📜 Behind the Curtain🌶️ Extra MasalaThe Coalition Maths Everyone Is Doing Wrong
Vote share is not seat share. A three-point swing can move forty seats or four, and the difference is geography.
Every election cycle produces a chart that multiplies vote share by total seats. Every cycle it is wrong.
Why. First-past-the-post rewards efficient concentration. A party polling 22% spread evenly wins almost nothing. The same 22% concentrated across sixty constituencies wins sixty seats.
The swing trap. A uniform national swing is a modelling convenience, not a real phenomenon. Swings are regional, and India's regions do not swing together.
What to watch instead. Margin distribution from the last result. Count the seats decided by under three points. That number, not the national average, tells you how volatile the map actually is.
The honest caveat. Every model here has error bars wider than most headlines admit. Anyone giving you a seat number to the unit is selling something.
How much popcorn was this?
1 bucket = raw kernel. 5 buckets = burnt popcorn, total scandal.
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