Projekt Enman (FPTP Sweden redux)

[Ares96]

Okay, this time, this time, maybe I'll finish it.

Tayya and I did a large number of spreadsheets of FPTP constituencies years back, but I never finished mapping them - now, however, the new basemap has enabled me to get everything south of Sundsvall done up properly, and I'll be posting them in this thread. We've calculated two scenarios: in scenario A, all the existing parties (nine of them, plus various minnows) are considered separately, and in scenario B, a combined red-green bloc of Social Democrats, Left Party, Greens and Feminist Initiative faces off against the Alliance of Moderates, Liberals, Centre Party and Christian Democrats who made up the government prior to 2014. The maps I'll be posting with each explainer all show scenario B.

Oh, and a disclaimer: these are still based on the 2014 results, because the Election Office has changed its spreadsheet designs and so copying them over is a lot more work than it should be. There will eventually be 2018 maps, but not now. When I get to calculating 2018 there'll be three scenarios for it: scenario A is much the same, scenario B adds a "national" bloc which adds up SD and AfS, and scenario C sees the signatories of the four-party agreement of January 2019 (Social Democrats, Greens, Liberals, Centre Party) face off against a right opposition made up of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Sweden Democrats. But that's in the future.

Stockholm

Quota: various (see below)
Number of constituencies: 38



Because of Stockholm's weird geography, when we made the spreadsheets originally, Tayya and I decided to separate Stockholm County into five regions - one for Ekerö (which was just about big enough to merit one seat), one for Lidingö (which was slightly too small for two, but we decided it was a necessary sacrifice), one for Södermalm, and one each for the entire rest of the county north and south of the water.

Part One: Innerstaden (the Inner City)
Quota: 21,340 (except Södermalm)

1: Centrum (City Centre)
Electorate: 21,267 (-74)

I still don't know what the proper name for this constituency is, it's gone under the names "Innerstaden" (inner city - this is confusing as the term usually refers to a much wider area), "Stockholms domkyrko" (Stockholm Cathedral - the name of the C of S parish covering the main part of it), "Stockholms slott" (Stockholm Castle), and now "Centrum". Whatever you want to call it, it covers the absolute centre of Stockholm, including the royal castle, the government quarter and most of the financial district around Vasagatan. As such, most of it's functionally uninhabited, and most of the population lives in the northern part of the constituency. This used to be a slum known as "Sibirien" (Siberia) because it was so far away by 19th century standards, but it's been thoroughly gentrified and the seat is now safe for the Moderates.

2014 turnout: 17,546 (82.5%)

Moderate: 6,947 (39.6%)
Social Democratic: 2,195 (12.5%)
Liberal: 1,916 (10.9%)

Alliance: 11,106 (63.3%)
Red-Greens: 5,293 (30.2%)

2: Vasastaden
Electorate: 20,273 (-1,068)

This seat includes the Gustav Vasa parish and the eastern part of the Matteus parish, and is centred around the underground railway hub of Odenplan, the Stockholm Central Library and the Sabbatsberg hospital. Like Centrum, a safe Moderate/Alliance seat.

2014 turnout: 16,928 (83.5%)

Moderate: 6,521 (38.5%)
Social Democratic: 2,086 (12.3%)
Liberal: 1,878 (11.1%)

Alliance: 10,417 (61.5%)
Red-Greens: 5,438 (32.1%)

3: Matteus (St Matthew's)
Electorate: 16,065 (-5,276)

Covering most of its namesake parish, this is an almost entirely residential inner-city seat - there used to be industry here, now the factories have been turned into incredibly expensive lofts and the old workers' housing has been renovated and gentrified to fuck. The Social Democrats came third here.

2014 turnout: 13,817 (86.0%)

Moderate: 5,406 (39.1%)
Liberal: 1,650 (11.9%)
Social Democratic: 1,636 (11.8%)

Alliance: 8,763 (63.4%)
Red-Greens: 4,377 (31.7%)

4: Kungsholm
Electorate: 16,863 (-4,478)

Kungsholmen is, like Vasastan, mostly residential, and its only notable landmarks are the City Hall and the police and courts. You should be used to this by now.

2014 turnout: 14,317 (84.9%)

Moderate: 5,463 (38.2%)
Liberal: 1,778 (12.4%)
Social Democratic: 1,761 (12.3%)

Alliance: 8,989 (62.8%)
Red-Greens: 4,437 (31.0%)

5: S:t Göran (St George's)
Electorate: 18,857 (-2,484)

This seat is much like the others, except that quite a lot of it is new-builds rather than gentrified workers' quarters. We're getting slightly less posh, but still safe for the Moderates.

