BC Iconoclast

The best finishes for Independents in BC

2013-05-22T17:29:00.000-07:00

There were 35 independent candidates and 11 unaffiliated ones of which 7 were defacto independent. Overall the independents did much better in this election than in past ones even if you ignore the impact of Bob Simpson and John van Dongen.

I used 3.5% as the cut off because it shows that there was some effort there and managed to capture all the independent candidates anyone may have heard of.

Here are the top independent candidates ranked by percentage of the vote they achieved.

Vicki Huntingdon 48.03% 10,620 Delta South - 1/3
Bob Simpson 37.28% 4,933 Cariboo North - 2/3
John van Dongen 28.10% 5,138 Abbotsford South - 2/5
Arthur Hadland 25.57% 3,021 Peace River North - 2/4
Joseph Hughes 13.30% 2,239 Kootenay West - 3/4
Gary Law 8.46% 1,428 Richmond Centre - 4/7
Moe Gill 5.77% 1,004 Abbotsford West - 4/6
Tyrel Andrew Phol 4.91% 413 Peace River South - 4/4
Dayleen Van Ryswyk 4.82% 1,025 Kelowna Mission - 4/4
Michael Markwick 4.37% 918 West Vancouver Capilano - 4/5
Jamie Webbe 4.08% 939 North Vancouver Seymour - 5/5
Ryan McKinnon 4.05% 782 Chilliwack Hope - 4/4
James Crosty 3.98% 943 New Westmister - 5/6
Richard Lee 3.98% 672 Richmond Centre - 5/7
Gary Young 3.69% 455 Cariboo Chilcotin - 4/4
Mischa Popoff 3.59% 608 Boundary Similkameen 4/5

The one that interests me is Joseph Hughes in Kootenay West, who is he and why did he do so well?

Comparing 2013 Preliminary Vote Count to 2009

2013-05-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

Since we have not yet counted the special ballots, here is the comparison to the 2009 preliminary vote so that we can have a more a accurate comparison between the two elections in the interim.

Elect Libs NDP Greens BCCP Others total
2013 724,068 643,434 130,421 77,799 53,882 1,629,544
2009 713,994 646,886 130,233 32,620 25,050 1,548,770
Change +10,074 -3,452 +212 +45,179 +28,832 +80,774

The Liberals increased their vote by just over 10,000 while the NDP lost 3,450.

The Greens are almost the same though they only ran 61 candidates in this election and not 85 as in 2009. This means the average Green vote rose by 40% in each riding

The BC Conservatives increased 45,000 votes but they also ran 56 candidates in 2013 as opposed to 24 in in 2009 which means they achieved almost the same amount per candidate.

The vote for all the others more than doubled.
---------------------
Update on May 22nd

For the record, here is how the parties did with the 91,759 special ballots cast in 2009:

Liberals NDP Greens BCCP Others
37,667 44,678 4,383 1,831 3,200
41.05% 48.69% 4.78% 2.00% 3.49%

As you can see the NDP did better than their election day results while the Greens did significantly worse. I have no idea if this pattern will repeat itself in 2013.

Getting a lot of votes is not enough to win

2013-05-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

One of the quirks of our arcane electoral system is that some candidates do much better than others in getting votes but still lose the election.

Here are the top 10 losers of the 2013 BC election

11,024 Kasandra Dyke NDP Comox Valley - 7th best result for a New Democrat
9,999 Margaret MacDiarmid Liberal Vancouver Fairview - 23rd best result for a Liberal
9,911 Barry Avis NDP Parksville Qualicum
9,629 Stephen Roberts Liberal Saanich North and the Islands
9,377 Christy Clark Liberal Vancouver Point Grey
9,294 Adam Olsen Green - 3rd place in Saanich North and the Islands - 2nd best result for a Green
9,257 Dick Cannings NDP Penticton
9,179 Elizabeth Rosenau NDP Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows
8,939 Chris Wilson NDP Coquitlam Maillardville
8,876 Nick Facey Liberal North Island

19 of the MLAs elected a week ago did not manage to get as many votes as the above ten

Here is the list of the MLAs that received the least support on election day

3,769 Doug Donaldson NDP Stikine
3,904 Mike Bernier Liberal Peace River South
4,340 Jennifer Rice NDP North Coast
4,859 John Rustad Liberal Nechako Lakes
5,459 Coralee Oakes Liberal Cariboo North
5,539 Jackie Teggart Liberal Fraser Nicola
6,019 Norm Macdonald NDP Columbia River Revelstoke
6,809 Patt Pimm Liberal Peace River North
6,952 Donna Barnett Liberal Cariboo Chilcotin
7,320 Kathy Corrigan NDP Burnaby Deer Lake

Turnout in the BC Election - lower than 2009 - Also, turnout by riding

2013-05-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

This is the preliminary turnout which includes advance voting and the voting on May 14th, it is does not include special ballots like absentee ballots or early voting. In 2009 there were 102,467 special ballots cast and in 2005 there were 96,330 cast. I think we can safely assume about 120,000 to 150,000 special ballots were cast in 2013.

Total turnout was 1,629,454 out of 3,116,626 people registered to vote by April 23rd, or 52.29% turnout. The total registered voters is likely to have risen about 45,000 on election day but roughly 270,000 to 300,000 people were likely not registered to vote.

For comparison, the number of advance and election votes as a percentage of the public registered by the close of registrations:
Year Voted Registered Turnout
2013 1,629,454 3,116,626 52.29%
2009 1,549,100 2,948,175 52.54%.
2005 1,677,909 2,744,078 61.15%

Bold indicates ridings with turnout 110% of provincial average, italic indicates less than 90% of provincial average. Underlined ridings changed hands

Riding	Adv + May 14 votes	2013 Reg Voters	Turnout
Saanich North and the Islands	29171	44980	64.85%
Delta South	22110	34473	64.14%
Oak Bay-Gordon Head	23953	37443	63.97%
Parksville-Qualicum	26801	42280	63.39%
Saanich South	23829	38685	61.60%
Stikine	8092	13219	61.21%
North Vancouver-Seymour	23016	38055	60.48%
Surrey-White Rock	23460	39796	58.95%
Cariboo North	12317	20926	58.86%
Boundary-Similkameen	16947	28817	58.81%
Powell River-Sunshine Coast	21728	36976	58.76%
Cowichan Valley	24813	42312	58.64%
Shuswap	23607	40475	58.32%
Comox Valley	28681	49503	57.94%
Fraser-Nicola	12330	21363	57.72%
Delta North	20164	35528	56.76%
Cariboo-Chilcotin	13232	23375	56.61%
Nanaimo-North Cowichan	22687	40230	56.39%
Kamloops-South Thompson	23353	41593	56.15%
Fort Langley-Aldergrove	26162	47423	55.17%
Alberni-Pacific Rim	17187	31178	55.13%
North Vancouver-Lonsdale	21773	39633	54.94%
Nechako Lakes	8915	16270	54.79%
Chilliwack-Hope	19292	35237	54.75%
Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows	21532	39378	54.68%
Nelson-Creston	15057	27672	54.41%
Abbotsford West	17032	31401	54.24%
West Vancouver-Capilano	21011	38794	54.16%
Port Moody-Coquitlam	19029	35281	53.94%
Penticton	22953	42651	53.82%
Kootenay West	16837	31290	53.81%
Vancouver-Point Grey	21494	39988	53.75%
Esquimalt-Royal Roads	20760	38638	53.73%
Vancouver-Quilchena	20129	37501	53.68%
Langley	24462	45610	53.63%
Juan de Fuca	21038	39270	53.57%
Victoria-Beacon Hill	23285	43521	53.50%
Surrey-Panorama	23717	44477	53.32%
Kamloops-North Thompson	21201	39857	53.19%
Maple Ridge-Mission	20169	37982	53.10%
Prince George-Mackenzie	17429	32877	53.01%
Surrey-Cloverdale	27296	51811	52.68%
Vancouver-Fairview	23311	44362	52.55%
Chilliwack	19486	37145	52.46%
Skeena	10830	20645	52.46%
West Vancouver-Sea to Sky	19332	36949	52.32%
Port Coquitlam	20109	38458	52.29%
Nanaimo	20870	40010	52.16%
Vernon-Monashee	24077	46322	51.98%
Abbotsford-Mission	18692	35989	51.94%
North Island	20961	40514	51.74%
Coquitlam-Maillardville	19670	38057	51.69%
Victoria-Swan Lake	19902	38623	51.53%
Surrey-Fleetwood	17965	34950	51.40%
New Westminster	23690	46178	51.30%
Abbotsford South	18283	35657	51.27%
North Coast	7667	14956	51.26%
Columbia River-Revelstoke	12492	24467	51.06%
Richmond-Steveston	21465	42098	50.99%
Prince George-Valemount	17620	34877	50.52%
Vancouver-Fraserview	19339	39067	49.50%
Vancouver-Kensington	18810	38016	49.48%
Burnaby-Edmonds	17620	35754	49.28%
Kootenay East	14887	30224	49.26%
Surrey-Newton	15891	32557	48.81%
Burnaby-Lougheed	19800	40604	48.76%
Surrey-Tynehead	17504	36240	48.30%
Coquitlam-Burke Mountain	17485	36473	47.94%
Kelowna-Mission	21278	44671	47.63%
Surrey-Green Timbers	14541	30571	47.56%
Peace River North	11816	24854	47.54%
Vancouver-Hastings	18900	39822	47.46%
Peace River South	8415	18066	46.58%
Vancouver-West End	17092	36978	46.22%
Vancouver-Langara	17656	38225	46.19%
Vancouver-Mount Pleasant	18478	41446	44.58%
Vancouver-Kingsway	16638	37346	44.55%
Richmond East	19511	44469	43.88%
Westside-Kelowna	19441	44830	43.37%
Burnaby North	15150	35062	43.21%
Burnaby-Deer Lake	15782	36598	43.12%
Vancouver-False Creek	18137	42232	42.95%
Kelowna-Lake Country	18763	44610	42.06%
Surrey-Whalley	15163	36498	41.54%
Richmond Centre	16884	43387	38.91%

