UKIP have failed in their attempt to take the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner, after the previous holder was forced to resign over his handling of child sex abuse cases. Labour comfortably held the seat because heartlands like Sheffield stuck with the party, however in UKIPs target areas of Doncaster and Rotherham their vote surged.
The party went from went from fourth with 11.5 percent to second on 31.66 percent. However, the Labour Party comfortably won, with 50.02 percent of the vote enough to win on the first round of counting.
UKIP could have come closer had Labour failed to get over half the votes in round one. This is because the election uses an Alternative Vote system so lower placed candidates would be eliminated if there had been further rounds of voting. The votes of eliminated candidates are given to which ever remaining candidate was the voter’s second choice.
It is likely that voters for the English Democrats and the Conservatives would have chosen UKIP as their second preference in order to stop Labour.
UKIP had hoped to take the post, but were privately telling journalists in advance that they had failed to persuade enough people in Sheffield and Barnsley to win.
The full results are below:
Total number of valid first preference votes: 148,062
ALLEN David English Democrats – “Putting England First!” 8,583 (5.8%)
BILLINGS Alan Labour Party Candidate 74,060 (50.02%) (ELECTED)
CLARKSON Jack UK Independence Party (UKIP) 46,883 (31.66%)
WALKER Ian The Conservative Party Candidate 18,536 (12.52%)
Number of ballot papers rejected at first count: 2,299