2014 turnout: 16,030 (85.0%)

Moderate: 5,869 (36.4%)
Social Democratic: 2,305 (14.4%)
Liberal: 1,639 (10.2%)

Alliance: 9,374 (58.5%)
Red-Greens: 5,537 (34.5%)

6: Kristineberg och Essinge
Electorate: 20,553 (-788)

And here we've got the westernmost end of Kungsholmen island combined with the two Essinge islands, which were traditionally something of a backwater (though densely built-up) but are getting more and more tied into the city. Our first sign of leaving the absolute centre of Stockholm comes as the Greens beat the Liberals into third.

2014 turnout: 17,543 (85.4%)

Moderate: 5,822 (33.2%)
Social Democratic: 2,551 (14.5%)
Green: 2,049 (11.7%)

Alliance: 9,578 (54.6%)
Red-Greens: 6,776 (38.6%)

7: Engelbrekt och Hedvig Eleonora
Electorate: 19,822 (-1,519)

This is the core of Östermalm, the part of Stockholm that's been the reserve of the super-rich essentially since it was built at the end of the 19th century. Wide tree-lined streets, buildings with high ceilings and servants' entrances and not a sub-200kr lunch in sight (unless you go to this one very good sausage stand I found once, but even they're ludicrously expensive for a sausage stand). Needless to say, it makes the seats we've seen thus far look like little babbies.

2014 turnout: 16,419 (82.8%)

Moderate: 8,446 (51.4%)
Liberal: 1,948 (11.9%)
Christian Democratic: 1,468 (8.9%)

Alliance: 12,822 (78.1%)
Red-Greens: 2,511 (15.3%)

8: Oscar
Electorate: 22,837 (+1,496)

Oscar parish is slightly less deep blue than the rest of Östermalm, mainly because it includes the slightly more middle-class district of Gärdet, built during the 1930s as relief housing, but gentrified significantly since. Most of Gärdet, however, is in the neighbouring seat, which leaves this seat thoroughly conservative.

2014 turnout: 18,917 (82.8%)

Moderate: 9,104 (48.1%)
Liberal: 1,948 (11.9%)
Christian Democratic: 1,678 (8.9%)

Alliance: 14,140 (74.8%)
Red-Greens: 3,392 (17.9%)

9: Gärdet och Bergshamra
Electorate: 23,559 (+2,218)

The aforementioned Gärdet, here, gets merged with the district of Bergshamra, a post-war council estate that's part of neighbouring Solna municipality, but is more tied in with this part of Stockholm than it is the rest of Solna. Mainly, this is because Stockholm University has its proto-brutalist campus in the intervening green area, and students provide a significant, but not sufficient, left-wing vote.

2014 turnout: 19,316 (82.0%)

Moderate: 5,969 (30.9%)
Social Democratic: 2,764 (14.3%)
Green: 2,145 (11.1%)

Alliance: 10,500 (54.4%)
Red-Greens: 7,425 (38.4%)

Södermalm
Quota: 20,024

10: Maria (St Mary's)
Electorate: 18,795 (-1,229)

Now we're into Södermalm, the former cultural home of the Stockholm working class, which has been gentrified like the rest of the city, but still attracts a more alternative crowd. The area around Maria church is about the closest thing Stockholm has ever had to a gay village (though there isn't really a proper one), and is now among the more upscale parts of the island. The Moderates come out on top in scenario A, because of severe vote-splitting on the left, and in scenario B you get a more proper picture of how the seat leans.

Turnout: 16,081 (85.6%)

Moderate: 3,705 (23.0%)
Social Democratic: 3,005 (18.7%)
Green: 2,159 (13.4%)

Red-Greens: 8,732 (54.3%)
Alliance: 6,298 (39.2%)

11: Högalid
Electorate: 21,164 (+1,140)

Högalid is a bit more recently gentrified than Maria, and the Left Party and FI do better - not well enough to outpoll the Greens in 2014, but in 2018 things will likely look different.

2014 turnout: 17,869 (84.4%)

Moderate: 3,599 (20.1%)
Social Democratic: 3,456 (19.3%)
Green: 2,159 (15.4%)

Red-Greens: 10,325 (57.8%)
Alliance: 6,347 (35.5%)

12: Skanstull
Electorate: 20,820 (+796)

This seat is similar to Högalid in many ways, and it should be noted that most of its population lives in the eastern two thirds (the western third being the Tanto park and the Southern Hospital), so it's a very compact seat and kind of a mix of hipsters, some social housing and a lot of students.

