Honeycomb structure - The Visualization of Spatial Social Structure - page 121

interesting, but not particularly influential, geographical distributions during this
period. 15
Study of the human geography of voting is well suited to equal population
visualization (Figures 4.16 and 4.17). Cartograms give people the equal represen-
tation their votes are worth, and the graduated three-colour scheme encompasses
most eventualities. Although only the winning candidate holds each seat in par-
liament, the degree of support they command and nature of the opposition to
them are also relevant both for one point in time and to indicate possible future
trends (Figures 4.18 and 4.19).
The votes in national (general) elections are only reported for very large
areas containing sixty or seventy thousand electors. While general elections are
pertinent events, and the only complete record of the people's (or at least of those
who do vote - Figure 4.20) actual wishes for government, the fine detail of local
opinion at which we know everything else about our social landscape is lost when
voting preferences are reported only at constituency level. 16 Voting statistics for
Westminster parliaments are not released below the constituency level.
Local elections follow a complicated system of timing and are not all simple
one-candidate outcomes. They do, however, give us information, at the relatively
fine level of several thousands of local contests, nationally and annually. County
council and Scottish regional elections, however, are based upon a different, very
poorly defined, geography ('County Divisions'). Therefore we must rely upon the
results of District elections to see the spatial mosaic.
The national picture of voting emphasises the divisions seen earlier in the
social landscape. In general people in areas of high unemployment, recent immi-
gration and older industries vote Labour, while the rest of the country is domi-
nated by the Conservative party, closely followed by the Liberals (Figure 4.21).
The geography of political party support accentuates the differences between
people grouped by area, as it has traditionally been through these parties that
people are allowed to register their support or condemnation of the social system
within which they are placed.
Cartograms much simpler than those shown here are just beginning to be used
by the media. On television pundits appear to touch a screen and zoom in on
areas already given equal weight on election night TV population-based maps.

15 Very small parties can have very big effects, even under the first-past-the-post system as
political bias can be in either direction: 'The January 1910 election illustrates this situation very
clearly. The Irish Nationalists won 82 seats, all but one being located in Ireland. ... Thus with
1.9 % of the vote the Irish Nationalists were able to secure 12.2 % of the seats to enjoy the positive
bias of 10.3 %. The more recent experience of the Liberals has been a sharp contrast to this situation'
(Gudgin and Taylor, 1973, p. 18).
16 The local distribution of class was once seen as almost identical to that of local voting: 'Since
1945, occupational class has been widely seen as the main social basis underlying electoral politics
in Britain. A pattern of “class alignment” was clearly apparent in the 1950s and 1960s. at the

level of explaining why particular areas or constituencies vote the way they do, knowing the mix of
occupational classes in the local area continues to be as valuable as ever in explaining or predicting
election results' (Dunleavy, 1983, pp. 32, 37 - 38).

...