Vancouver-Fairview By-Election result maps

Posted April 2, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: By-Election

Attached are five maps. Each of the maps contains the percentage vote count of the respective parties in 2008. Note the 2005 riding boundaries are bounded by blue, while the 2009 riding boundaries are in red (Vancouver-Fairview excludes False Creek).

For comparison purposes, here were the 2005 election results.

I took each of the polls and then I dumped them into 8 colour categories, with roughly an equal number of polls in each color category, and rank ordered them. Here were the following maps (click on them for more details):

BC Liberals – Very similar to 2005’s results, with the southern (richer) part of the riding much more supportive than the rest of the riding. This can almost be overlaid with a map of socioeconomic status with similar gradients:

NDP – Clearly dominant east of Cambie Street, and also surprisingly well on False Creek.

Greens – More correlation with the Greens and the NDP than in Vancouver-Burrard; perhaps this may be due to party leader Jane Sterk running in this riding. Due to the small number of voters, note that reading too much into this map may be hazardous to your political health.

Conservatives – Only area that is interesting is the relative support west of Granville; perhaps a function of the age of voter in the riding? Due to the small number of voters, note that reading too much into this map may be hazardous to your political health.

Marijuana – Similar to the Greens in nature. Due to the small number of voters, note that reading too much into this map may be hazardous to your political health.

Voter Turnout – This one was a little tougher to read other than that False Creek and the southeastern part of the riding clearly voted more than the rest of the riding.

Bonus Map – Voter Turnout greater than 26.93% (average voter turnout in Fairview) overlaid with which party got more votes per poll:

So why did the NDP win? Similar to Vancouver-Burrard: They did a better job getting their people out to vote. The NDP also did an excellent job of smashing the BC Liberals in the False Creek area, which is counter-intuitive to the “rich area” mentality that would typically support the BC Liberals. It will be worth further examination in the Vancouver-False Creek 2009 election.

2 Comments

Vancouver-Burrard By-Election Result Maps

Posted April 1, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: By-Election

This is a brief analysis of the Vancouver-Burrard by-election. As a reminder, the results were the following:

Attached are five maps. Each of the maps contains the percentage vote count of the respective parties in 2008. Note the 2005 riding boundaries are bounded by blue (Vancouver-Burrard was essentially downtown Vancouver), while the 2009 riding boundaries are in red (Vancouver-West End is the western part of downtown Vancouver, while Vancouver-False Creek is the Yaletown portion, plus False Creek).

For comparison purposes, here were the 2005 election results.

I took each of the polls and then I dumped them into 8 colour categories, with roughly an equal number of polls in each color category, and rank ordered them. Here were the following maps (click on them for more details):

BC Liberals – Note the concentration of support in the “ring”. Also note this is the basis that Vancouver-False Creek will be “safe” for the BC Liberals.

NDP – Note their support is where the BC Liberals are not. This will make Vancouver-West End a safe seat for the NDP.

Greens – There is slightly more support for the Greens on the NDP side than the BC Liberal side (the correlation is fairly weak), but it is fairly scattered between both areas. Note the vote sizes involved here were small, so take this map with a grain of salt.

Conservatives – Diffuse support, very similar to the Greens. Note the vote sizes involved here were small, so take this map with a grain of salt.

Marijuana – Maybe a good indication of where the police should be looking for the next big grow-op, perhaps. But otherwise not much information can be dredged out of this map other than it appears to be as scattered as the Greens and Conservatives. Note the vote sizes involved here were small, so take this map with a grain of salt.

The most important map of all – Voter Turnout:

It does not take a political expert to figure out what exactly happened this election. The NDP did a better job of getting their people out to vote. The BC Liberal voters were disinterested, and thus lost the riding. This should be a textbook map for all BC Liberal campaign offices – poll support is useless unless if you can get the people out to vote. The NDP clearly outperformed the BC Liberals in this campaign by a huge margin.

In retrospect, this shows that Lorne Mayencourt’s previous campaign management skills in the 2005 provincial election were excellent. I don’t know what he was thinking running in Vancouver Centre in the Federal Election, but provincially he turned probably what was going to be a losing campaign into a winning one by getting out his vote much better than Arthur Griffiths did during this by-election. Conversely, Spencer Herbert and the NDP did a good job getting their support base out, relative to the BC Liberals.

