GENERAL ELECTION 2017

General Election is a program for analysing the 2017 election result. It contains the full results of the election for the main parties in England, Wales and Scotland, which can be examined by constituency, region or party. The program has extensive graphics, including interactive political maps. It is possible to enter the results of almost any opinion poll or by-election result and predict the seats that each party would win.

Two versions of the program are available, a standard non pointer QL version and a pointer driven high resolution GD2 colour version.


SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

A QDOS or SMSQ(E) compatible computer. The standard version of General Election 2017 is almost 250Kb long. Memory expansion and disk drives are essential. Toolkit 2 must be active. The GD2 pointer version is 271KB and requires a minimum screen resolution of 800 x 600 and a GD2 compatible version of the pointer environment. The graphics of the standard QL version will not display correctly in a GD2 environment.


The 2017 version of General Election can be installed on any medium or subdirectory, and can be started using the command "EX flp1_Election17_obj" or equivalent. It is fully compatible with all screen resolutions and can be repositioned on high resolution screens. The screen colours, and other parameters of the standard version, can be adjusted by the user at runtime or by altering a standard QJUMP configuration block. The GD2 version also has a QJUMP configuration block for printer parameters.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

General Election is compiled by Qliberator, and uses the Dilwyn Jones display extensions.

General Election is a freeware program, and may be freely copied. The copyright remains with the author.


RESTRICTIONS:

Please note that only the results for the main parties (Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Nationalists) are given in this program. To have included other parties would have increased the complexity of the program and made even greater demands on memory. For similar reasons the Northern Ireland constituencies are omitted. You should regard these as being 18 opposition seats.

The 2017 election restored the prominence of the two main political parties for the first time in decades including in Scotland where all parties took seats from the SNP. If you wish to examine the prospects for the minor parties a good place to visit is:

www.electoralcalculus.co.uk

General Election 2017 gives a theoretical result for three seats, based on the average swing in their region. These are in Buckingham, the Speaker's seat,  Brighton Pavilion, which was won by the Green Party and Skipton and Ripon which the Liberal Democrats did not contest.


MAIN MENU

The main menu is grouped into four main sections in the standard QL version and 3 main sections in the GD2 version. The first group gives information on the 2017 General Election.

In the GD2 version you can access the commands by clicking on the item.

(C) - Constituency Search:

You can use this to search for the result in any constituency. On pressing the key the screen clears in the standard version and a pop-up window appears in the GD version. You are asked to enter the name of the constituency. You can enter this in either upper or lower case characters, and in many cases you only need to enter the first few letters of the name. The votes gained by each of the main parties are displayed in order of the number of votes received, together with the percentage of the poll and the majority of the winning party. Minority parties are not included in the results or percentages. The marginality of the seat is also calculated.

To view the result in the following constituency press "N" and in the previous constituency "L". If you wish to examine the result in any other constituency you press <ENTER> and repeat the process. This section of the program can be left by pressing <ESC>.

If, for example, you enter "LIV", the first Liverpool constituency, Riverside, will be displayed. Press "N" and the next constituency, Walton, appears on the screen. Pressing "L" will take you back to Riverside. In this way you can quickly examine all the Liverpool constituencies. If you now want to look at Manchester, press ENTER and enter "MAN".


(S) - Seats:

This option allows you to obtain a list of seats for each party. On pressing "S" the screen clears and the name of the parties appear. You choose the party by pressing the initial letter of the party name (In the case of the Liberal Democrats (D) as Labour already has the (L)). The next option is a choice of 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th place. You then choose whether to print to the screen or the printer. Finally you are given the choice of displaying the result nationally or regionally. The first option displays the seats won by the party in alphabetical order. The second shows the seats won in each of the following regions:

South West:	Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, 	Dorset, Wiltshire, Avon.
South East:	Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, West Sussex, East Sussex, 	Surrey.
Essex/Anglia:	Essex, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk.
London:	Greater London area.
Home Counties:Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire.
Border Counties:Gloucestershire, Hereford and Worcester, Shropshire.
Midlands:	Staffordshire, Warwickshire, 	West Midlands.
Shires:		Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire.
Yorkshire/Humberside:West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, Humberside.
North West:	Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Lancashire, Cumbria.
North East:	Durham, Tyneside, Teeside, Northumberland.
Wales:		Gwent, South Glamorgan, Mid Glamorgan, West Glamorgan, Dyfed, Powys, Gwynedd, Clwyd.
Scottish Lowlands:Dumfries and Galloway, Borders, Strathclyde, Forth, Central.
Scottish Highlands:Western Isles, Highland, 	Tayside, Grampian, Orkney, Shetland.

