Michal Škop
Editor-in-chief and co-owner of DataTimes. Statistician, demographer and programmer; founder and director of the non-profit Voting Advice Applications (volebnikalkulacka.cz), which since 2006 have helped millions of voters in many countries make better-informed choices. Winner of the Czech Journalism Award (2025) with three shortlist nominations. He has worked at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, the University of Salamanca and Charles University, specialises in election analysis and predictions, and teaches at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen.
Pre-election polls put Eisenkot's Yashar in the lead, and the overnight running tally overstated Likud. From the first hour of the count, the DataTimes.cz prediction showed a stalemate: Netanyahu's bloc will end up with 53 seats, Gadi Eisenkot's opposition with 48, and the 19 members of the Arab parties will decide whether anyone has a majority.
27 October 2026
Flávio Bolsonaro won the first round, gained the backing of three defeated candidates and led in the polls. Yet Lula remains president. Between the two rounds he added 10.4 million votes, more than all the eliminated candidates received together in the first round. The outcome was decided by people who had not voted the first time or had cast an invalid ballot.
26 October 2026
Almost as many people in Serbia voted for Vučić's list as three years ago: 1.73 million against 1.78 million. But the Student List received 2.35 million votes, 1.4 million more than the main opposition in 2023. Turnout rose by 612,000 people and the other parties all but disappeared. We look at how it happened, where the students won and what lies ahead for Serbia.
26 October 2026
Polls before the runoff had Flávio Bolsonaro slightly ahead, and during the night the running count briefly put him in front of Lula. From the first minutes of the count, however, the DataTimes.cz prediction pointed to a win for the incumbent president: Lula will finish on 51.8 per cent and beat the son of his predecessor by more than four million votes.
25 October 2026
Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat in Serbia's parliamentary election at around half past nine in the evening, based on his own party's sample. The official running count then covered a tenth of a per cent of voters and kept his list in the lead until 23:14. The DataTimes.cz prediction confirmed the students' victory from official data at 22:01. The Student List has 53.7% of valid votes and, by our calculation, 141 of 250 seats.
25 October 2026
Between the first and second rounds of the Senate election, ANO's candidates lost a third of their votes, their opponents only a tenth. The voters of candidates who did not make it to the run-off went mainly to ANO's rivals. The governing parties won none of the 27 seats, and only one woman was elected.
17 October 2026
48.00% of voters turned out, 1.9 percentage points more than in 2022, and turnout rose in 12 of the 14 regions. But in the quarter of larger towns with the lowest turnout it fell in 18 of 24. Five towns are below 30% this year; four years ago there were none.
16 October 2026
In the 14 cities and 8 Senate districts with counted results, between 38% and 76% of people who voted for ANO last year did not vote (median 54%). Among SPOLU voters, no more than 20% stayed away in 20 of the 22 places (median 7%). The estimates are based on polling-district results and two independent methods.
12 October 2026
The share of women on candidate lists for Czech municipal councils has been rising since 1994 and this year reached 35%. Among those elected, however, it is consistently four to five percentage points lower, and among mayors lower still. The larger the municipality and the higher the office, the fewer women.
2 October 2026
Next Friday and Saturday, councils will be elected in 6,251 Czech municipalities. Half of them have fewer than 500 inhabitants; in Austria, only one municipality in twenty is that small. Running the smallest municipalities costs almost twice as much per inhabitant, and in nearly half of them only a single list of candidates is standing. Why Czechia has so many municipalities, and what happened when Austria merged its own.
2 October 2026
Die Linke won the Berlin election with 25.7% and took 47% among voters under thirty. Election-day data and results from 1,572 polling districts show that age and housing in a city of renters were decisive. In Czech media the party is often portrayed as a far-left force comparable to the AfD. Political scientists, the offices for the protection of the constitution and its record in government point to something else: a radical, not an extremist party, whose risks lie elsewhere than Czech coverage suggests.
2 October 2026
For the first time in the history of the Federal Republic, the CDU has failed to win seats in a state parliament. Our data prediction showed shortly after the count began that the party would stay below the five per cent threshold.