The Impact of Party Affiliation on the Election Results

2013-05-17T14:41:00.002-07:00

Because of an error by the BC Conservatives in this election we can measure how much impact party affiliation may have on the results or not. Five BC Conservative candidates inadvertently were left of the BC Conservative candidate list submitted to the Elections BC, they shortly afterwards disavowed one of those candidates. They also dropped three other candidates before nominations closed because of problems with them.

Bill Clarke in Vancouver Quilchena
Christine Clark in Burnaby Lougheed
Mike Patras in Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows
Wayne Marklund in Burnaby North

The candidates dropped by the party well into the election

Jeff Sprague in North Vancouver Lonsdale on April 23rd about a drunk driving allegation - the party managed to replace him before nominations closed
Ian Tootill in Vancouver False Creek on April 23rd for comments online
Mischa Popoff in Boundary Similkameen on April 25th for comments online
Rob Herbert in Vancouver West End on April 28th for comments online

Since six of these candidates are all in Metro Vancouver and ran without any affiliation we can make some comparisons

Let us first compare results in the Burnaby - New Westminster - Tri Cities area
Burnaby Loughheed where Christine Clarke ran
Liberals NDP Green Non-Afil BCCP
7,322 41.56% 7,637 43.34% 1,417 8.04% 1,244 7.06%
Burnaby North where Wayne Marklund ran
Liberals NDP Green Non-Afil BCCP
9,376 47.35% 8,610 43.48% 1,359 6.86% 455 2.30%

And now where the BC Conservative affiliation was on the ballot
Coquitlam Burke Mountain

Liberals NDP Green BCCP
8,868 50.72% 6,420 36.72% 1,010 5.78% 941 5.78%
Port Coquitlam

Liberals NDP Green BCCP
7,412 36.86% 10,588 52.65% 0 0.00% 1,377 6.85%
New Westminster - Former Conservative MP Paul Forseth ran for the Conservatives here.

Liberals NDP Green BCCP
8,030 33.90% 11,464 48.39% 1,938 8.18% 1,147 4.84%

Christine Clarke ran a year ago for the BC Conservatives in the Port Moody by-election so had a campaign team and some name recognition in the area, I would expect here to do better

The results for the two candidates that were formally on the ballot as BC Conservatives had results almost as good as the results for Christive Clark and much better results than Wayne Marklund.

We then have the two Maple Ridge Ridings
Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows where Mike Patras ran

Liberals NDP Green Non-Afil BCCP
9,860 45.79% 9,179 42.63% 1,953 9.07% 540 2.51%
Maple Ridge Mission - Conservative candidate Chad Thompson

Liberals NDP Green BCCP
9,408 46.65% 8,032 39.82% 1,654 8.20% 1,075 5.33%

The BC Conservative affliatated candidate did significantly better even though in my opinion Mike Patras ran a stronger campaign than Chad Thompson

Then we have the Westside of Vancouver
Vancouver Quilchena where Bill Clarke ran

Liberals NDP Green Non-Afil BCCP
13,302 64.74% 5,078 25.32% 1,426 7.08% 593 2.95%
Vancouver False Creek were dropped BCCP candidate Ian Toothill ran

Liberals NDP Green Dropped BCCP
9,407 51.87% 6,764 37.29% 1,644 9.06% 180 0.99%

Vancouver West End where dropped BCCP candidate Ron Herbert ran

Liberals NDP Green Dropped BCCP
4,818 28.19% 9,776 57.20% 1,897 11.10% 122 0.71%

Ridings with Conservative on the ballot:
Vancouver Point Grey

Liberals NDP Green BCCP
9,377 43.63% 10,162 47.28% 1,431 6.66% 345 1.61%
Vancouver Langara

Liberals NDP Green BCCP
9,365 53.04% 6,727 38.10% 916 5.19% 607 3.44%
Vancouver Fraserview

Liberals NDP Green BCCP
9,127 47.19% 8 ,581 44.37% 1,053 5.44% 578 2.99%

In this case I can not see any clear pattern that shows the BC Conservative name on the ballot made much difference since all six of these candidates had such dismal results. I would expect Bill Clarke to do somewhat better because he was the MP for the area for the PCs from 1972 to 1984

The BC Conservative results overall for these 11 Conservative candidates and two dropped candidates are very low, but the the pattern I can see is that the BC Conservative name pushed the candidates up a bit. With BC Conserative on the ballot the average result was 4.41%, without it was 3.71% for the four unaffiliated but still connected and 2.75% when you look at the two dropped candidates that still ran.

I wish I had more data points to work with, this is a very small sample and is effected by the fact that two of the candidates without Conservative on the ballot should have been among the best results for the BC Conservatives. I do not think this data can be used to make any predictions on future results with any accuracy.

Comparing results in various Victoria area ridings in 2013, 2009 and 2005

2013-05-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

These results are comparing the vote before the absentee and other special ballots are considered in this election and past elections. These ballots, which are likely to number between 1,000 and 2,000 in each of the ridings, will be counted on May 27th. They are not likely to change the outcome though might have the potential in Saanich North and the Islands.

In looking at the results, in this region the Greens took vote almost in equal proportions from the NDP and the Liberals. In the strongest three Green races the party took an almost equal number of votes from the NDP and Liberals. Vote splitting is not going on here.

CRD Results overall

Elect. Vote NDP Liberals Greens
2013 161,938 60,775 37.53% 46,188 28.52% 42,601 26.31%
2009 158,042 80,696 51.06% 58,695 37.14% 17,969 11.37%

Oak Bay Gordon Head - Green gain from the Liberals
Elect. Vote NDP Liberals Greens Others
2013 23,953 6,772 28.27% 7,124 29.74% 9,602 40.09% 455 1.90%
2009 24,154 10,736 44.45% 11,266 44.79% 2,152 8.91%
2005 27,012 11,430 42.15% 12,911 47.80% 2,232 8.26% 439 1.63%

Total special ballots in 2009 1,369 and in 2005 1,280

Andrew Weaver pulled almost evenly from the NDP and the Liberals. If the NDP could have managed to get their identified vote from 2009 and 2005 out to vote, they would have won.

He also won convincingly. I put this down to one major factor I saw in few other places, a large team of active volunteers.

Victoria Beacon Hill - NDP hold
Elect. vote NDP Liberals Greens Other
2013 23,285 11,335 48.68% 3,981 17.10% 7,852 33.72% 117 0.50%
2009 22,649 12,592 55.60% 5,998 26.48% 3,768 16.64% 291 1.28%
2005  26,322 15,064 57.21% 8,091 30.73% 2,783 10.57% 394 1.50%

In 2009 there were 1,551 special ballots cast and in 2005 there were 1,863

What I think we can take from this is that Jane Sterk gained more from the Liberals than the NDP. A bit more strategic voting from BC Liberals and a higher turn out and the results would have be different.

Karen Bill is the only Liberal in BC to finish in third place.

Saanich North and the Islands - NDP gain from the Liberals
Elect. Vote NDP Liberals Greens Others
2013 29,171 9,681 33.19% 9,629 33.01% 9,294 31.86% 567 1.94%
2009 27,668 12,129 43.84% 12,526 45.27% 3,013 10.89%
2005 30,143 11,265 37.37% 13,265 44.01% 4,557 15.12% 1,056 3.50%

Total special ballots in 2009 1,569 and in 2005 1,418

Once again the Greens pulled almost evenly from the Liberals and NDP though slightly more from the Liberals in this case.

Victoria Swan Lake - NDP hold (Victoria Hillside in 2005)
Elect. Vote NDP Liberals Greens Others
2013 19,902 10,891 54.72% 4,509 22.66% 4,502 22.62%
2009 20,467 12,389 60.53% 5,456 26.66% 2,459 12.01% 163 0.80%
2005 22,505 12,847 57.09% 7,042 31.29% 2,657 11.81% 480 2.13%

Total special ballots in 2009 1,208 and in 2005 1,927

Greens took slightly more from the NDP than the Liberals. An interesting thing to note, the gap between the NDP and the Greens in this election is smaller than the gap in Oak Bay Gordon Head.