2014 turnout: 17,607 (84.6%)

Moderate: 3,707 (21.1%)
Social Democratic: 3,597 (20.4%)
Green: 2,440 (13.9%)

Red-Greens: 10,154 (57.7%)
Alliance: 6,222 (35.3%)

13: Katarina och Sofia (St Catherine's and Sophia)
Electorate: 19,868 (-156)

This is a similar area to Maria, very very hipster - some people refer to the area south of Folkungagatan as "SoFo", which handily sums up every single thing wrong with Stockholm and uses just four letters to do it. I'll give them this, they're efficient.

2014 turnout: 16,838 (84.8%)

Moderate: 3,799 (22.6%)
Social Democratic: 2,864 (17.0%)
Green: 2,526 (15.0%)

Red-Greens: 9,398 (55.8%)
Alliance: 6,454 (38.3%)

14: Hammarby sjö (Hammarby Lake)
Electorate: 19,474 (-550)

I've sidestepped the usual naming scheme for this seat, which I imagine is very newly-created. Prior to the 1990s, this was a decaying industrial harbour, but it's been very heavily built on and is now home to the same sort of dense new-build landscape you see in a lot of former harbour areas throughout western Europe. It's also where my cousins live, so I visit every now and then, and it's very sort of reassuringly boring. Fittingly, then, the Moderates do a lot better here than elsewhere in Södermalm.

2014 turnout: 17,325 (89.0%)

Moderate: 5,269 (30.4%)
Social Democratic: 3,008 (17.4%)
Green: 2,259 (13.0%)

Alliance: 8,588 (49.6%)
Red-Greens: 7,802 (45.0%)

 

[Ares96]

Part Two: Söderort (the Southern Suburbs)
Quota: 21,193

(see map above)

15: Årsta
Electorate: 22,898 (+1,704)

This is a largely nondescript post-war housing estate, one of dozens like it south of the city centre. The only really significant thing about Årsta is that it was the first - it was planned during the war, to hold as many as 30,000 residents, largely overspill from slum clearances in Södermalm. In the 50s there was a metro branch planned to connect it to Slussen, but this didn't materialise until 2000, at which point it was made a light rail line instead of connecting to the metro proper. Like most places of its kind, Årsta leans left-wing, but not quite as strongly as some other areas.

2014 turnout: 19,169 (83.7%)

Social Democratic: 4,348 (22.7%)
Moderate: 4,044 (21.1%)
Green: 2,725 (14.2%)

Red-Greens: 10,899 (56.9%)
Alliance: 6,652 (34.7%)

16: Enskede
Electorate: 22,205 (+1,011)

This seat is centred on the "Garden City" of Gamla Enskede, one of the few areas of Söderort to be heavily built up before the war. It's a fairly mixed constituency that takes in some estates as well as older detached housing, and it's likely to be one of the key swing seats in south Stockholm. In 2014, however, the left won it handily in scenario B amid a generally favourable situation in the city.

2014 turnout: 18,296 (82.4%)

Moderate: 4,537 (24.8%)
Social Democratic: 4,136 (22.6%)
Green: 2,350 (12.8%)

Red-Greens: 9,498 (51.9%)
Alliance: 6,652 (41.3%)

17: Hammarby
Electorate: 24,316 (+3,122)

This is one of the seats largely drawn to follow a metro corridor (line 17, in this case), but unlike some of the others, it's pretty homogenous - Hammarbyhöjden, Björkhagen, Kärrtorp and Bagarmossen are all lefty, working-class housing estates built to serve metro stations, and while the northern half of the seat has seen heavy gentrification, it's all the bo-bo variety rather than actual Alliance voters, so the seat ends up solidly red - the Greens even get a reasonably strong second.

2014 turnout: 20,377 (83.8%)

Social Democratic: 4,945 (24.3%)
Green: 3,368 (16.5%)
Moderate: 2,806 (13.8%)

Red-Greens: 13,874 (68.1%)
Alliance: 4,941 (24.3%)

18: Skarpnäck
Electorate: 20,928 (-266)

Covering the southern half of its namesake parish (the northern half being Hammarby), this is a somewhat mixed seat centred on the 1980s new urbanist estate of Skarpnäcksfältet, which has its own metro station (the only extension built since the Blue Line's completion in 1985, though that's changing soon), but also covers the lower-density estate of Sköndal as well as the older detached housing area of Pungpinan. As with Hammarby, the mix in housing types still yields a solidly left-wing district.

