Can Skittles predict the results of the election? We gave it a try

We got a bit sick of the big survey companies getting all the attention for predicting the election results and we wanted in on that action.

The only problem was that we didn’t have time to ring people, or to explain to the police how we got all those phone numbers, so we did it a little differently.

We got our results by counting Skittles – other multi-coloured sweets are available. This is how we did it.

We used three large bags of Skittles, because the larger the sample size the better, and we also knew we’d get to eat them after the experiment.

This was our (not very) scientific method:

Step 1: Assign colours to parties

Because there were only five colours available, we included the four largest parties in the last parliamentary session: Conservatives, Labour, SNP, Liberal-Democrat, and we randomly selected a colour for each one –

Conservative = purple

Labour = green

SNP = orange

Lib-Dem = yellow

N.B. The remaining colour – red – represents all other parties. Sucks to be them, right?

Step 2. Combine the bags of Skittles

Step 3. Sort into separate colours

Step 4. Begin the count

There were 522 votes with 5 spoiled ballots: the cat licked them and they were thrown in the bin.

i. Early results looked good for both the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems, but Labour and the SNP remained positive.

ii. A surge for the other parties levelled the playing field a little and began to leave the Lib-Dems behind.

iii. As results poured in from the Home Counties, it looked like the Conservatives and Lib-Dems might be going to get the band back together and relive the glory days of benefit cuts and university fee rises.

iv. In a political earthquake not predicted by any of the major pollsters, a cat ran through the data.

v. At this point, Jo Swinson’s dreams of a move into Number 10 must have started to bubble back up to the surface.

vi. But no, there would be no majority for Jo today, or anybody else by the look of it.

Result

A shocker of a comeback for Labour, whose message on nationalising sausages must have landed slightly heavier than the Conservatives’ message on never letting Boris Johnson near a bulldozer.

This pie chart really illustrates how close the votes would be if they exactly reflected the frequency of Skittles colours – which, let’s face it, would be a coincidence of suspiciously epic proportions.

On that basis, we predict a hung parliament, with better than expected results for the Lib-Dems and a surprisingly large amount of smaller parties and Independents represented.

Is it scientific? No. But, could it be a surprisingly accurate way to predict results anyway? Also no.

Up next, we predict the lottery numbers using a box of Quality Street.

Image eagleboobs on Unsplash