Saanich South - NDP Hold
Elect. Vote NDP Liberals Greens Others
2013 23,829 10,824 45.42% 8,473 35.56% 3,612 15.16% 920 3.86%
2009 23,650 11,134 47.08% 10,727 45.36% 1,561 6.60% 228 0.96%
2005 26,720 12,809 47.94% 11,958 44.75% 1,902 7.12% 565 2.11%

Total special ballots in 2009 1,161 and in 2005 1,078

In this riding the Liberals dropped more than the NDP.

Esquimalt Royal Roads - NDP Hold - the riding changed too much to allow a comparison to 2005

Elect. Vote NDP Liberals Greens Others
2013 20,760 9,997 48.16% 5,959 28.70% 4,486 21.61% 318 1.53%
2009 20,176 10,708 53.07% 6,098 30.22% 3,370 16.70%

Total special ballots in 2009 1,581

Here the drift seems to be from the NDP to the Greens, though nothing dramatic.

Juan de Fuca - NDP Hold - the riding has changed too much to allow a comparison to 2005

Elect. Vote NDP Liberals Greens
2013 21,038 11,272 53.58% 6,513 30.96% 3,253 15.46%
2009 19,278 11,008 57.10% 6,624 34.36% 1,646 8.54%

Total special ballots in 2009 857

John Horgan is the only New Democrat to increase his vote in this region. At the same time the Greens doubled their vote. I do not see any strong drain from the NDP to the Greens in this riding.

When you look at the CRD overall there is no evidence that Greens are more of a threat to the NDP than the Liberals. There is also clear evidence that the Greens have the capacity to win more than one seat here in 2017. I think a well run Green campaign with enough volunteers could win four or five seats in 2017. Certainly I would be surprised of the Greens took any less than three. In this election only one of the Green candidates had a full slate of volunteers.

Looking at voting splitting in 5 Interior Ridings

2013-05-15T18:13:00.001-07:00

I am looking the election day results this time compared to 2009, 2005 and 2001 There are still some 150,000 or so special ballots to be counted on May 27th. There are a couple of ridings where this might make a difference in BC but unlikely.

I am looking at five ridings the BC Liberals won this election to see if there any interesting patterns. Note that only 2013 and 2009 are one set of  boundaries and 2005 and 2001 are another.

What I find interesting in looking at this data is that whole idea of vote splitting is not going anywhere in the numbers I am looking at. If the Greens are a problem for the NDP, they should have done better in a number of the following races.

Kootenay East - Liberal Hold - held by Bill Bennett since 2001(called Kootenay East in 2001 and 2005)
Elect Vote NDP Liberals Green BCCP/Unity
2013 14,887 5,463 36.70% 9,424 63.20%
2009 15,531 5,516 35.52% 7,973 51.34% 506 3.26% 1,536 9.89%
2005 15,855 6,939 43.77% 7,618 48.05% 1,298 8.19%
2001 15,793 3,502 22.17% 9,771 61.87% 1,229 7.78% 621 3.93%

Total special ballots in 2009 - 878 in 2005 - 933 in 2001 - 707

This riding should clearly show to people that the NDP is not the natural home for the Greens. The NDP vote did not rise in this election even though there was no Green candidate. Even in 2009 with BC Conservative leader Wilf Hanni running in the riding and a dramatic drop in the Green vote, the NDP vote not only did not rise, it fell.

The Green vote was consistent from 2001 to 2005 even though the NDP vote rose dramatically

Peace River North - Liberal Hold - held by Patt Pimm since 2009
Other in 2013 is a BC Conservative, in 2009 and 2005 it was a Green

Elect Vote NDP Liberals Ind Other
2013 11,816 1,116 9.44% 6,809 57.63% 3,021 25.57% 870 7.36%
2009 8,315 1,139 13.70% 3,617 43.50% 2,657 31.95% 902 10.85%
2005 8,768 2,375 27.09% 5,223 59.57% 578 6.59% 592 6.75%

Total special ballots in 2009 - 937 in 2005 - 492

This riding is mainly interesting because Arthur Hadland with half a campaign in 2009 came within 1,000 votes of Pat Pimm. This time around he ran a full campaign and he did increase his vote by almost 400 but the vote for the Liberals skyrocketed by close to 3,200. The turn out in Peace River North hit an all time record for voters and had one of their best percentages as well, though still likely to be much better than 50%

Fraser Nicola - Liberal Gain - was held by Harry Lali of the NDP from 2005 to 2013 and from 1991 to 2001 Harry did not run in the 2001 election (in 2005 this was Yale-Lillooet and included Hope and the Similkameen but did not incluide Cache Creek, Ashcroft, Clinton or Savona)

Elect Vote NDP Liberals Green Other(BCCP 2013)
2013 12,330 4,785 38.81% 5,539 44.92% 1,174 9.52% 832 6.75%
2009 12,817 6,275 48.96% 5,494 42.86% 834 6.51% 214 1.67%
2005 16,689 8,137 48.76% 6,734 40.35% 1,529 9.16% 289 1.73%
2001 15,984 2,743 17.16% 9,636 60.29% 1,126 7.04% 1,983 12.41%

Total special ballots in 2009 - 830 in 2005 - 553 in 2001 - 404

So is this a place the NDP can claim the Greens split the vote? Not really. The Liberals had a Conservative to content with that took 832 votes meanwhile the Green vote only rose by 340 votes meaning by all vote splitting logic the Liberals should have suffered not the NDP.

You can also see in 2005 the dramatic comeback of the NDP and the Green vote increased as well. Harry Lali was elected in 2005 without the Greens.

Kamloops North Thompson - Liberal Hold - held since 2009 by Terry Lake - In 2013 there were 420 other other votes, in 2009 324 in 2005 302 and in 2001 970

Elect Vote NDP Liberals Green BCCP/Unity
2013 21,312 8,277 38.84% 11,080 51.99% 0 0.00% 1,535 7.20%
2009 19,808 8,798 44.42% 9,351 47.21% 1,317 6.65%
2005 23,196 9,264 43.47% 11,228 48.40% 1,608 6.93% 764 3.29%
2001 20,899 2,985 14.28% 12,128 58.03% 2,985 14.28% 790 3.78%

Total special ballots in 2009 - 1135 in 2005 - 492 in 2001 - 941

In 2013 in Kamloops we had no Green candidate but there was a Conservative candidate. The 1,317 Green votes from 2009 did not go to the NDP in 2013. The NDP vote was done. Meanwhile even though there was a BC Conservative candidate taking 1,535 votes the BC Liberal vote rose

Kamloops South Thompson Liberal Hold - Todd Stone elected for the first time - NDP ran their 2009 candidate Tom Friedman again This was called Kamloops in 2005 In 2013 others took 377,

Elect Vote NDP Liberals Green BCCP/Unity
2013 23,353 8,095 34.66% 13,439 57.55% 0 0.00% 1,442 6.17%
2009 21,997 7,640 34.73% 11,917 54.18% 1,403 6.38% 1,037 4.71%
2005 22,665 9,418 41.55% 10,852 47.88% 1,632 7.20% 763 3.37%
2001 19,289 4,389 22.75% 12,258 63.55% 2,180 11.30% 407 2.11%

Total special ballots in 2009 - 1302 in 2005 - 1002 in 2001 - 1,071

Here again we can see that the NDP does not gain much in this election even though there is no Green candidate.   The big gains were made by the BC Liberals through getting more people to vote.

Overall the Greens and BC Conservatives seem to have little or no impact on the votes of the NDP or the Liberals in this election. Vote splitting does not exist in reality.

The NDP need to look at their own ground campaigns and ask why they did not have the 300+ volunteers needed to properly canvas a riding and get the vote out. It is not the fault of Greens if people are unwilling to actively work on NDP campaigns. It is also not the fault of the Greens if the NDP runs a campaign that is lackluster and without any real vision. To run a positive campaign you need to engage people's hope. As Jane Sterk pointed out, a $20 a month increase in welfare is hardly a visionary approach.

9 Incumbent MLAs were defeated

2013-05-15T14:01:00.000-07:00

Two of the independents running for re-election

Bob Simpson Cariboo North
John van Dongen Abbotsford South

Four MLAs in 2009 and running again for their party were defeated

Harry Lali NDP Fraser Nicola
Jagrup Brar NDP Surrey Fleetwood
Margaret MacDiarmid Liberal Vancouver Fairview
Ida Chong Liberal Oak Bay Gordon Head

All three MLAs elected in by-elections in the last parliament were all defeated

Gwen O'Mahony NDP Chilliwack Hope
Joe Trasolini NDP Port Moody Coquitlam
Christy Clark Liberal Vancover Point Grey

This is seven more than in 2009

Labrador By-Election - a good Liberal win but not a sign of Conservative Weakness

2013-05-14T12:30:00.000-07:00

Labrador has seen eight general elections and three by-elections since it has existed as a riding unto itself. In 11 elections only once, 2011, has it not been won by the Liberals.

I had expected to see the Liberals take 60% of the vote give that they had Yvonne Jones as their candidate. She has been a very popular MHA for her part of Labrador and I thought this would mean a significant increase in her vote.