2014 turnout: 17,236 (82.4%)

Social Democratic: 4,821 (28.0%)
Moderate: 3,471 (20.1%)
Green: 2,125 (12.3%)

Red-Greens: 10,055 (58.3%)
Alliance: 5,622 (32.6%)

19: Farsta
Electorate: 21,446 (+252)

This seat is centred on its namesake ABC estate (arbete-bostad-centrum - basically, the idea was to build an entire functional satellite city in the suburbs), which is enormous and takes up most of its area. It's far enough away from the city centre that it's still very working-class, and this is reflected in the result.

2014 turnout: 16,808 (78.4%)

Social Democratic: 5,981 (35.6%)
Moderate: 3,051 (18.1%)
Left: 1,720 (10.2%)

Red-Greens: 10,355 (61.6%)
Alliance: 4,597 (27.4%)

20: Vantör
Electorate: 24,704 (+3,510)

Another metro-corridor seat, this time for line 19 (to be moved to the Blue Line when the cross-city extension to that is finally finished around 2030). Like Hammarby, it's largely comprised of housing estates built around the metro, and unlike Hammarby, it's thoroughly non-gentrified and working-class. This is the prototypical overspill area, mentioned in Olle Adolphson's Ballad of Gustav Lindström, and the origin of Stockholm's punk scene at the youth centre Oasen in Rågsved, immortalised in Ebba Grön's "We're Only In It For the Drugs". You can't tell, but this is the strongest SD seat in south Stockholm - of course, this is still Stockholm, so overall its working-class nature makes it a left-leaning seat.

2014 turnout: 17,894 (72.4%)

Social Democratic: 6,545 (36.6%)
Moderate: 2,895 (16.2%)
Left: 2,042 (11.4%)

Red-Greens: 11,604 (64.9%)
Alliance: 4,286 (24.0%)

21: Brännkyrka
Electorate: 21,660 (+466)

This seat is named for the parish that covered all of Söderort until 1931, and takes in a wide range of different suburbs, from the stately villas of Älvsjö and Örby to the unholy mix of industry and post-war flat blocks that makes up Solberga and Östberga. The result is a seat that leans right most of the time, but like Enskede, the left breaks through in scenario B - largely because of a strong Green performance.

2014 turnout: 17,785 (82.1%)

Moderate: 4,798 (27.0%)
Social Democratic: 4,549 (25.6%)
Green: 1,844 (10.4%)

Red-Greens: 8,671 (48.8%)
Alliance: 7,476 (42.0%)

22: Herrängen och Smista
Electorate: 21,665 (+471)

This is our first blue seat in Söderort, and really the only one that's reliably so. It actually extends across the municipal boundary into Huddinge, but both sides are broadly demographically similar. Aside from Fruängen, which is a post-war housing estate built around the terminus of what was then a rapid tram line and is today's metro line 14, this seat is all pre-war villa suburbs clustered around the lake Långsjön ("the long lake" - yes, really) and the old Södertälje Road. These areas are the bedrock of Moderate support in south Stockholm, and even in 2014 there was no dislodging them. It's probably reasonable to expect this seat to be represented by a cabinet minister in the Alliance government.

2014 turnout: 18,615 (85.9%)

Moderate: 6,501 (34.9%)
Social Democratic: 3,878 (20.8%)
Green: 1,682 (9.0%)

Alliance: 9,655 (51.9%)
Red-Greens: 7,275 (39.1%)

23: Liljeholmen
Electorate: 21,035 (-159)

Liljeholmen and its surrounds are among the oldest suburbs south of Södermalm - until the completion of the Årsta bridge in 1929, the Southern Main Line ran through here, and industries sprouted up along the railway line, most famously the Liljeholmen candle factory. Today, the old industry is being redeveloped for housing and offices, and is a right-wing area akin to Hammarby Sjöstad, but this isn't enough to undo the seat's overall leftward lean - at least not in scenario B.

2014 turnout: 18,145 (86.3%)

Social Democratic: 3,818 (21.0%)
Moderate: 3,765 (20.8%)
Green: 2,710 (14.9%)

Red-Greens: 10,625 (58.6%)
Alliance: 6,381 (35.2%)

24: Midsommarkransen
Electorate: 22,355 (+1,161)

Midsommarkransen proper, along with neighbouring Aspudden, is quite similar to Liljeholmen - basically a bit of Södermalm that ended up on the wrong side of the tolls - but the seat also takes in the post-war estates of Västberga and Hägerstensåsen (where my aunt lived until she got a family, and as such an area I know quite well) and bits of the significantly posher Mälarhöjden. This is a stronghold of the "plural left" - Jonas Sjöstedt, leader of the Left Party until very recently, lives here, and FI got a very respectable fourth place in 2014 with some 14% of the vote. As such, like the Södermalm seats, it goes blue in scenario A but extremely deep red in scenario B.

