Analysis of the 2008 By-Elections

Posted October 30, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: By-Election

It’s clear the Green party is in deep trouble - their popular votes in previous elections have amounted to nothing other than a protest vote, and they have not been able to break out of this mold. If you look at the results of the non-NDP/BC Liberal voters in the 2005 election, Vancouver-Fairview had 10.0% and Vancouver-Burrard had 15.7%. In both electoral districts in the by-election, the protest vote factor was 12.7%.

If the Greens can’t drive their votes to the polls in a by-election, they will have exactly the same trouble in the general election.

I would suspect that the BC Conservative vote split the Green’s vote as the “right win alternative protest vote”. If this is their role in the election, then the BC Liberals have less to worry about, although seeing 4-5% of that vote bleed away to a party that ideologically is similar to the BC Liberals should be of some concern.

Spencer Herbert’s powerful result in Vancouver-Burrard is powerful, and once Elections BC has the poll-by-poll results it can be confirmed where the NDP power base is in that riding - since in 2009 the riding will be split in two. Arthur Griffiths, if he decides to run again in Vancouver-West End, will not be doing better than 37%, so David Harper will be fighting him for a nomination that will have very little chance of netting a seat in the legislature.

I was surprised at Jenn McGinn’s margin of victory, getting a slightly higher percentage than Gregor Robertson.

As somebody named BK alludes to in their comments, McGinn should not feel safe coming into the general election, although certainly she should be very happy with the result.

The story politically, however, is rightfully going to get lost with the US Presidential election, and also the upcoming municipal election. With the excessively low voter turnout seen, it is also difficult to extrapolate these results into provincial sentiment, although one easy conclusion that can be made is that the NDP are not to be discounted, unlike the polls of early last year.

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By-Election 2008: NDP 2, BC Liberals 0

Posted October 29, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: By-Election

The NDP have won both seats in the by-election.

Vancouver-Fairview:
McGinn (NDP) 5,487 - 46.7% - Elected
MacDiarmid (BCL) 4,779 - 40.6%
Sterk (GRN) 856 - 7.3%
Hanni (BCC) 483 - 4.1%
Emery, J (BCM) 155 - 1.3%
148/148 reporting
Estimated Turnout: 26%

Vancouver-Burrard:
Herbert (NDP) 6,516 - 50.1% - Elected
Griffiths (BCL) 4,841 - 37.2%
Read (GRN) 686 - 5.3%
McLeod (BCC) 604 - 4.7%
Emery, M (BCM) 356 - 2.7%
195/195 reporting
Estimated Turnout: 22%

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Not imrpessed with Elections BC

Posted October 29, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: By-Election

Right now I am trying to access Elections BC, and I am getting a message “Error establishing a database connection”. The third-hand reports of the by-election results on CKNW are sketchy, so I would have hoped there would have been a better source of information.

One would think that two ridings and a very low interest election would not overload their server, but apparently this is not the case - they will have a lot of IT work to do in order to keep alive for the general election!

Elections Canada’s server managed to hold up during the Federal election - I was kind of surprised about this.

Update (9:35pm) - Election BC’s servers are back online.

Vancouver-Fairview:
MacDiarmid (BCL) is up 667 vs. 591 for McGinn (NDP) and 104 for Sterk (GRN) (19/149 polls reporting)

Vancouver-Burrard:
Herbert (NDP) is significantly ahead of Griffiths (BCL) and will likely take the seat.

Update (9:41pm) - “Database connection error” message again!

Update (9:54pm) -
Vancouver-Burrard:
Herbert (NDP) 5,136 to Griffiths (BCL) 3,836, 171/195 counted. Herbert’s got the seat.

Vancouver-Fairview:
McGinn (NDP) 2,310 to MacDiarmid (BCL) 2,282, 74/149 counted. Still too close to call without knowing where those votes were counted.

Update (10:26pm) -
Still no update from Elections BC on their site, which is slow but accessible again. Fairly sure at this point the people on the ground should know the result, but nothing reported in media yet.

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By-Election predictions

Posted October 28, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: By-Election

Time to stick my neck out and make two predictions of the winners of the October 29, 2008 by-election.

Vancouver-Burrard: Spencer Herbert, NDP
Vancouver-Fairview: Maureen MacDiarmid, BC Liberal

The reason strictly deals with voter turnout. The areas with high voter turnout in Burrard heavily favour the NDP, while the areas that favour Fairview lean toward the BC Liberals. Both Lorne Mayencourt and Gregor Robertson were strong influences in their respective 2005 local campaigns, and with them gone, the two ridings should revert back to their original biases.

For example, the maps above shows the areas that have greater than average voter turnout from the 2005 election. The BC Liberals have to get the Yaletown corridor out in order to win Vancouver-Burrard, while the NDP have to get the Cambie corridor out in order to win Vancouver-Fairview.

Incidentially, if the BC Liberals manage to capture Vancouver-Fairview, it will be the first time that a government party has won a by-election in a very long time.

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NDP economic plan - ballot question?

Posted October 28, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: NDP

The concept of the “ballot question” is paramount to any political campaign - what question do you want to give to people when they go and vote?

In the last federal election, the ballot question was “Do you want Stephane Dion as your Prime Minister?” and the public generally voted no to this.