I also thought that Penashue would have seen a significant fall in his vote, he only lost 600 votes over all. I am not sure what the motivation was for people to want to re-elect Penashue, but he obviously has some sort of decent following.

With 5,814 votes, the Liberals did not really preform all that well when you look at the history of their vote in Labrardor. Here is the history of the election results

Election Liberal Conservative NDP Others total
2013by 5,814 48.2% 3,922 32.5% 2,273 18.9% 50 0.4% 12,059
2011 4,177 39.1% 4,526 39.8% 2,120 19.8% 139 1.3% 10,744
2008 5,426 70.3% 615 7.8% 1,378 17.9% 302 3.9% 7,787
2006by 5,768 50.5% 4,528 39.7% 1,037 9.1% 82 0.7% 11,467
2005 5,438 51.5% 3,415 32.3% 1,045 9.9% 666 6.5% 10,564
2004 5,524 62.2% 1,400 15.8% 856 9.6% 1,097 12.4% 8,877
2000 7,153 69.0% 1,254 12.1% 1,284 12.4% 677 6.5% 10,368
1997 6,182 50.6% 842 6.9% 4,615 37.8% 573 4.7% 12,212
1996by 4,032 40.5% 3,027 30.4% 1,974 19.8% 730 9.3% 9,963
1993 8,724 77.1% 2,146 19.0% 444 3.9% 0 0.0% 11,314
1988 7,126 53.5% 4,400 33.0% 1,508 11.3% 286 2.2% 13,320

The NDP should be mildly happy, even with Yvonne Jones as their candidate and Justin Trudeau as leader, the Liberals did not get the NDP vote to collapse, in fact the NDP increased their raw vote.

With the right candidate there is no reason to consider either the NDP nor the Conservatives to be out of the race in this riding in the next general election.

Full listing of advance vote comparing 2009 and 2013

2013-05-13T17:13:00.001-07:00

This is a table ranked by voter turnout at the 2013 advance polls.

Totals in the 2nd and 3rd columns are the total advance vote. Columns 4 and 5 are the total registered voters. The final column is how much the total turnout percentage increased or decreased from 2009

	2009 total	2013 total	2009 Voters	2013 Voters	2009 turnout	2013 turnout	Change
Saanich North and the Islands	6682	8465	43651	44980	15.31%	18.82%	3.51%
Comox Valley	6825	8109	47772	49503	14.29%	16.38%	2.09%
Parksville-Qualicum	5865	7911	40339	42280	14.54%	18.71%	4.17%
Vernon-Monashee	4868	6817	44961	46322	10.83%	14.72%	3.89%
Vancouver-Fairview	4668	6577	40897	44362	11.41%	14.83%	3.41%
Cowichan Valley	5456	6552	40859	42312	13.35%	15.48%	2.13%
Oak Bay-Gordon Head	5215	6481	38206	37443	13.65%	17.31%	3.66%
Penticton	4883	6475	41593	42651	11.74%	15.18%	3.44%
Victoria-Beacon Hill	3699	5968	42046	43521	8.80%	13.71%	4.92%
Vancouver-Point Grey	4379	5901	40605	39988	10.78%	14.76%	3.97%
Surrey-White Rock	5189	5895	39293	39796	13.21%	14.81%	1.61%
Juan de Fuca	4121	5770	33063	39270	12.46%	14.69%	2.23%
Vancouver-Quilchena	5077	5748	38590	37501	13.16%	15.33%	2.17%
Esquimalt-Royal Roads	4590	5735	36932	38638	12.43%	14.84%	2.41%
Vancouver-West End	4112	5729	35064	36978	11.73%	15.49%	3.77%
Surrey-Cloverdale	2847	5655	39556	51811	7.20%	10.91%	3.72%
Powell River-Sunshine Coast	4441	5623	35564	36976	12.49%	15.21%	2.72%
Kelowna-Lake Country	3935	5573	41588	44610	9.46%	12.49%	3.03%
West Vancouver-Capilano	4514	5529	38938	38794	11.59%	14.25%	2.66%
Shuswap	4737	5498	39949	40475	11.86%	13.58%	1.73%
Vancouver-False Creek	3316	5459	33322	42232	9.95%	12.93%	2.97%
North Vancouver-Seymour	4258	5430	36671	38055	11.61%	14.27%	2.66%
North Vancouver-Lonsdale	3311	5412	37398	39633	8.85%	13.66%	4.80%
New Westminster	4637	5242	42086	46178	11.02%	11.35%	0.33%
Kelowna-Mission	4319	5153	41927	44671	10.30%	11.54%	1.23%
Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows	3994	5004	36351	39378	10.99%	12.71%	1.72%
Vancouver-Fraserview	3438	4993	37525	39067	9.16%	12.78%	3.62%
Kootenay East	4374	4860	28909	30224	15.13%	16.08%	0.95%
Chilliwack-Hope	2884	4832	32180	35237	8.96%	13.71%	4.75%
Nanaimo-North Cowichan	4064	4821	38178	40230	10.64%	11.98%	1.34%
Vancouver-Langara	3651	4775	37606	38225	9.71%	12.49%	2.78%
Boundary-Similkameen	4303	4774	27942	28817	15.40%	16.57%	1.17%
Delta South	4260	4745	33818	34473	12.60%	13.76%	1.17%
Kamloops-South Thompson	3897	4708	40197	41593	9.69%	11.32%	1.62%
Langley	3528	4682	42410	45610	8.32%	10.27%	1.95%
Coquitlam-Burke Mountain	2889	4669	30994	36473	9.32%	12.80%	3.48%
North Island	4211	4652	39310	40514	10.71%	11.48%	0.77%
Westside-Kelowna	3777	4649	40675	44830	9.29%	10.37%	1.08%
Vancouver-Mount Pleasant	2676	4612	37300	41446	7.17%	11.13%	3.95%
Kamloops-North Thompson	3337	4560	37533	39857	8.89%	11.44%	2.55%
Surrey-Panorama	3667	4549	37932	44477	9.67%	10.23%	0.56%
Richmond Centre	3165	4526	41800	43387	7.57%	10.43%	2.86%
Surrey-Newton	3282	4477	29946	32557	10.96%	13.75%	2.79%
Abbotsford West	2529	4441	34063	31401	7.42%	14.14%	6.72%
Prince George-Mackenzie	3163	4370	32523	32877	9.73%	13.29%	3.57%
West Vancouver-Sea to Sky	3180	4344	34318	36949	9.27%	11.76%	2.49%
Coquitlam-Maillardville	3593	4250	36887	38057	9.74%	11.17%	1.43%
Burnaby North	3070	4173	35188	40604	8.72%	10.28%	1.55%
Victoria-Swan Lake	3340	4157	37881	38623	8.82%	10.76%	1.95%
Alberni-Pacific Rim	3616	4141	30278	31178	11.94%	13.28%	1.34%
Richmond-Steveston	3256	4104	41951	42098	7.76%	9.75%	1.99%
Port Moody-Coquitlam	3137	4078	33000	35281	9.51%	11.56%	2.05%
Fort Langley-Aldergrove	3066	3962	42591	47423	7.20%	8.35%	1.16%
Maple Ridge-Mission	2826	3882	34807	37982	8.12%	10.22%	2.10%
Surrey-Fleetwood	4203	3879	32356	34950	12.99%	11.10%	-1.89%
Burnaby-Edmonds	2662	3875	34040	36598	7.82%	10.59%	2.77%
Saanich South	3334	3874	37044	38685	9.00%	10.01%	1.01%
Chilliwack	3021	3848	35830	37145	8.43%	10.36%	1.93%
Vancouver-Kingsway	2200	3813	35518	37346	6.19%	10.21%	4.02%
Surrey-Tynehead	2337	3694	33481	36240	6.98%	10.19%	3.21%
Delta North	3454	3689	34478	35528	10.02%	10.38%	0.37%
Burnaby-Lougheed	2989	3653	33826	35754	8.84%	10.22%	1.38%
Abbotsford South	3091	3625	30473	35657	10.14%	10.17%	0.02%
Nanaimo	3698	3565	38942	40010	9.50%	8.91%	-0.59%
Prince George-Valemount	2728	3517	34212	34877	7.97%	10.08%	2.11%
Columbia River-Revelstoke	2890	3437	23512	24467	12.29%	14.05%	1.76%
Port Coquitlam	3191	3384	36579	38458	8.72%	8.80%	0.08%
Nelson-Creston	2546	3374	26907	27672	9.46%	12.19%	2.73%
Vancouver-Hastings	2118	3324	38356	39822	5.52%	8.35%	2.83%
Cariboo-Chilcotin	3177	3299	23090	20926	13.76%	15.77%	2.01%
Cariboo North	2916	3273	19982	23375	14.59%	14.00%	-0.59%
Fraser-Nicola	2955	3224	20575	21363	14.36%	15.09%	0.73%
Burnaby-Deer Lake	3305	3085	37854	35062	8.73%	8.80%	0.07%
Abbotsford-Mission	1862	3049	33678	35989	5.53%	8.47%	2.94%
Richmond East	2522	3014	40796	44469	6.18%	6.78%	0.60%
Vancouver-Kensington	2193	2984	36090	38016	6.08%	7.85%	1.77%
Peace River North	1982	2933	22577	24854	8.78%	11.80%	3.02%
Surrey-Whalley	2300	2901	32918	36498	6.99%	7.95%	0.96%
Surrey-Green Timbers	2352	2650	29049	30571	8.10%	8.67%	0.57%
Skeena	2210	2530	20662	20645	10.70%	12.25%	1.56%
Kootenay West	2519	2528	30380	31290	8.29%	8.08%	-0.21%
Nechako Lakes	1564	2028	15647	16270	10.00%	12.46%	2.47%
Peace River South	1429	1883	16971	18066	8.42%	10.42%	2.00%
Stikine	1831	1659	12291	13219	14.90%	12.55%	-2.35%
North Coast	1810	1653	15098	14956	11.99%	11.05%	-0.94%