2014 turnout: 18,963 (84.8%)

Moderate: 3,852 (20.3%)
Social Democratic: 3,747 (19.8%)
Green: 2,946 (15.5%)

Red-Greens: 11,325 (59.7%)
Alliance: 6,279 (33.1%)

25: Bredäng och Mälarhöjden
Electorate: 22,105 (+911)

This part of Stockholm (the suburbs along metro line 13) is a lot trickier than it looks on the map, because Mälarhöjden is a right-wing area squeezed in between left-wing areas, and as such is highly susceptible to packing and cracking. A differently-drawn map could return a significantly less safe red seat here, but in the end we opted to divide Mälarhöjden between two red seats rather than trying to artificially construct a seat based around it (which would make the surroundings look odd to say the least). The actual majority of this seat's population is in Bredäng, which is yet another post-war housing estate built around a metro station, like so many others in suburban Stockholm.

2014 turnout: 16,941 (76.6%)

Social Democratic: 5,393 (31.8%)
Moderate: 3,302 (19.5%)
Green: 1,790 (14.9%)

Red-Greens: 10,070 (59.4%)
Alliance: 5.401 (31.9%)

26: Skärholmen
Electorate: 21,570 (+376)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the heart of the Million Programme. Despite construction surging during the 1950s and 60s (as you should probably have been able to guess by now), it was still not enough to accommodate population growth and urbanisation, and after taking a drubbing in the 1966 municipal elections, largely due to being perceived as weak-kneed in dealing with the housing crisis, the Social Democrats decided to push through the Riksdag a plan to build one million homes by the end of 1975. The result was a massive proliferation of new housing estates on the edges of virtually every city and town in the country, some reasonably nice (like the one in Malmö where I'm currently writing this), most less so. Skärholmen, which sits on land controversially ceded to Stockholm by Huddinge in 1961, is probably one of the nicer Million Programme estates, helped by its fast metro connection to central Stockholm as well as a significant amount of it being given over to commercial space in line with the ABC model, but it's still a very working-class area with a large immigrant population. To make up the population quota, this seat also includes some less-nice Million Programme estates across the city line in Huddinge and Botkyrka. Hopefully, scenario A should outline the difference in politics between the Million Programme and the older housing estates, even if scenario B obscures it somewhat - these are almost all extremely safe for the Social Democrats.

2014 turnout: 13,994 (64.9%)

Social Democratic: 7,039 (50.3%)
Moderate: 1,938 (13.9%)
Left: 1,468 (10.5%)

Red-Greens: 10,077 (72.0%)
Alliance: 2,801 (20.0%)

58: Stuvsta
Electorate: 22,703 (+1,509)

The reason this seat's number is so far out of sequence is that it falls entirely outside the City of Stockholm. It's only on this map because it's too small to show on the Stockholm County map - it covers most of the north-central part of Huddinge, which is villa suburbs similar to those in Älvsjö and Smista, and can be expected to be safe for the Moderates/Alliance most of the time. Oh, and we've got our first third place for the SD - their support really does stop at the city line.

2014 turnout: 19,489 (85.8%)

Moderate: 6,460 (33.2%)
Social Democratic: 4,280 (22.0%)
Sweden Democrat: 2,041 (10.5%)

Alliance: 9,841 (50.5%)
Red-Greens: 7,429 (38.1%)

 

[Makemakean]

Wonderful work!

I remain of course as awkward as ever about this. On the one hand, I feel these kind of exercises are awesome and everything. On the other hand, I feel rather abivalent that we collect voting data on such a granular level as to make projects like this possible...

 

[Ares96]

Wonderful work!

I remain of course as awkward as ever about this. On the one hand, I feel these kind of exercises are awesome and everything. On the other hand, I feel rather abivalent that we collect voting data on such a granular level as to make projects like this possible...

If you think we’re bad, I’ve got some Israeli kibbutz data to show you.

 

[Alex Richards]

Wonderful work!

I remain of course as awkward as ever about this. On the one hand, I feel these kind of exercises are awesome and everything. On the other hand, I feel rather abivalent that we collect voting data on such a granular level as to make projects like this possible...

I'm happy with it being by box over here- you'd usually get down to about 100-500 people that way. Still easy enough to be anonymous.

Places like France and Switzerland declaring by commune is fine, except that they've got some extremely low-population communes.

 

[Makemakean]

If you think we’re bad, I’ve got some Israeli kibbutz data to show you.