After reading the NDP economic plan response, I suspect the NDP may be trying to make the ballot question as “Do you want the carbon tax?” - if they can do this, it would give the NDP the best shot at forming government. The BC Liberals’ ballot question is shaping up to be “Do you think Carole James or Gordon Campbell will make a better economic manager in tough times?”.

I see two flaws with the NDP’s current approach. One is that they consistently refer to the carbon tax as “the gas tax”, which is to appease the green side of the party base. The NDP’s support is split on the carbon tax, just like the BC Liberals’ camp. The other issue the NDP has with their strategy is that their focus on certain other topics, such as homelessness, is not going to attract the moderate voter. The political middle pays to have a roof over their heads, and using their tax dollars to pay for housing that others are unwilling to work for is not going to win the NDP any new voters.

I also thought the NDP’s economic address had an unusual focus on rural British Columbia, so it is obvious the NDP is thinking they are going to make some inroads in the BC Interior. They would have to think that the Prince George seats are in play for the 2009 election.

Both parties are going to push hard to the middle in the next six months.

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By-election candidate responses

Posted October 27, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: By-Election

Three of the five candidates for the Vancouver-Burrard by-election have responded to my very short questionnaire, and three of the five candidates in Vancouver-Fairview did the same.

Since most undecided people typically scour the internet at the last day to make up their opinions, hopefully the answers I have up here will be of some use.

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Links to Vancouver-Burrard candidate interviews

Posted October 24, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: By-Election

Finding media information on the by-elections is quite difficult, especially when everybody is looking to the November 15 mayoral elections. Fortunately, Miss604 did some interviews with the respective candidates, which I will link here:

Spencer Herbert (NDP) - October 22, 2008
Drina Read (Green) - October 23, 2008
Arthur Griffiths (BC Liberal) - October 24, 2008 (Audio)

I will be attempting to contact the various candidates in both ridings, and hopefully have something up here by October 27. The two simple questions I posed are in the Vancouver-Burrard and Vancouver-Fairview pages, dealing with local issues to their respective electoral districts.

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Demographics are the key

Posted October 24, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: By-Election

I was interviewed by Jackie Wong (who writes for the Westender) about the upcoming by-election of Vancouver-Burrard.

The article she wrote about is on The Tyee, but I will post a complete transcript of what I wrote to here here. Also note I have provided two more maps that were not already up on the by-election link.

1. You offer a comprehensive map of the voter patterns in Vancouver Burrard from 2005. The map suggests that northern and eastern regions of the riding (Coal Harbour, Yaletown) showed Liberal voting tendencies, while western and northeastern regions (the West End, Gastown/Downtown Eastside border) showed NDP tendencies. Why do you think that is?

The one word answer is demographics. More specifically, two key variables would be income level and residential ownership. For example, people that rent apartments downtown would more likely support the NDP, while the people with mortgages on their condominiums would be more likely to vote BC Liberal. Generally, the way that the parties have been messaging would lead middle to low income earners to support the NDP, while middle to upper income earners to support the BC Liberals. The key point here, however, is that the middle income earner (as well as the political centrists) is the ultimate “swing battleground” for both the major parties in terms of demographics.

One can also walk the streets of downtown in the support areas of the NDP and BC Liberal and it doesn’t take very long to discover the “flavour” of the neighbourhood that supports each political party.

A question you never asked was the impact of the Green party. You can see (by the attached map) that a typical Green voter is geographically in closer alignment with the NDP than to the BC Liberals. In the last election, the Green party received 13% of the vote, so they cannot be ruled out if they are able to do a masterful job of mobilizing their base. 10,354 people voted for Adriane Carr in Vancouver Centre in the last federal election.

2. Do you think regional voting patterns in this 2008 byelection will be similar to those of 2005?
3. What effect will swing regions of the riding have on the byelection?
4. Where are the swing regions in the riding? Have they changed since 2005?

Yes, the voting patterns should be similar, with the noted difference that in a by-election (with low voter turnout), the individual candidates’ public persona and local campaign becomes more relevant since the provincial parties will be taking less of the media spotlight.

I have attached a map with the polls that were within 5% of each other (between the BC Liberals and the NDP). You can compare this with the map showing the poll winner and see that this is all on the perimeter of the NDP “circle of strength”. Essentially the BC Liberals have to concentrate inwards, while the NDP have to concentrate outwards.

It becomes less of a matter of changing voters’ opinions, but rather getting your core demographic out to vote for you.

5. What effect will voter fatigue have on the byelection, when voter turnout for byelections is already generally lower than turnout for general elections? Do you know anyone who has conducted local research on voter fatigue?

There will be a negative impact to voter turnout in this by-election due to the proximity of elections. The last provincial by-election was October 28, 2004 in Surrey-Panorama Ridge, which received a whopping 52% voter turnout compared to the 69% in the previous 2001 election. I would be shocked beyond belief if more than 50% turned out to vote in Vancouver-Burrard. People in Vancouver-Burrard and Fairview will be facing three elections in a month - federal, provincial and municipal.

The Mayor’s race will have more of an impact this election - people ordinarily supporting the NDP would be assisting Vision Vancouver/COPE, while people ordinarily supporting the BC Liberals will be assisting the NPA. When you factor in a lack of volunteer support, plus the fact that the by-election will be giving only a 6 month mandate to the winner before the general election is called, it will not be surprising to see very low voter turnout.

Unfortunately I do not know anybody who has conducted research on voter fatigue, other than the real-life experiment that will be on October 29.

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