Advance Voter Turnout Stats

2013-05-13T15:34:00.000-07:00

Top vote turnouts

Saanich North + Islands 18.82%
Parksville Qaulicum 18.71%
Oak Bay Gordon Head 17.31%
Boundary Similkameen 16.57%
Comox Valley 16.38%
Kootenay East 16.08%
Cariboo Chilcotin 15.77%
Vancouver West End 15.49%
Cowichan Valley 15.48%
Vancouver Quilchena 15.33%

Lowest turnouts
Richmond East 6.78%
Vancouver Kensington 7.85%
Surrey Whalley 7.95%
Kootenay West 8.08%
Vancouver Hastings 8.35%
Fort Langley Aldergrove 8.35%
Abbotsford Mission 8.47%
Surrey Green Timbers 8.67%
Burnaby Deer Lake 8.80%
Port Coquitlam 8.80%

Biggest Increases in Percentage turnout
Abbotsford West 6.72
Victoria Beacon Hill 4.92
North Vancouver Lonsdale 4.80
Chilliwack Hope 4.75
Parksville Qualicum 4.17
Vancouver Kingsway 4.02
Vancouver Point Grey 3.97
Vancouver Mount Pleasant 3.95
Vernon Monashee 3.89
Vancouver West End 3.77

Drops in advance voter turnout
Stikine -2.35
Surrey Fleetwood -1.89
North Coast -0.94
Cariboo North -0.59
Nanaimo -0.59
Kootenay West -0.21

I am not scared of an NDP government, I am resigned to it

2013-05-12T18:38:00.000-07:00

I look at the NDP campaign I do not see a party that really gets the scale of crisis we are in terms of the civil service. I also do not see a party with any sort of a bold vision. I do not see a party willing to address climate change. I do not see party that will address aboriginal title and rights. I am not convinced they are willing to consider the sort of innovative thinking required to deal with problems in health or education.

I think we could be leaders in many areas of governance but it feels like the NDP is mainly going to reinforce the status quo

I do not expect sweetheart deals for the public sector unions, I do not expect any radical change to oil and gas, I do not expect NSR lands to be planted. I really expect very little

On the other hand I think the NDP will likely be a workmanlike government and not really screw up. Most people learn more from their mistakes than they do from their successes. Adrian Dix, John Horgan, Harry Lali, Mike Farnworth, Leonard Krog, Sue Hammell and Jenny Kwan we all around for the 1991-2001 NDP government, they have learned and that alone makes the coming NDP government different than when they came to power in 1972 or 1991.

I expect the finances to be moderately well run but I do not expect us to have any real discussion about taxes - which taxes should be levying and now high? We do not collect enough revenues in BC to cover the costs of the government that we need. We need to talk about what government should be doing and how to do it the best but that requires talking taxes and being willing to consider higher taxes.

I will be moderately happy if the NDP does follow through with electoral finance reform and places restrictions on government advertising. I hope that the NDP will allow for the legislature to sit for more days and allow the legislative committees to actually do work. I have no expectation that we will see a reduction in power from of the executive and I find that depressing.

I do expect the NDP to be better at day to day governing that what we have seen with the BC Liberals under Christy Clark. For the last two years we have seen a government without a core mission trying to figure out what might be popular or what might make the opposition look unpopular.

My hope in this election rests with the independents Greens and Conservatives. If we have enough of them elected they could push the incoming NDP government to try harder and maybe do something bold and inspirational.

If the NDP and Liberals do not excite you, try doing something different

2013-05-12T16:13:00.001-07:00

I do not know anyone other than hardcore partisans that are excited by the NDP or the Liberals. It is unfortunate that many people are going to a choice on Tuesday that is one they are not excited. When we vote we should be hopeful for the future. Voting for the lesser of two evils is not a way for us to get a better quality of government.

If you are not happy with the NDP or the Liberals, do something different. There are other choices on the ballot, people that are worth voting for. No incoming government is ever going to so bad that in four years the world will come to an end. Doing something different, voting for someone other than the NDP and Liberals, will not doom us but if enough people do it might break the political paradigm we have lived with since 1975 in BC.

I will not be voting for the NDP or the Liberals in this election but the Greens. I happen to live in a riding where both the New Democrat and Liberal are good choices but I am not impressed with the NDP or Liberal campaigns. I am voting for the Green locally because I think he is a good candidate. I am also voting Green because I think there needs to be a change in BC politics that breaks the left/right paradigm. I want more diversity in our legislature, I want to see MLAs there who are more concerned about keeping the government honest than being the government. As long as all we have is the government caucus and the government in waiting caucus we are not going to have the full debate we deserve,

If more and more of us act with hope and a long term desire for better government, we will get there but the first step is to make a different choice on election day. Trying voting for something than the normal left/right choices.

A difference to be aware of in polling during an election

2013-05-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

When companies poll between elections it is reasonable to ask about support for all the serious political parties, but when it comes to during election pollsters have to ask more detailed questions, spefifically they have to ask about the actual candidates on the ballot.

One nice thing about using online panels is that as a surveying method it is very, very easy to make sure that people get questions that have the actual candidates they can vote for. The company has the address of all their panelists so knows which riding they are in. They also know who all the candidates are and can very easily customize the survey to each riding. I can not imagine any serious pollster with any understanding of statistics not doing this especially if they are using online panels.

Can you imagine a company being to lazy to ask the right questions and then still publishing their results? With the ability to so easily ask the right names for each riding no one could possibly be stupid enough to ask people about parties they can not vote for.

So why is this so relevant in this election? Because the Greens and Conservatives are not running full slates. The Greens have 61 candidates and the BC Conservatives have 56 or 60 - 4 BC Conservative candidates are on the ballot without the party name. The province wide numbers for the Greens and the BC Conservatives will look lower because they are not running full slates. I means their support levels are higher in the ridings where they are running candidates than the average.

In the case of the Greens on Vancouver Island, the party is running 11 candidates in the 14 ridings and getting results in the 20% range for the whole island. But since in three ridings there are no Greens, the real level of support on the rest of the island is closer to 25%.

So to read the polling numbers of the Greens and Conservatives more closely to what they would be if they ran full slates, you need to account for the ridings they are not running in.

The lack of volunteers on political campaigns

2013-05-10T15:04:00.002-07:00

I noticed this in 2009, there was a serious shortage of active volunteers on most serious political campaigns in BC. I think it is one of the reasons we had a lower voter turn out in 2009 than 2005 as well as lower than the 2008 and 2011 federal elections. In 2013 this lack of volunteers is utterly beyond anything I would have imagined. This is not with any one party but across the political spectrum.

I have been around campaigning for many years and a rule of thumb I have used is aiming for between 0.05% and 0.1% of the people in riding as volunteers. That means provincially I would want a campaign to have around 300 active volunteers. Some would dedicate their whole life, others only a few hours Burma shaving, but overall a few hundred people. Certainly this is the scale you need to knock on every door, call all the voters and make sure your people are voting. In this election this is not happening.

I have asked around my contacts throughout the province and no one has seen what I would call a fully staffed campaign. People are not choosing to become active in political campaigns and that is very bad for society. The division between the people and the politicians is already bad enough, this is only making it worse.

The NDP and Liberals are clearly no longer grass roots organizations that are interested in the average public, I am not sure either one can reform themselves enough to regain enough public trust that they could have the volunteers needed to properly campaign.

The Greens and BC Conservatives do show some sparks of life when it comes to connecting with people and getting the public active, but neither party is well enough organized at this time for me to know if they can be a truly grassroots party.

This lack of volunteers will be one of the primary reasons why overall voter turn out will be down again in this election. It means that a party or candidate that can get a team of 300 people together in 2017 will have a huge advantage and may be able to win in locations that people otherwise would have thought are safe seats. With out a strong core of volunteers, there is no such thing as a safe seat.

Advance Poll Day 1 Trends

2013-05-09T20:59:00.001-07:00

Overall the advance vote for day 1 was up from 2.83% of the registered voters in 2009 to 3.43% in 2013. This is part of a trend over the last four elections where more and more people vote early, the increase is smaller than I had expected and may indicate a lower overall turn out in the election.