I was rather perturbed when I was looking at Danish electoral results from the late 19th century. They literally had the information in Copenhagen down on street level.

 

[Lavidor]

This is nice and full circle, since your thread was what inspired me to try this project the first time.
Keep it up!

 

[Ares96]

I'm now also tweeting this in Swedish at @ProjektEnman.

 

[Caprice]

I was rather perturbed when I was looking at Danish electoral results from the late 19th century. They literally had the information in Copenhagen down on street level.

At least it isn't pre-1850-some Virginia, where they would write voters' names down under the column of who they voted for.

 

[msmp]

At least it isn't pre-1850-some Virginia, where they would write voters' names down under the column of who they voted for.

Heck, colonial era elections in the US (and in 17th/18th century Britain) were fully public; you were expected to state your vote by voice. Ballot secrecy didn't become a norm until the very end of the 19th century, at least here.

 

[Thande]

Heck, colonial era elections in the US (and in 17th/18th century Britain) were fully public; you were expected to state your vote by voice. Ballot secrecy didn't become a norm until the very end of the 19th century, at least here.

Though this did not stop anti-secret ballot campaigners in the UK from claiming the secret ballot was the norm in the US (and therefore a stupid foreign un-British idea).

 

[msmp]

Though this did not stop anti-secret ballot campaigners in the UK from claiming the secret ballot was the norm in the US (and therefore a stupid foreign un-British idea).

Same thing happened here when the secret ballot was introduced; because it first gained traction in Tasmania, it was derided as the "Australian ballot" and therefore Alien and Foreign and all those things Americans are supposed to hate. Took until after 1884 for most states to move to some form of secret ballot (Kentucky held out on the old-fashioned oral vote until its 1891 elections!), but the idea of a universal, official ballot, as opposed to a privately printed one, didn't take root in the South until as late as 1950.

 

[Ares96]

Same thing happened here when the secret ballot was introduced; because it first gained traction in Tasmania, it was derided as the "Australian ballot" and therefore Alien and Foreign and all those things Americans are supposed to hate. Took until after 1884 for most states to move to some form of secret ballot (Kentucky held out on the old-fashioned oral vote until its 1891 elections!), but the idea of a universal, official ballot, as opposed to a privately printed one, didn't take root in the South until as late as 1950.

The "Australian ballot" isn't the same thing as the secret ballot - it refers specifically to the practice of printing the names of all official candidates on the ballot and asking the voter to put a mark next to their choice, rather than handing the voter a blank piece of paper and having them fill in all the names they wish to vote for on their own (or, more usually, substituting the pre-printed ballots distributed by party activists outside the polling station).

 

[Ares96]

Part Three: Västerort (Western Suburbs)
Quota: 21,340

(see map above)

27: Västerled
Electorate: 23,886 (+2,545)

Västerled parish, which is just about exactly coterminous with this seat, is largely made up of villa suburbs, built over the first half of the 20th century. Ålsten is where Per Albin Hansson lived, and he died of a heart attack getting of the tram there, so if that's all you know of the area, it might come as a surprise that it's as deep blue as Stockholm outside the tolls gets.

2014 turnout: 20,517 (85.9%)

Moderate: 7871 (32.4%)
Liberal: 2488 (12.1%)
Social Democratic: 2352 (11.5%)

Alliance: 13,298 (64.8%)
Red-Greens: 5,941 (29.0%)

28: Bromma
Electorate: 24,000 (+2,659)

This is a more mixed seat, largely centred on the interwar suburbs built along what was then the rapid tram line to Ängby, but became the Green Line's western branch, but also taking in villa suburbs like Eneby and Norra Ängby as well as the new-build area of Mariehäll up by Sundbyberg. These areas all circle the constituency's namesake airport, but the constituency is still a natural community as it's largely based on its namesake parish.

2014 turnout: 20,693 (86.2%)

Moderate: 6,963 (33.7%)
Social Democratic: 3,367 (16.3%)
Green: 2,273 (11.0%)

Alliance: 11,512 (55.6%)
Red-Greens: 7,621 (33.3%)

29: Vällingby
Electorate: 22,739 (+1,398)

Vällingby, along with Farsta, is the archetypal ABC suburb - designed to provide work (arbete), housing (bostäder) and commercial space (centrum) all in one relatively walkable area. This was the guiding paradigm of Swedish suburban development for the 50s and much of the 60s, until the pressures of the Million Programme forced a scaling back of ambition - and to be honest, outside Stockholm, the ABC concept was hardly ever followed through. The constituency of Vällingby also includes the nearby housing estate of Blackeberg, which is only famous because it was the setting for the bestselling urban fantasy horror novel Let the Right One In, and some assorted terraced housing including the area where Olof Palme raised his family. A safe red seat, the first of a few in the far western suburbs, and indeed an almost exact mirror image of Bromma in scenario B.

