By Justin Parkinson
Political reporter, BBC News
Image caption, Professor Sir John Curtice is up for more than 36 hours for general elections
Voters one day of the UK traipse to the polls in local and Northern Ireland Assembly elections this Thursday. The man who calls the implications, and informs the country about the command of politics in accordance to voting, finds how he does it.
When Professor Sir John Curtice proclaims on elections, politicians and pundits hear.
Knighted in 2017, he could well be the utterly psephologist in the UK who’s routinely, albeit reluctantly, recognised in the avenue.
“I stay with it,” he says. “I don’t stay for it.”
As 10pm chimes on the final Thursday of a general election, the final voters function casting their vote.
It’s then that Sir John, who’s been working on general elections since the 1970s, interprets the exit poll – in which voters at about 140 chosen polling stations dangle in 2nd ballots, indicating which candidate they’ve chosen.
And that is the explanation what he makes exercise of to expose the arena who’s inclined to radically change the following high minister.
“I don’t inconvenience about what happens on the discontinuance of voting,” he says. “The more apprehensive length is in a while in the night, once we in actuality conception how splendid we have been.”
For local elections savor this week’s in England, Scotland and Wales there are no longer any exit polls – the identical applies for the Northern Ireland Assembly elections on the identical day.
Nonetheless Sir John silent has to compose a name on what the vote potential for the following general election.
“Somebody wants you to give a fairly life like estimate of how the occasions would assassinate if voting shares were applied one day of the country as a total, and one day of the four international locations,” he says.
“We’re silent making an are attempting to salvage the people an belief of where the legend’s going. It’s barely laborious.”
The work of Sir John, professor of political science on the University of Strathclyde, and his colleagues starts months forward of the glamour of election night.
By the time polls originate on the day of a general election, a total bunch of hours of labor finessing suggestions possess long previous in, ready for Sir John and his team of 5 or six experts to analyse exit poll outcomes as they are phoned in.
“We are inclined to start through the morning, 11am or 12ish,” he says. “No earlier, in the end, attributable to now we prefer to work till normally successfully into the following day.”
The team hand in their cell phones and take a seat collectively in a guarded room in a secret internet page.
By early afternoon – numerous hours forward of the rest of the country – Sir John has a appropriate belief of who’s inclined to be the following high minister.
After the fashioned early-evening surge in voting and exit polls, he and his experts sketch out their broader thoughts on a whiteboard.
“We’re starting up to short the people that in the end must know, such as main representatives from TV companies,” says Sir John.
“Then we salvage to the annoying cease of the industrial, saying this is what [result] we’ll traipse for now.”
After the exit poll-essentially based prediction is printed at 10pm there could be the wait to conception if it’s splendid – or as splendid because it will perchance per chance very successfully be.
Sir John’s team traipse away the sealed room, spending the rest of the night in the TV studio.
This week’s elections, lacking exit polls, will no longer possess the amount of prior records that a general election gives.
Image source, PA Media
Image caption, Mind food? Sir John’s team decide to spend healthily but a sever of pizza on occasion goes down successfully
“The legend is emerging throughout the night,” 68-year-old Sir John says. “For final year’s local elections I purchased four hours’ sleep [when there was a lull in results] and I purchased up at 5am to start again, but that doesn’t happen for general elections.”
For these, he’s awake for on the least 36 hours straight as he goes by diagram of the implications, whereas writing online reports and showing on radio and TV.
His team decide food from takeaway menus. “We are attempting to possess something healthy,” says Sir John, “but we had pizzas final year, I mediate.”
Image caption, David Butler, the UK pioneering on-conceal pollster, was once a mentor to Sir John
“It gets more tough to assassinate the job the longer it’s most likely you’ll well per chance most likely very successfully be awake,” says Sir John. “Lack of sleep destroys your non permanent memory, so you ought to salvage as powerful ready as which you can.
“Most folks are no longer sitting up all night watching this stuff. Nonetheless we silent ought to silent be ready to indicate to people in the morning what’s took internet page.”
Nonetheless Sir John resists the temptation to amass 40 winks.
“The methodology I conception it’s that, whereas you happen to’ve missed a night of sleep, you possess missed a night. You do not must traipse aid to sleep early and rupture sleep patterns. You wish withhold going till nine or 10 the following evening.”
By mid-morning on Friday, general election outcomes demonstrate whether or no longer Sir John was once splendid or putrid.
Broadcasters proceed for numerous more hours to inquire him for in-depth evaluation on why people voted as they did.
And for local elections, he’s called on throughout the day to give his growing command of-the-political-nation thoughts.
After that, or no longer it’s time – in the end – for bed.
BBC One’s protection of the local and Northern Ireland Assembly election night outcomes, that comprises Sir John, starts at 23: 40 BST this Thursday. BBC 5 stay and the BBC News internet home will additionally possess the most up-to-date.