In nine ridings the turnout was more than 5% of registered voters, in 2009 only one riding broke the 5% mark. Nine of the ten are currently held by the BC Liberals

Riding % voted Change from 2009
Parksville Qualicum 5.93% (+0.85)
Saanich North and the Islands 5.62% (+1.32)
Boundary Similkameen 5.61% (+0.98)
Comox Valley 5.40% (+0.56)
Kootenay East 5.25% (+0.67)
Oak Bay Gordon Head 5.16% (+1.33)
Penticton 5.09% (+1.11)
Vancouver West End 5.04% (+1.57)
Vernon Monashee 5.00% (+1.58)

All of them but Vancouver West End and Boundary Similkameen are seats with serious races going on. Does this mean that the parties are getting their vote out? Two of them on the list are seats the Greens are hoping to win. Vernon Monashee is a seat the BC Conservatives are putting their hopes into.

Six ridings had a turnout of less than 2%
Riding % voted Change from 2009
Richmond East 1.22% (-0.13)
Richmond Steveston 1.73% (-0.01)
Surrey Green Timbers 1.79% (+0.26)
Vancouver Kensington 1.81% (+0.38)
Vancouver Hastings 1.92% (+0.38)
Surrey Whalley 1.97% (+0.34)

Overall only 11 ridings saw a drop in voter turn out when compared to 2009, the worst drop was in Stikine with a drop of 0.97 from 2009.

Some other ridings with big increases
Vancouver Mount Pleasant - up 1.93
Chilliwack Hope - up 1.68
Abbotsford South - up 1.47
Victoria Beacon Hill - up 1.39

How many people will vote?

2013-05-09T11:46:00.000-07:00

This is not an abstract question because the election will be decided by those that vote. What percentage a party gets is not really important because a drop in vote a different party raises the percentage of the vote for the others. The NDP could get a higher percentage of the vote in this election and have no one new voters if the BC Liberal voters stay home.

The polling companies get responses of 80-90% of the people having an opinion on how they will vote but we are unlikely to see a voter turn out of more than 55%. There is a disconnect their in the polling that I have gone into in the past. What I wonder is are people motivated to vote in 2013?

In 2009 1,640,542 people voted, which was lower than in 2005 and lower than the vote in the federal elections in BC in 2008 and 2011. 2009 was an uninspiring two party race in BC and the voter turn out is a reflection of that.

In 2013 I honestly do not see many people motivated to cast a ballot in this election. There is nothing about the NDP and Liberal campaigns that says to me we are likely to see as many people vote this time as did in 2009. At the moment I think around 1,550,000 is what we will see as total voter turn out. I will adjust this as I get some data on advance polling. I think if the advance vote is under 20-22% we will see a total voter turn out of 50% or less.

Here is how I think the vote will break out:

NDP 675,000 - 43.5%
Liberals 525,000 - 33.9%
Greens 180,000 - 11.6%
BC Cons 120,000 - 7.7%
Ind/Others 50,000 - 3.2%

So how do I get to these numbers? And yes, they are estimates and I can not prove that it will happen.

The NDP dropped 40,000 votes from 2005 to 2009 though their percentage of the vote went up. I have seen nothing that makes me think 2009 NDP voters will not overwhelmingly vote for the party in 2013. On the other hand I see little that says to me the party has made any dramatic gains. I think the NDP will see a marginal fall in overall vote. I am currently predicting a small drop in overall NDP vote because the campaign has not caught the imagination of the public.

The Liberals certainly are not the party of the last two elections and I do not hear people wanting to vote for them that are not partisan supporters already. There are a number of ridings the BC Liberals were very competitive in in the last election that this time around the party is at best going through the motions - Saanich South and Saanich North and the Islands are two examples in the Victoria area of this. I see some Liberal vote going to the BC Conservatives, a smaller amount to the Greens and the NDP but the largest group I think will be people who just do not go and vote, much like what happened with the NDP in 2001 but not to that extent.

I do think some people in BC will vote in this election because they have a BC Conservative candidate on the ballot but as a party they are only running in 60 of 85 ridings and in 4 of those their candidates are not listed on the ballot as Conservatives. I think the BC Conservatives will take 50,000 directly from the BC Liberals and 50,000 will be from people that could not bring themselves to vote in 2009.

Given that we have a record number of independents and a number of with serious full campaigns, when I add the numbers of the vote the best 6-7 of them are likely to get, I arrive at more than 40,000. Overall there are 86 candidates in this category in 2013 versus 64 in 2009. The extra candidates gets me to 50,000 votes

As to the Greens, this election they may not have a full slate but they have a lot more candidates actually actively campaigning. In 30 years provincially and federally the Greens have run only about six of seven serious riding level campaigns and never more than one in any one election. This election is a fundamentally different one for Greens in Canada Having Jane Sterk getting high leader approval ratings in the Angus Reid surveys or the recent one from Ipsos that showed her as the most trusted leader will have an impact on the Green vote. The regional concentration on Vancouver Island should be worth about 40,000 more votes for the Greens. In Greater Victoria there is clearly a bleed from the BC Liberals to the Greens.

I will update this as I get advance poll numbers from Elections BC.

Jane Sterk - most trusted leader in BC, but that is not the point of this posting

2013-05-08T11:25:00.001-07:00

OK, I am involved with the Green campaign so let me delight that in yesterday's Ipsos Daily Poll Jane Sterk was the most trusted leader in BC.

Here are the numbers:
Leader Trust Distrust Net
Jane Sterk 46 31 +15
Adrian Dix 43 54 -11
Christy Clark 31 65 -34
John Cummins 24 58 -34

I do find it interesting that Jane Sterk is doing so well when it comes to approval of her as leader or the trust in her. On a personal level I have been impressed with Jane since I first met her nine years ago and I am glad to see other people in BC are begining to see this

Now here comes my issue of concern with this survey from Ipsos. They had 500 people from their poll of online panelists respond and they still had to weight their responses because they got too many people aged 25-54 answering and not enough aged 18-34. This seems methodologically wrong to me because of the reason for moving to online opt in panels in the first place. I am already concerned that public opinion polling in the run up to this election is not being done very well.

One of the the reasons you have an online panel is that you can find the demographically correct people for the survey, you should not have to weight your results but Ipsos did and most surprisingly Ipsos could not get younger people to respond. Only 93 people under the age of 35 answered when it should have been 142. They only achieved 2/3s of the numbers they needed for the survey.

I wish I knew how big the Ipsos pool of panelists is and how it breaks down by age and location. I am also interested in knowing how many people were asked to respond, finally, have any of these people answered a survey for them in this election?

As much as I like being able to say "Jane Sterk, most trusted leader in BC" this survey leaves me further concerned about the quality of public opinion polling in BC

On all the polls lately

2013-05-07T13:30:00.002-07:00

I know I have not said much about the polls and surveys that have come out lately. The main reason for this is that I am significantly concerned about the quality of the polling going on. It is also one reason I am not updating my forecast of the election because I do not have the confidence I would like when it comes to the polls of what they are saying.

Just so that all of you know, I have run polls in the past and came close to starting a polling company at one point. I have a good background in mathematical and statistical aspects of polling though I am not a Nate Silver, this is mainly because my life is too short to analyse the data in the degree of detail that he does. Eric Grenier tries but I think he takes the results of the polling companies at face value.

More and more more pollsters are no longer conducting random samples of public opinion but are using online panels. Online panels might be a good measure of public opinion but there is still very little data to show what it takes to have a good online panel and how to understand what the results mean.

The problem with all the online panels is that people have to opt in to be part of the panel and then they have to have to choose to take part in the survey. The questions to ask about the panels are the following:

How many panel members does the company have? Abacus stated in their latest survey that they have 500,000 people in Canada in their online pool - this means I suspect they have between 30,000 and 40,000 in BC since they are not all that active here. This is not nearly a large enough pool to gauge public opinion.
Are the panels accurate reflections of the province? It is important to remember that the work by Angus Reid, Ipsos, Abacus and Insight West are all samples of their panels and not random samples of the public such as telephone polling has managed to achieve in the past. It also means that is wrong to ever assign a statistical margin of error to an online survey which is something Angus Reid does all the time.
How do they make sure the panels are not stacked by the politically active? I am a member of all the online panels and I have been part of more than a few surveys. I am not an average random member of the public.
How do they know their panel members represent either the public that votes or the census demographics of BC? Since none of the companies give us any details on their panel membership we just have to trust that it is somehow a reasonable reflection of reality I suspect all the online pollsters have very low numbers for people aged 65+ and that their small pool of people drive opinion results.
How do they ensure the survey is answered by people other than those that are online 24/7? The people that are online for too many hours of the day are not the ones that should form the core of the respondents to the online panels.

Overall I am remain skeptical of the online panels as an accurate tool of measuring public opinion. I have been experimenting with models that would use social media to give us accurate results but so far I have not been able to develop one that I have statistical confidence in. I have been reading all the academic literature on public opinion sampling methods and there is a major issue of how to poll without the traditional land line that every household had and everyone answered.

If not online panels, what about telephones? Telephone polling is no longer a very good tool to get a random sample of the public because of the very high refusal rate and the ever increasing number of people with no land lines.

Companies like Ekos and Forum use IVR (Interactive Voice Response) to call people and get results for their polls. I have used IVR polling in the past and used it in this election to get regional results for the Victoria area. IVR has some major flaws.