2014 turnout: 17,601 (77.4%)

Social Democratic: 5,456 (31.0%)
Moderate: 3,648 (20.7%)
Green: 1,913 (10.9%)

Red-Greens: (55.1%)
Alliance: (33.3%)

30: Spånga
Electorate: 20,651 (-690)

Spånga covers the southern half of its namesake parish, and is mostly defined by the areas that surround it - south of the Rinkeby-Tensta-Hjulsta corridor, north of Vällingby, west of Sundbyberg and east of the city line. It's mostly homogenous villa suburbs, and leans right as a result.

2014 turnout: 17,169 (83.1%)

Moderate: 6,002 (35.0%)
Social Democratic: 3,492 (20.3%)
Green: 1,604 (9.3%)

Alliance: 54.58%
Red-Greens: 37.08%

31: Hässelby
Electorate: 24,893 (+3,552)

Here's another mixed seat - Hässelby gård and Hässelby strand are metro suburbs of the kind more commonly seen in south Stockholm, while Hässelby villastad is an old villa suburb and Backlura a Million Programme-era terraced housing development. The three types combine to form a truly marginal seat, really the only one in Västerort proper. In 2014, though, it went to the left.

2014 turnout: 19,455 (78.2%)

Social Democratic: 5,506 (28.3%)
Moderate: 5,388 (27.7%)
Sweden Democrat: 1,955 (10.1%)

Red-Greens: 8,885 (45.7%)
Alliance: 8,392 (43.1%)

32: Rinkeby
Electorate: 18,414 (-2,927)

The very name "Rinkeby" is basically synonymous with all the negative stereotypes of the Million Programme - decaying housing, poor social services, overwhelmingly populated by Muslims (I do want to stress that I don't view this one as an inherent negative, in case anyone got that impression) and treated by the police as a war zone. The whole far-right "no-go zone" talking point is often made in reference to Rinkeby and the other Million Programme suburbs making up the Järva region (of which this seat covers the southern half, located along metro line 10). These stories are, of course, wildly exaggerated, but there's no smoke without fire, and these suburbs do have serious problems with social deprivation and segregation. This manifests politically as low turnout above all, but those who do vote tend to vote overwhelmingly for the Social Democrats.

2014 turnout: 10,941 (59,4%)

Social Democratic: 6,734 (61.6%)
Green: 1,128 (10.3%)
Left: 1,118 (10,2%)

Red-Greens: 9,278 (84,8%)
Alliance: 1,217 (11,1%)

33: Kista
Electorate: 20,779 (-562)

This is the northern half of Järva, and economically it's dominated by the high-tech industries in Kista town centre, whose workforce is almost entirely commuters from other parts of the city. There's some new development here, but the two other housing estates - Husby and Akalla - are unrefurbished Million Programme with all the issues that implies, and vote accordingly.

2014 turnout: 14,186 (68.3%)

Social Democratic: 6358 (44.8%)
Moderate: 2,006 (14.1%)
Left: 1,766 (12.5%)

Red-Greens: 10,013 (70.6%)
Alliance: 3,051 (21.5%)

Part Three-and-a-Half: Solna and Sundbyberg

34: Huvudsta
Electorate: 16,170 (-5,171)

Now we're out of Stockholm proper, even though we're closer to the city centre than anywhere in Västerort, because Stockholm's municipal boundaries are weird like that. The constituency of Huvudsta is centred on its namesake housing estate, which is at the south end of Solna municipality, and like much of Solna it was formerly lower-middle-class detached housing before being redeveloped with extreme prejudice in the 1950s and 60s. The constituency also crosses over into Sundbyberg to take in the neighbouring suburb of Lilla Alby, not to be confused with the Million Programme estate of Alby in south Stockholm.

2014 turnout: 13,364 (82.7%)

Moderate: 3,875 (29.0%)
Social Democratic: 3,262 (24.4%)
Green: 1,253 (9.4%)

Alliance: 6,041 (45.2%)
Red-Greens: 5,949 (44.5%)

35: Haga och Skytteholm
Electorate: 17,829 (-3,512)

This constituency covers, broadly, the eastern half of Solna, and takes its name from Haga Castle, currently home to the Crown Princess and her family, as well as Skytteholm, the location of the Solna town hall and the Solna Centrum shopping centre. It also contains Hagalund, another former detached housing suburb turned into a high-density estate in the 60s, and this combination makes it marginal but more right-leaning than Huvudsta.