When a seat is marginal, defined as a majority less than 10% of the total vote, a plus sign appears by the constituency name. Two plus signs indicate a highly marginal seat with a majority of less than 5% of the total vote.

When each screen is full you can press <ENTER> to continue listing seats or <ESC> to end and return to the main menu. A message appears and a beep sounds when the listing is complete.


(R) - Result:

Pressing "R" gives you the full result of the election, which can either be displayed on the screen or sent to the printer.   For each region the total and percentage of the votes for each of the main parties is displayed as well as the number and percentage of seats. In the standard QL version the information is divided over three screens, and to accommodate the information the computer switches from mode 8 to mode 4. When you leave this sequence the computer switches back to mode 8. 


(L) - List Marginals:

Prints a list of all the marginal seats to either the screen or the printer. Highly marginal seats are marked with a plus sign. It also gives statistical information on the marginal seats.


The next group of menu items concern the graphics.


(M) - Map:

When you press "M" the map menu appears. On the left hand side of the screen is a list of possible maps. The first four plot the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th positions of the parties. The next four plot the main areas of strength, that is seats where they came either first or second, for each of the parties. Another map plots the marginal seats. In the GD2 version are four additional maps that use the extra colours to draw the relative strength of the parties throughout the country.

On the right hand side of the standard QL version, there are four choices. "W" draws a map of the whole country, "N" the north in larger scale and "S" the south in larger scale. "M" returns you to the main menu. 

In this version of the program when the map is drawn, a new menu appears. Press "S" to save the map, "M" to return to the map menu, "T" to toggle this menu on and off, and "Q" to return to the main menu.

There are complications in saving screens from General Election. Please read the section "SCREEN SAVING" later in this manual.

If you are ambitious you can produce an animated map. Amend the result between two parties in steps of, say 1%, and save the map of each result. Copy these maps to ram disc and then load them in order with a slight pause between each screen. It gives a quite impressive effect.


(G) - Graphics:

On pressing "G" the screen clears and the Graphics Menu is printed. This menu differs from others in the program in that mnemomics are not used in the standard QL version. Instead you have to enter numbers. The graphics procedures are best described in reverse order as options 1 to 15 can be complicated in use.

Option 17 returns you to the main menu. (This also happens if you just press ENTER.) In the GD2 version you click on the exit icon to leave the graphics screen.

Option 16 in the standard QL version gives a series of screens displaying bar graphs. The first shows the support for each party in each region; the second how this support differs from the national average; and the third the situation in Scotland and Wales. In the GD2 version there are three separate options.

Options 1 to 15 allow the percentage result per party per region to be displayed as a bar graph, and compared with the percentage seats won. The use of these options is not easy to describe and is best illustrated by practical examples, which can be followed with the program loaded into the computer. When loaded go to the Graphics Menu.

Option 15 is "TOTAL". Input 15 and keep pressing <ENTER> until the bar graphs are drawn. Options 1 to 14 allow you to do this for each named region.

In fact to get a screen you will discover you have to press <ENTER> three times! This is not an attempt to encourage you to wear out your keyboard, but is done to increase the possibilities in this section of the program by allowing you to combine regions. For example you may wish to have the information for the whole of Scotland. Go to the Graphics Menu and input 13 for "Scottish Lowlands". You will see that the background colour of 13 has changed to the second ink colour, and that the new prompt is either to enter another number or press <ENTER>. Now input 14 for "Scottish Highlands" and the background colour of the 14 has changed to the second ink colour. You can in this way continue adding regions if you wish, but in this case you have added all the Scottish Regions together so you just press <ENTER>. The new prompt invites you to enter the Title or press <ENTER>. If you just press <ENTER> you will have as your title "Scottish Highlands" the title of the last region selected, which is not an accurate description of the graphs, so instead you should enter "SCOTLAND" and at last your graphs are drawn.