20 September 2026
Sweden is electing a new Riksdag today, from 8:00 to 20:00. The latest polls, conducted on 4–11 September, give Magdalena Andersson's red-green bloc a lead of 45.9–51.5% against 47.8–49.0% for Ulf Kristersson's governing coalition – in the closest estimate, the difference is a single seat, 175 to 174. If the right wins, the nationalist Sweden Democrats could take government posts for the first time in history: they agreed on this in March with the Liberals, who themselves are above the 4% threshold by only a small margin.
13 September 2026
The government promises cheaper fuel. But for most people who fill up with gasoline at regular pumps, almost nothing will change. The tax on gasoline remains the same, and most stations already kept margins low before regulation. The intervention can help significantly mainly at expensive highway pumps.
4 April 2026
More than a third of coalition lawmakers lead some non-profit organization. But most of these organizations don't even publish the most basic financial data.
18 March 2026
Political parties' answers to 100 key questions reveal where the Czech Republic is heading.
13 October 2025
Detailed analysis of voter shifts.
9 October 2025
Election results will be known a few dozen minutes after polling stations close. Prediction models enable accurate estimates already at about 1.5% of counted votes.
4 October 2025
In the financial declarations of Czech MEP Filip Turek, we have uncovered major discrepancies that raise fundamental questions: where do his declared incomes actually come from, and why do his claims and financial statements completely contradict each other?
20 May 2025
At the beginning of 2025, it looked clear. Justin Trudeau was written off, the Liberal party was losing by over 20 points in polls, and the Conservatives were heading for a comfortable victory. And then Trump arrived.
29 April 2025
The German parliamentary elections were held on Sunday. At first glance, it may seem that former East Germany has become radicalized, but this is quite a distorted view.
28 February 2025
The German parliamentary elections will take place on Sunday. Why traditional election maps are not always the best choice and how to interpret the results correctly.
21 February 2025
Just as in the previous electoral period, we have been processing all relevant polls since the last parliamentary elections...
18 February 2025
How voting advice applications increase informed political participation.
1 January 2025
Hybrid campaigns, algorithm manipulation and influence operations show how democratic processes can be destabilised.
20 December 2024
Hybridní kampaně, manipulace algoritmů a vlivové operace ukazují, jak lze destabilizovat demokratické procesy.
20 December 2024
European Parliament 2024.
19 December 2024
The annulment of the presidential election over a hybrid attack exposes how vulnerable democratic processes are.
8 December 2024
Anulování prezidentských voleb kvůli hybridnímu útoku odhaluje zranitelnost demokratických procesů.
8 December 2024
Pochval a uznání není nikdy dost 😊 Naše kartogramy si jako ukázkové vybrali nejvyšší statistici Rakouska.
27 November 2024
Our cartograms have been selected as exemplary by the official Statistik Austria.
27 November 2024
Politici jsou oficiálně obviněni z válečných zločinů a zločinů proti lidskosti.
21 November 2024
Jedno video, špatný kontext a příběh, který ilustruje, jak snadno může dojít k manipulaci veřejného mínění.
14 November 2024
Telling the detailed story of the elections.
10 November 2024
Naše predikce ukazuje s 80% jistotou, že příštím americkým prezidentem se stane Donald Trump.
6 November 2024
Čekáte těsné vítězství Trumpa či Harris? Vůbec to tak být nemusí. Ukážeme vám, že rozdíly mohou být mnohem větší a že to není chyba průzkumných agentur.
5 November 2024
Kdyby se dnes konaly volby, čtyřkoalice by se nad vodou držela jen stěží.
31 October 2024
Škodí odvolaný děkan (nyní opět proděkan) Miroslav Ševčík národohospodářské fakultě?
17 October 2024
První data z digitalizovaného systému stavebních řízení (DSŘ): systém zvládá rostoucí objem žádostí bez zjevných známek přetížení.
10 October 2024
Real-time predictions are reshaping election nights.
20 September 2024
We identified errors in counting electoral votes in several polling stations.
8 July 2024
Analytical methods to detect irregularities in election results.
8 July 2024
Detailed data analysis reveal hidden changes between elections.
30 June 2024