-
Capitulation
Ipsos pollster John Wright on Quebec: Mr. Wright is awaiting a bill introduced in the Commons in April that would create 30 new ridings, giving 18 seats to Ontario, seven to British Columbia and five to Alberta. What makes the legislation controversial is that no new seats will go to Quebec, which already has 75 […]
-
Seat Projections
For those who recall, I experimented with a seat projection model last election. By and large, it worked as well as any of the other models out there. But the rub is, my model, like every other pundit, seat projection and octopus out there, underestimated the Conservative seat total and overestimated the Liberal one. The […]
-
Back in the UK
The British election is now a week away and the Conservatives seem all but assured of victory – the real question is whether or not they’ll be able to get their majority. Sound familiar? The real twist is the rise of the Liberal Democrats, which has buggered up most seat projections. But hey, that just […]
-
Skating Off Topic
Long time blog readers will know that I enjoy playing around with political stats and numbers. Well, I also enjoy playing around with hockey stats and numbers, so with the NHL playoffs here (for Leaf fans out there, that’s what happens after the regular season ends), I’ve gotten together with some friends and launched PuckProb.com. […]
-
Take a Seat
The Conservatives have introduced a bill to give us…just what we need…more MPs: OTTAWA — New government legislation will add 30 new MPs to the House of Commons. Under the bill introduced Thursday, the Commons would grow to 338 seats, with Ontario getting 18 new MPs, British Columbia getting seven and Alberta getting five. The […]
-
Fun with Numbers: 2008 Liberal Breakthroughs
After taking a look at incumbency effects over the summer, I can now dig a bit deeper when looking back at the 2008 election. Specifically, by looking at subregional shifts in support between 2006 and 2008, and the incumbency effect, it’s possible to “predict” how the parties should have done in every riding last election. […]
-
Fun with Numbers: Wasted Votes
During all the hullabaloo over Stephen Harper’s 20 hours in paradise last week, I read one comment somewhere about how Harper needs to win the popular vote by at least 3 or 4% to actually get the most seats, due to the wasted votes coming out of those uber-majorities in Alberta. So, as a follow […]
-
Numb3rs: Incumbency
After a quick look at competitiveness last week, I wanted to touch on incumbency effects today. First of all, the technical part – if this bores you, just scroll down to the bolded line below. I won’t think any less of you. To see how important an incumbent is, we need a way to calculate […]
-
Competitiveness
Rather than run my usual summer voting contest (“Pick Canada’s greatest Minister of Veterans Affairs…March Madness style!”), I think I’ll spend the summer political slow down playing around with my election spreadsheet…or actually slowing down the blogging frequency, and instead enjoying Toronto in all of its garbage-scented glory. I do have the last three elections […]
-
One Last Look at STV
There were a lot of theories floated to explain STV’s crushing defeat two weeks ago in BC. Given there is no shortage of PhD students in the ranks of PR advocates, I’m sure we’ll be treated to several papers on this topic in the coming months. In the meantime, I plugged the results from ElectionsBC […]