2014 turnout: 14,329 (80.4%)

Moderate: 4,424 (30.9%)
Social Democratic: 3,472 (24.2%)
Green: 1,282 (9.0%)

Alliance: 6,812 (47.5%)
Red-Greens: 6,289 (43.9%)

36: Råsunda och Ulriksdal
Electorate: 22,185 (+844)

The main draw in this third and last Solna-based constituency is no doubt Friends Arena (formerly Swedbank Arena, but the naming rights were given away to the anti-bullying charity Friends after a corruption scandal), the national football stadium and home of AIK Fotboll. There's massive development going on around the stadium, and the area is slated for a metro extension sometime soon. The seat extends across into Sundbyberg to take in Ursvik, another area of intense development - this is likely a seat that will have to be redrawn, if not in 2018 then certainly in 2022. For now, it's the safest blue seat in Solna, which still makes it somewhat marginal.

2014 turnout: 18,398 (82.9%)

Moderate: 5,990 (32.6%)
Social Democratic: 3,776 (20.5%)
Green: 1,970 (10.7%)

Alliance: 9,243 (50.2%)
Red-Greens: 7,595 (41.3%)

37: Sundbyberg
Electorate: 23,471 (+2,130)

Sundbyberg, the majority of which is in this seat, is a very mixed municipality. Sundbyberg proper is an old industrial town, a genuinely separate thing from Stockholm (though helped by its proximity to the capital), and has a proper urbanised town centre, but apart from it the constituency is split between the villa suburbs of Duvbo and Hästhagen and the post-war housing estates of Rissne and Hallonbergen. Overall, a left-leaning marginal, somewhat similar to Hässelby in its makeup.

2014 turnout: 18,667 (79.5%)

Social Democrats: 5,540 (29.7%)
Moderates: 4,667 (25.0%)
Greens: 1,878 (10.1%)

Red-Greens: 9,560 (51.0%)
Alliance: 7,104 (38.2%)

 

[Thande]

Great work Max.

Same thing happened here when the secret ballot was introduced; because it first gained traction in Tasmania, it was derided as the "Australian ballot" and therefore Alien and Foreign and all those things Americans are supposed to hate. Took until after 1884 for most states to move to some form of secret ballot (Kentucky held out on the old-fashioned oral vote until its 1891 elections!), but the idea of a universal, official ballot, as opposed to a privately printed one, didn't take root in the South until as late as 1950.

The "Australian ballot" isn't the same thing as the secret ballot - it refers specifically to the practice of printing the names of all official candidates on the ballot and asking the voter to put a mark next to their choice, rather than handing the voter a blank piece of paper and having them fill in all the names they wish to vote for on their own (or, more usually, substituting the pre-printed ballots distributed by party activists outside the polling station).

I've previously suggested that if Maine's new AV (or IRV or ranked choice voting or whatever you want to call it) system catches on in the US, future history students are going to get really confused about the "Australian ballot" thing, considering AV is also associated with Australia.

 

[OwenM]

Same thing happened here when the secret ballot was introduced; because it first gained traction in Tasmania, it was derided as the "Australian ballot" and therefore Alien and Foreign and all those things Americans are supposed to hate. Took until after 1884 for most states to move to some form of secret ballot (Kentucky held out on the old-fashioned oral vote until its 1891 elections!), but the idea of a universal, official ballot, as opposed to a privately printed one, didn't take root in the South until as late as 1950.

And where it was introduced earlier in the South, it was as a voter suppression measure, because this is the US South.

 

[Ares96]

Just to say I've started working on this again, this time with the voting figures from 2018. As mentioned, these will cover three different scenarios: all the parties separately (scenario A), the Red-Greens vs. Alliance setup from 2014 (scenario B) and the JA parties vs. the right-wing opposition (scenario C). The latter should prove genuinely interesting - so far it's producing an almost British level of urban-rural split.

 

[Ares96]

A little preview...

 

[Alex Richards]

Just to say I've started working on this again, this time with the voting figures from 2018. As mentioned, these will cover three different scenarios: all the parties separately (scenario A), the Red-Greens vs. Alliance setup from 2014 (scenario B) and the JA parties vs. the right-wing opposition (scenario C). The latter should prove genuinely interesting - so far it's producing an almost British level of urban-rural split.

Can't say I'm familiar with the latter groupings.

 

[Tamar]

Can't say I'm familiar with the latter groupings.

Social Democrats+Greens+Liberals+Centre(+Left) v. Moderates+Sweden Democrats+Christian Democrats, i.e. the current situation.