2 Comments

Vancouver-Fairview and Burrard results

Posted March 31, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: By-Election

Elections BC has posted the detailed results from the Vancouver-Fairview and Vancouver-Burrard by-elections.

I will be able to generate some maps tonight when I have some time to do the proper analysis.

Comments Off

By-Election candidate expenses

Posted February 24, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Analysis, By-Election

I have taken the time to analyze the campaign financing returns of the by-election candidates. The deadline for them to file was 90 days after the by-election.

Please note the following are rounded to the nearest $100:

Vancouver-Burrard:
NDP MLA Spencer Herbert spent $62,100 (of which $57,500 subject to the limit); the vast majority of the contributions were through the BC NDP and the local riding association.

BC Liberal candidate Arthur Griffiths spent $91,400 (of which $80,600 subject to the limit); $54,200 was received from the BC Liberal Party; $16,200 raised through political contributions, and $25,000 via a loan.

Green candidate Drina Read raised approximately $2,700 and spent $2,700. I also might add she made a massive addition error on the second page of her financing form, where she low-balled her total expenditures by $1,000. Most of her funds raised were from contributions.

Conservative candidate Ian McLeod spent $2,400; all of this was transferred from candidate Wilf Hanni.

Marijuana Party candidate Marc Emery raised and spent $1,400; the majority of it was through contributions (and a generous $500 donation from his wife, Jodie Emery)

Vancouver-Fairview:
NDP MLA Jenn McGinn spent $67,200 ($59,500 subject to the election limit); she received $12,600 from corporations and trade unions, while the remainder was from the BC NDP and the local riding association.

BC Liberal candidate Maureen MacDiarmid spent $92,100 ($68,500 subject to the election limit); she received $5600 ($5300 from herself) through individual donations, and $86,400 from the BC Liberal Party.

Green candidate Jane Sterk spent $7,800 and raised $7,700; approximately $3,800 of the contributions were from “John Sterk” (husband/son?), and the remainder through individual and corporation donations.

Conservative candidate Wilf Hanni spent and raised $6,800; $3,200 of which was self-contributed, and $3,500 was from the BC Conservative Party. $200 was from candidate Ian McLeod.

Marijuana Party candidate Jodie Emery spent and raised $400; all of which were through individual contributions.

Analysis:
The BC Liberal party spent a total of $141,000 on this election, while the NDP spent approximately $90,000 on the by-election. The lack of fundraising during the campaign period was probably to be expected considering the proximity of the by-elections to the general election. The most notable difference in the way the respective campaigns spent money was in the “Research and Polling” category – the BC Liberals spent a lot more money in this category.

3 Comments

Expense reports for the by-elections

Posted November 3, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: By-Election

It will be very interesting to see the financial resources the respective parties poured into the by-elections; each political party could spend up to $162,217, while the candidates could spend roughly $84,000 in Vancouver-Burrard and $75,000 in Vancouver-Fairview.

The deadline to report such election expenses will be on January 27, 2009, which is 90 days after the by-election date.

I would suspect the BC Liberal candidates would be in a better position financially to go near the limit (especially Arthur Griffiths), as the BC Election Act allows corporate contributions (unlike the Canada Elections Act).

The parties, however, have a different story – at the end of 2007, the BC Liberal party had net liquid assets (loosely defined as cash and near-cash assets minus liabilities) of approximately $600,000, while the NDP’s net liquid assets of negative $510,000.

Oddly enough, however, the NDP’s balance sheet was in better shape than the BC Liberal party, as the NDP has a $1.5 million asset in the form of “Lands and Buildings” which could presumably be liquidated even in today’s real estate environment (BC Property Assessment – $1,317,000).

The BC Liberal party’s fundraising abilities, however, appear to be better than the NDP’s, so it is likely that the BC Liberals would have more to spend for this election if they chose to do so. Still, both parties are very far away from the maximum $5.5 million expenditure allowed in the 2009 general election ($1.1 million in the 60 days before the campaign period to the campaign period and $4.4 million during the campaign period) so it would not surprise me if both parties put in a minimal amount of funding in this election to save their gunpowder for the general election.

Comments Off

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 wing 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 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.

Comments Off

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%

3 Comments

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.

Comments Off