The recent Forum IVR poll had the NDP and the Liberals only 4 points apart. In one respect I am happy about Forum because they have a lot more detail in their report than other companies have but this means I can also see the flaws. The poll reached a lot more old people than young people. Forum weighted the results based on census demographics, but there are many ways they could weight the data and each way has a significant impact on the results.

They asked how people voted in 2009 and what their voting intention is in 2013. The results to this question on page 4 of the report showed only 28.7% of their poll respondents voted for the NDP in 2013 when in fact 42.2% actually did so. It means their IVR sample was significantly light in NDP voters which means the overall result showed a close race. If you weight for how people voted in 2009, the results would have been more like NDP 45% and Liberals 32%.

Ekos also used IVR and had some results that were not really in sync with the other companies. Does this mean they are more accurate? I do not know.

The problem with IVR polling is that you miss everyone with a mobile phone and you get a huge percentage of people refusing to answer. When I have done IVR polling I have had between 85% and 90% refusal rates, others have told me they have had as high as 95% refusal rates. These high rates mean that the IVR polls are not random samples of the public.

So in the end I am not convinced that any of the results to date are true representations of public opinion in this election. That said, I do think I can glean some trends from the results:

The NDP is marginally less popular than it was a few months ago, 44% instead of 46%
The Liberals are marginally more popular - 33% instead of 31%
The Greens have a strong concentration of support on Vancouver Island which if it is concentrated on the South Island means the Greens are at about 30% in the Victoria area.
The BC Conservatives are unchanged over the last few months with no data indicating any region with a consistent stronger result
The results for "other" is high enough and concentrated enough that four independents could win their seats.

My one final thought on the polling, take them all with a grain of salt. That means take my gleaned observations with that grain of salt as well.

Under Staffing in the BC Civil Service - a crisis no one is talking about

2013-05-07T10:07:00.001-07:00

I know it is popular to bash civil servants, to say that there are too many of them and that they are paid too much. It is all part of this mantra of lower taxes and smaller government no matter what. I am someone that wants lower taxes and a government that is not huge beyond what we need, but here in BC we have a problem with a longer term systemic under funding of the civil service. Worst of all we are in election and no one is talking about this.

I think we have reached the point of crisis in many parts of the civil service. We are short enough in staffing in many ministries that I am concerned about the governance of BC. Living in Victoria I hear from no end of people in the civil service here and what their work loads are like and how it always is getting worse.

The ministries I deal with the most are in some way related to lands and resources and I can tell you that they are woefully understaffed. There are things the government does well in this province, such as the BC environmental assessment process. The BC process is not a yes or no, it is one in which the assessment process develops the conditions under which a project can go forward - but this requires the ability to monitor the project to ensure the conditions are met. But the problem is that in most cases we do not have the staff on the ground to make sure the conditions are met.

I can go through examples from all the ministries. We do not have enough staff in the civil service to do the work that is needed. We especially do not have the front line ministry staff needed especially outside of Victoria.

Since I know the land based ministries the best, I can make a rough estimate of how short staffed they are. Between the needs of forests, lands, environment, parks, mining, energy, and agriculture we need something on the order of 500 more staff around BC to achieve the basic level of staffing needing to allow the proper regulation and management of Crown Lands in BC. The cost of 500 new front line staff would be in the range of $500,000,000 a year which sounds like a lot. I personally think these staff are vitally important because our province has an economy that is primarily driven by the natural resource sector. For us to continue to rely on this sector in the economy we need to have investment in good management by government. When it comes to government management we are no longer thinking ten years into the future let alone the 100 years we should be.

As one single example, BC has large areas of forest lands that need to be replanted by the government but it is not being done. The loss of new trees growing on the land is not only a problem 100 to 150 years down the road, but ten or twenty years because these trees form part of the calculation of timber harvest levels now. The amount of harvesting allowed in BC is based on how well the forest is growing. Areas that are not properly restocked reduce the annual allowable cut because the review considers the age and regrowth in forests from recently replanted to old growth and if there are areas not regrowing the calculations of the long term sustainable yield is lower.

People I know in the social services ministries tell me about case loads for front line workers that are beyond imagination. The system is now at a point where the people that need access the system are not getting even the most basic care and attention to ensure they can work their way out of poverty. This problem is most acute with youth aged 16 to 25. We are creating more social problems for the future because of the under staffing.

We need a core government services review to find out where we are falling down and then we need a plan to fix it.

The cost to fix the problem will not be cheap and I am not convinced the NDP is interested in addressing it. If it is not addressed in some substantive way within the next few years we will see more and more people fall through the cracks and we will see government revenues from the natural resource sector decline. We are setting our province up for failure in the future.

Yes, I did support the BC Liberals in the past, but I was always unhappy with the under funding of the natural resource ministries and tried to get people in government to consider a policy change. I have never been 100% in agreement with any political party but I have always seen good points of all parties and try to balance that with things I disagree with.

John Turner is now the 5th oldest Prime Minister

2013-05-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

As of today John Turner is 83 years and 333 days old, one day older than John Diefenbaker managed to live. He still has a long way to go to become the oldest Prime Minister. Charles Tupper lived to 94 years and 120 days old and it will take John Turner till October 4th 2023 to pass him. Tupper is also the only Prime Minister to have served a shorter term than Turner - 68 days versus 79 days for Turner.

Canada has seven current and former Prime Ministers currently alive out of a total of 22 since confederation in 1867. They may be 31.2% of the Prime Ministers Canada has had, but they only governed for 20.3% of the time since Confederation. There of the living former Prime Ministers have second, third and fourth shortest terms in Canadian history.

Current living Prime Ministers and their ages:

Joe Clark - 73
John Turner - 83
Brian Mulroney - 74
Kim Campbell - 66
Jean Chretien - 79
Paul Martin - 74
Stephen Harper - 54

This is the largest number to be alive at anytime in Canadian history. Realistically this number is unlikely to increase anytime before October 2015 though it could go down if there is a death.

We have also now gone 12 and half years since the last death of a Prime Minister - Pierre Trudeau in September 2000. This is the second longest period we have had when no Prime Minister has died. The longest was from February 1919 to June 1937.

Interestingly, Martin, Mulroney and Clark are all born within a 10 month period at the end of the depression.

What do you want the opposition to the NDP government to look like?

2013-04-30T12:06:00.001-07:00

It is clear that the NDP will win a large majority. All the serious projections I am seeing out there are calling for the NDP to win between 60 and 70 seats in the legislature. This means 70% to 82% of the MLAs will be from the NDP.

The long term nature of the NDP is for all decisions to be made in private and then there to be 100% caucus solidarity in public. The NDP has always been opposed to the idea of allowing free votes. What this means is that no one in the media or public will know if any NDP MLAs are speaking out against what the government is doing. We will have no public voice from the majority of the MLAs.

This means it is very important to think about what the opposition will look like after the election. Every party says they want to win all the seats, but I do think it will make for a better NDP government if the house has a strong opposition from more than one part of the political spectrum.

Adrian Dix will be a better premier if he has a decent opposition in the house. Mike Harcourt suffered from the fact the BC Liberals were not ready to be effective official opposition in 1991 and Social Credit just gave up.

In retrospect I think Bill Bennett was a decent premier from 1979 to 1986 because he had a strong NDP opposition in those years. I think he was his weakest when the NDP opposition was weakest in 1975 to 1979. I suspect Bennett would have been even better if the BC Legislature had more parties in it.

At the moment the largest non-government caucus is likely to be the BC Liberals. The BC Liberals are likely to elect between 10 and 20 MLAs but I suspect a number of their MLAs will retire specifically:

Ralph Sultan in West Vancouver Capilano - he has been there since 1996 and is 80. He is still working hard at 80, but I have trouble seeing him going for a sixth term.
Linda Reid in Richmond East - She is the Dean of the house at the moment as the longest serving MLA. She has been an MLA for 22 years now.
Gordon Hogg in Surrey White Rock - he has been an MLA since 1997 which means he will reach 20 years in office by the time of the next election and that marks 40 years of local or provincial elected service for him.
Rich Coleman in Fort Langley Aldergrove - An MLA since 1996. Does he have the drive and desire to rebuild the centre right?

That is only four but there might be more if they discover being in opposition is not much fun and the prospects of rebuilding the centre right may take longer than people thought. The NDP saw this in the 1979 and 1983 election when a number of their long term sitting MLAs retired instead of running again.

The Liberals MLAs have a new role as opposition members to take on, some of them will be able to do it well, others will not really be oriented to taking on this role. When the NDP came back with a caucus in 2005 it took several years before the party found it's feet and started to be an effective opposition.

I am not convinced the BC Liberals will be able to offer a strong and well thought out opposition to the government in the coming term of the Legislature. I honestly expect them to spend more time in the next four years on the defensive about the last couple of years as government than holding the NDP to account.

The very idea of who and what the BC Liberals are needs to be clearly laid out but this will take time. If this work is not done they may be like Social Credit was after the 1991 election.

The Liberals are not going to be the only opposition after the election, we are likely to see the election of four independents. Quick disclosure, I have done contract work for Bob Simpson in the past year.

