Statistical summary

The Ven Alan Perry
Executive Archdeacon of Edmonton

Alan Perry has once again worked the numbers through the spreadsheet. He says:


Oxford's confusion has made the update of the statistics difficult, because I had to decide how to include them. In the end, I chose to average the numbers, rounding. 


So, I have included for Oxford:

Clergy: 15 for, 37 against, 2 abstentions

Laity: 34 for, 27 against, 3 abstentions.

Bearing that in mind, total voting statistics now stand at:

Bishops: 79.5% for, 14.1% against, 6.4% abstentions

Clergy: 45.7% for, 50.1% against, 4.3% abstentions

Laity: 48.6% for, 46.4% against, 5.0% abstentions

Overall: 48.1% for, 47.2% against, 4.7% abstentions

Overall (clergy and laity only): 47.3% for, 48.1% against, 4.7% abstentions

The overwhelming support for the Covenant by the bishops pushes the total to a slim plurality of support for it, but when their votes are excluded from the counting (as their votes don't actually count in the diocesan totals) the reverse is true. Except amongst the bishops, it is clear that the members of the diocesan synods that have voted to date are almost exactly evenly divided as to whether the Covenant ought to be adopted by the Church of England, though there is a significant margin and a majority against adoption amongst the clergy.

Where the votes actually count, of the 38 dioceses voting to date, 23 have voted against the Covenant and 15 for. Thus, regardless how the remaining 6 dioceses vote, a majority of the 44 dioceses has already voted against the Covenant, and its consideration cannot return to the General Synod during the current quinquennium.