Methodology

How We Track UK Political Party Support by Area

Who You With? is an independent UK political party support tracker. It records one current political preference from each verified user, matches that entry to the correct local areas, and publishes anonymous grouped results when enough people take part.

It is not a traditional weighted opinion poll, not an election forecast and not an official voting system. It is designed to track trends in political support across constituencies, council areas and wards.

One verified person

Users verify their email before creating, updating or deleting an entry.

One current political preference

Only the latest active current-support answer counts in live support results. Entries count for 24 months from the latest save or update, then become dormant unless refreshed.

Anonymous grouped results

Public pages show aggregate political party support totals and percentages, not individual user profiles.

What the political party support tracker measures

The tracker measures current political preference among verified participants. The main result is: who people currently support now.

Where enough data exists, the site can also show support trends by comparing previous vote, previous local vote or party membership answers against current political preference. This is why the wording uses support trends rather than claiming a formal electoral swing.

Questions used to track support trends

  • I currently support
  • At the last UK General Election, I voted
  • At the last local election I voted in, I voted
  • Are you a member of a political party?
  • If currently a party member, whether you were previously a member of another political party before your current party
  • Postcode, used once to place the entry into the correct voting areas. The postcode itself is not stored with the entry.

How postcode area matching works

Postcode-derived geography may include country or nation, region, Westminster constituency, district, borough or unitary council, county council division and district or borough ward.

The site stores the matched areas so UK political party support can be shown by area. It does not store the raw postcode with the entry.

Political party coverage

The site uses registered-party seed lists and shows every active public party name once in the public picker. Same-name parties appearing on more than one register are canonicalised so totals are not split between duplicate-looking rows.

Independent, would not vote and undecided are separate options where relevant. This avoids hiding smaller, regional or non-party choices under a vague “Other” bucket.

How support trends are shown

Where thresholds are met, the results page may show aggregate support trends such as previous vote to current support, last local election vote to current support, and previous party membership to current party membership.

Trend rows with small counts are hidden to reduce the risk of identifying individuals or over-reading tiny numbers.

Anti-duplicate controls

Each verified online user can have one current entry. For people who cannot use email or the online form, an authorised admin can create a no-email assisted entry after consent is confirmed. Assisted entries use a private access code and a shorter active period.

The site also applies rate limits and hashed technical checks to reduce repeated new entries from the same device, browser or connection. These checks are kept separate from the political entry where practical.

Minimum result thresholds

Live public result charts are replaced with a current public polling baseline until there are at least 1,000 active current entries. Local drill-downs and support trend tables have their own minimum thresholds before they appear.

This protects privacy and avoids presenting very small local counts as if they represent a whole constituency, council area or ward.

Entry expiry

Results count online email-verified entries submitted or refreshed within the last 24 months. Dormant entries do not count in live results, unlock thresholds, maps or public percentages. If a user returns during the 12 months recovery period and saves their entry again, the entry becomes active from that new save date. If it is not refreshed, it is deleted after 36 months from the latest save or update.

No-email assisted entries count for 12 months, then become recoverable for 3 months using the private access code. This shorter validity reflects the weaker recovery route when no email is used.

Optional reminder emails do not affect the result methodology.

Limitations

Participants choose to take part, so the results are self-selecting. The tracker is useful for open participation, local supporter strength and trends among verified participants, but it is not a representative election forecast.

Privacy principle

The public methodology is aggregate-only. The design aim is: identify the place, not the person. For the legal and data-protection position, see the Privacy Notice and Data Protection summary.