friday, November 16 2012, 12:08AM
“Only 100 voters and none in South Bristol - so I doubt it is anywhere near what will happen. It would certainly be a shock if this came true and George won on the first round!”
by GoveKnows
Thursday, November 15 2012, 10:39PM
“I'd be more likely to trust a far east dictator than the (be)p, especially when it comes to details...but my word do I wish this happens.”