We saw to some degree the way the independents in the BC legislature were able to make a difference to the issues under discussion in the province. They also served to give voice to people that were not heard in the BC legislature on a regular basis. The problem with the independents will always be that they are individuals and some of them will do well and others may not. Being an MLA is a much harder job than being a party MLA because you need to be on the ball all the time.

I think the four independents will offer an interesting new dynamic to the legislature that we have never seen before.

This then leaves us the Greens and the Conservatives. Next disclosure, I am volunteering for the BC Greens in this election.

The Greens have the potential to elect up to three people in this election. This would not be enough to have party status in the Legislature, but party status in BC does not bring you much more in resources. The Speaker has a lot of lee-way in what resources any MLA or party gets in the House.

Can three MLAs from a party make difference? Yes, if they can figure out how to make use of the tools available to MLAs. Elizabeth May has shown that a single MP in Ottawa can have a measurable impact on the political scene. The one advantage a caucus of three Greens MLAs would have over the four independents is a formalized cooperation and sharing of resources. They would also have the backing of a party to make it easier to make points about issues.

BC would be well served to have several Greens elected to have an opposition that wants to be a constructive watchdog of the government.

I am not currently convinced the BC Conservatives have much chance of winning a seat, but I do think there is an outside chance that Scott Anderson in Vernon Monashee or Mike McLoughlin in Kelowna Mission could win. Even if a couple of them do manage to win I am not convinced that the BC Conservatives would much of an opposition force because the party has been so disorganized for so long.

If the BC Conservatives were to elect any MLAs, I would expect them to eventually find common cause with some of the remaining BC Liberals and try to create some sort of new free enterprise party.

Good governance in BC after the election requires a good opposition. If the issue good governance matters to you, think about how you can vote to ensure it happens.

Mischa Popoff, the only candidate that is getting YouTube traction in this election

2013-04-30T10:49:00.001-07:00

I should be finishing our taxes, but I need a break, so here are some comments on the use of YouTube in the BC election.

YouTube as a place to find an audience is a great idea. My four year old watches a lot to Evan Tube HD on YouTube, a channel that has 116,783,701 views in about a year. My 12 year old watches a lot of Chuggaconroy, a guy who posts videos of him playing video games. I do not get it, but it is wildly popular. I point these out to show that YouTube is not rocket science and simple content can get a lot of views.

The BC Liberals are making use of former TV news anchor Pamela Martin to host their daily "On the campaign trail videos". Obviously a lot of money is being spent to create these videos. The content is professional but no one is watching.

Here is the video about day 9 on the campaign trail - as of right now it has 103 views. This video has been up for five days and effectively no one is watching it. I think the real question is why would anyone watch it?

I admit I do not get the world of Let's Plays on YouTube which means I would never watch them, but I am a political geek and I can not get interested in these BC Liberal videos. A lot of resources are being wasted on something that is not reaching any voters. But it is not only the Liberals that are failing to connect on YouTube.

On the same day the NDP posted a video on their Poverty and Inequality Announcement policy. It has only been viewed 212 times. Once again effectively no one has watched.

Neither party will allow any comments online for their videos which defeats at least some of the point of making use of social media to release your information. I know why they will not allow comments but they really need to think about why they are using YouTube at all if no one watches and they will not allow public comments.

The Green Party and the Conservatives are also not doing well with YouTube videos, though neither one is trying very hard.

To give you an idea of how bad 103 and 212 views are, consider that in five days a video my boys took in a cave on Mount Doug got 75 views and a slideshow video I created about 19th century naval ships in Esquimalt to learn how to use the YouTube video editor managed 136 views.

The major political parties have failed in their YouTube use. They are not reaching people. Even the funny NDP April Fool's video Adrian Dix: Risky in a 90s kind of way has only been viewed 38,974 times - if you have not seen it, it is worth watching.

Then we jump to former BC Conservative candidate Mischa Popoff and his rant about being bullied in politics. This video has been watched by more than 13,000 people in the first 24 hours. It is the video that has become most viral in this election. So why is his video popular? Not because of his ranting comment but because it is an off the wall amateur video with an animal being rather odd.

He is allowing comments on his videos, but then I doubt anyone commenting is going to make as outrageous statements as Mischa Popoff has in the past.

I think his video is the only that will have any impact on the election but I suspect at best the video might gain Mischa a few votes. No one in politics understands YouTube and are wasting time and money on it when they should be talking to voters on the streets and in their homes.

Help Me Find Johanna Zalcik from Vernon

2013-04-27T20:40:00.000-07:00

Johanna Zalcik is the candidate for the Advocational Democractic Party in the riding of Shuswap.

Tim Lavery of the blog Aim Higher Salmon Arm inspired to make a push on this issue again because he was wondering who this woman was and what her party was about.

Her party has existed for about seven years and never run any candidates before but has millions of dollars in assets. I have written about them several times in the past

BC Patriot Party and the Advocational Party, are they tax havens?
Top 25 Political Donations in BC from 2005-2011
A $1,838,100 BC political donation in 2006
Implications of the BC Patriot Party and the Advocational Party of BC
Biggest single political donation in BC in 2011 was for $596,552.66
BC Patriot Party and the Advocational International Democratic Party of British Columbia

Millions of dollars are in these parties but they do nothing to try and win seats in the legislature. There is no website, no platform, no signs, nothing to show they want to win seats, but they run two candidates in this election so that they can stay registered. Political parties are subsidized by the taxpayer, we have a right to know more about.

The Advocational Party candidate in Nechako Lakes is Beverly Bird and can be found at

291 Desert Cove Road
Vernon BC
V1H 1Z1
250-503-0728
email: bbirdlf@telus.net

But where is Johanna Zalcik? Lets find her, I want to see some pictures of her, I want to hear from her why her party has millions of dollars but otherwise does nothing.

Help me find Johanna!

Is there a problem within the BC Conservatives? UPDATES

2013-04-27T18:34:00.001-07:00

In the last week the BC Conservatives dropped ~~three~~ four of their candidates:

Jeff Sprague in North Vancouver Lonsdale on April 23rd about a drunk driving allegation
Ian Tootill in Vancouver False Creek on April 23rd for comments online
Mischa Popoff in Boundary Similkameen on April 25th for comments online
Rob Herbert in Vancouver West End on April 28th for comments online

Back in March I quickly looked into Mischa Popoff because I recognized the name and know he has a history of some rather off the wall comments. At the time I was very surprised that the BC Conservatives would take him as a candidate given the easy access there is online to rather extreme comments he has made. Clearly their vetting process is not weak but fundamentally missing. I have to wonder how many more land mines they might have because their attention to detail is seemingly very weak

What has also happened in the last two weeks is that BC Conservatives recruited several candidates that were running for BC Vision to run as Conservatives, Raj Gupta in Vancouver Kensington who had been full registered with Elections BC as a BC Vision candidate and Rajiv Pendey in Vancouver Fraserview who was listed on the BC Vision website as a candidate for days after he surfaced as a Conservative. Poaching candidates at the 11th hour from a new minor political party smacks of desperation to me and a sign that the BC Conservatives have no vetting process at all. By the way, if anyone can make sense of what BC Vision is about please let me know, their leader Jag Bhandari (JB) is an "interesting" character.

Mischa Popoff was still listed as the leader for the Individual Rights Party of BC when the party was de-registered on February 13th of this year. Poaching people from a minor party did not start with BC Vision for the Conservatives.

UPDATE at 6:45 PM April 27th - I have been told there is a glitch with Elections BC which relates to the next paragraphs. I will wait to see what the story is because it seems to odd to me that it all happened to BC Conservative candidates. When I learn more I will update again

UPDATE at 10:27 AM April 29th - as of this morning according to Elections BC the candidates below are still not affiliated to the BC Conservatives. They released an updated list of candidates as of 9:45 am this morning. If there was an error on the part of Elections BC I would thought it would been fixed by now. I think Sacha Peter has it right that the party made an error on for 324a. The BC Conservatives have as of now not made any public comment about this issue.

UPDATE at 10:30 AM April 30th - The Vancouver Sun is reporting that Elections BC will not change the non affiliated ballot status of the four Conservative candidates below. It is clear now that someone in the office of the BC Conservatives make an error when submitting their list of candidates and because of that four of them will not have the party endorsement on the ballot.

The vetting problem and poaching from minor fringe parties is not everything. Last night the full candidate list was released by Elections BC and ~~five~~ four candidates on the BC Conservative website are on the ballot without the endorsement of the BC Conservative party:

Bill Clarke in Vancouver Quilchena - he was a federal MP from 1972 ro 1984 for the PCs until he was one of two PCs defeated in the 1984 election
Christine Clark in Burnaby Lougheed - she ran for the party in the Port Moody Coquitlam by-election and has served on the party executive in the last year.
Mike Patras in Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows - he has been an annouced candidate for sometime and had been fully registered with Elections BC as a BC Conservative candidate
~~Rob Herbert in Vancouver West End~~ dropped as a candidate over the weekend by the party
Wayne Marklund in Burnaby North - he had been their announced candidate for the riding since February 1st

Overall these things really make me wonder about the basic organizational skill of the BC Conservatives.