With the GD2 version use left and right clicks to achieve the above.
With a little imagination you can use this section of the program to analyse the election result in a wide variety of regions. For example to whole of England, the South East or the North versus South situation.

All the graphics screens in the standard QL version can be saved, but before attempting this please read the section "SCREEN SAVING" later in this manual.


The next group of commands allow you to modify the result of the election.

(A) - Amend Result:

This sequence allows you to enter the results of almost any opinion poll and then convert it into seats. You can also use it to study the effects of swings on each of the parties.When "A" is pressed a screen appears that shows the percentage of the vote gained by each party in the 2017 General Election. You are then asked to enter the required percentage for each of the main parties. Should you make a mistake you are given the opportunity to leave this section (ESC) or to continue (ENTER) when all the percentages have been entered. The program will warn if the percentage does not add up to approximately 100. Please note that many opinion pools give percentages for the main parties that do not add up to 100 because of allowances for minority parties and "don't knows". You will need to calculate the percentages for the main parties before entering them.

Once this routine is completed you can use all the other routines to examine the predicted result in detail. Do not forget that Northern Ireland seats are not included so that in calculating the majority you should add 18 seats to the opposition total.

When you have used this routine, a message will appear on the main menu screen warning you that the result is a theoretical one. To restore the 2017 result press I - Initialise.


B - By-election:

This allows you to enter the result of a by-election and determine the effect of an equivalent swing over the whole country.

First of all you enter the name of the constituency. In practice you only need enter the first 3 or 4 letters to access the list and then use "N" and "L" to locate the correct seat.

You are then asked to enter the result for each party. The program will then modify the result for each constituency.


The final group of commands in the standard QL version concern the program's display.

F4 - Redraw Screen:

General Election is a multitasking program, although you should leave it only from the main menu, which has a cursor in the upper left hand corner. Should the screen be overwritten by other programs, you can restore the menu screen by pressing F4.


P - Parameters:

A number of parameters can be altered by the user, temporarily at runtime or as permanent defaults using the configuration block. Pressing "P" accesses the parameter screen  in which these changes can be made.


PARAMETER MENU:

It is possible to change the screen colours on the non-graphics screens.

The commands are:

(P) - Paper to change the background colour.
() - Border. Changes the border colour (up and down cursor keys).
(F) - First Ink to change the main ink colour.
(S) - Second Ink to change the secondary ink colour.

Two of the commands are to control the printer:

(D) - Device allows you to set the printer device.
(B) - Baud Rate to set the Baud rate.

(Q) - Quit allows you to leave the program.

(M) - Main menu returns you to the main menu.

General Election can be repositioned on high resolution screens, and if you are using a higher definition than 512 x 256, an extra menu item will appear at the bottom of the screen.

To reposition press Control + F4. The screen will clear except for a small rectangle. You can move this using the cursor keys, and when you are ready you should press ENTER.


SAVING SCREENS:

One of the shortcomings of high resolution screens is that it is not possible to save or load standard resolution QL screens unless the high resolution screen is in 512 x 256 mode.

The graphics and map routines in the standard QL version of General Election allow you to save screens. If you are using 512 x 256 mode these will be saved in standard QL _scr format, but in higher resolutions the screens will be saved in QPTR _pic format.

At the moment there are few programs that can load screens in this format, and to add to the complications General Election screens are in mode 8. If you want to save screens for use in other programs, it is probably easier to do this in standard 512 x 256 mode.

At the moment there are no QL routines for saving GD2 screens. If you are using a PC Windows based emulator you can save a screen shot by pressing CTRL + Print Screen.

------------------------------------------------------------ 

Should you have problems or questions regarding this program you can write to me at the address given below. If your question concerns difficulties in running the program, please include details of your system and how and when the problem occurs.

Geoff Wicks, Flat 5b, Wordsworth Avenue, Derby, DE24 9HQ.
Telephone: 01332- 271366
email: gtwicks@btinternet.com








