Nova Scotia Election Campaign

email the mods.  That should do it.

Anyone notice how almost none of the media is reporting the fact that the NDP is ahead in the polls? The CBC and the CTV mention the election but not the possible outcomes.

Usually when an election is called and there is a reasonable chance of a new government they mention that...

#%&*

and what is cool is that we will take BC in a few days, just as the Nova Scotia campaign swings into gear. The force is with us.

The numbers going into the election are this:

P.C. - 21, NDP - 20, Liberal - 9, Independent - 1, Vacant -1

All 20 of the NDP M.L.A.'s are re-offering, which gives them the advantage of incumbency.

The NDP finished second or a close third in 11 other ridings:  Chester-St. Margaret's, Eastern Shore, Glace Bay, Guysborough-Sheet Harbour, Halifax-Clayton Park, Hammonds Plains-Upper Sackville, Hants West, Kings South, Lunenburg, Lunenburg West, and Truro-Bible Hill.  All of which have already had their candidates nominated.

June 9th could see history in the making with the first NDP provincial government east of Ottawa.

Whoops!  My bad!  Duplicate Post!

This will be an interesting one to watch from next door in NB> The Cons are going to play the "you can't trust the NDP with the economy" card.  They will spin yesterday's vote as a rejection of spending money to stimulate the economy. The NDP will have to get out its solution for the ills of the NS economy early and often.

That would be great if you could go work in Cape Breton, Janey. It seems to be the one part of the province where the NDP has yet to make a significant breakthrough.

Cape Breton was once the bastion of the NDP- in the late 70's, ALL four seats came from there. But we have come a long way, even winning back a much coveted seat! But it is an area that can make gains, I am sure of it!

This is from today's Chronicle Herald and Sharon,m if you already published or linked to it, just take it out. Thx!

Tories abandoning rural N.S., Dexter says

By AMY SMITH Provincial Reporter
Wed. May 6 - 12:57 PM  
On the first full day of campaigning, NDP Leader Darrell Dexter said Rodney MacDonald is out of touch with what is happening in rural Nova Scotia.
 
"A lot of these communities, especially in rural Nova Scotia, ... are continuing to see depopulation, continuing to see unemployment grow and (the premier) really has not addressed adequately that question of how will we go about sustaining rural communities and allowing them the opportunity to thrive," Mr. Dexter said.

The remainder of the article can be found  here: http://thechronicleherald.ca/Election/9011735.html

Today, Darrell is working hard in that forementioned riding!

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Election/1120612.html

To read more about Nova Scotia election coverage in the mainstream media in the province, here are two links. Keep in mind the Herald is owned by a Tory family and the CBC seems to like the Liberals. Mr. M is getting more coverage than he deserves, sigh!

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Election

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nsvotes2009/

Have a greay day everyone!

J

I'm bored. Not enough elections out here in Alberta.

So....I'm off to go campaign for the PC's in NS.

Think again, Charles.

The two Cape Breton ridings voted NDP in the 1997 federal election.  That tells me that change is possible.

In my former provincial riding of Queens, the Conservatives had won every election since 1953, 16 consecutive victories (including a 1971 by-election).  Then came the 2006 Election, with a repeat NDP candidate for the first time since the 1974-1978 elections, plus the Conservative government's gerrymandering by taking 7 very Tory-unfriendly polls from the neighbouring Lunenburg West riding and adding them to Queens, and the incredibly incompetant Queens Liberal riding association that forgot to have their last-minute parachute candidate sign his own nomination papers on the last day to register. 

On election night, the NDP were victorious!  Change is possible!

And get this!

More people voted in Queens in 2006 without a Liberal candidate than voted in the 2003 election with one!

Do you know where you will be working?

We may want to come make trouble for you.

That's good. It'll add the experience of a losing campaign to your resume.

Sharon and others, sorry about that, I forgot in my excitement (my excuse de jour, mea culpa!!!) Hope all is well with you!!! And I have signed up to help in CB! (I know Hfx needs help - one cannot make assumptions but there are three ridings there I know need help badly). I think Gordie Gosse has enough help tho I plan to stay in with friends Whitney Pier likely - we'll see.

Off to edit! (esp fr the Herald, lol)

One of these days i wish someone from NS would explain to me how it is that back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s when the NDP was almost non-existent across most of Nova Scotia - it did well in Cape Breton, but now the NDP has made this giant leap forward across the province, but in CB, NDP support is still lower than it was in the 70s. What gives?

This is my come-from-away understanding:

When Alexa first won the NS leadership, she was never accepted by the existing NDP MLA (who was from Cape Breton), who formed his own party and eventually joined the Liberals. It's taken this long for the party to fully recover its strength there.

The long stories of internal NDP politics have some relevance, but there is a short and sweet one that is more central.

For whatever reason, Cape Bretoners are much more likely to follow long established voting patterns. That translates as vote Liberal.

The other tendency, mostly with federal politics, is for people to vote for who is going to be government- whoever that is. That is less true with provincial politics [less sense of sugar daddies going to repay you for the votes I guess], but somewhat operative.

NDP support is growing, but slower than anywhere else. Cape Breton being Cape Breton, that could suddenly change over. But the question was about past trends.

When the NDP was strong in CB was when the mines and mills gave meaning to the term Industrial Cape Breton... and it was a time of higher working class identity with the NDP in Ontario and BC as well. When all of that passed, Cape Bretoners shifted to default Liberal voting.

Ah, who can forget Paul's Cape Breton Labour Party? My uncle ran under their banner in a mainland riding.

Couldn't help noticing Steve Streatch is looking for the Tory nod in Colchester - Musquodoboit Valley.  Hopefully his sister (the smarter middle child) keeps out of this family's political tradition.

Good summary

I think its more to be chalked up to Cape Bretoners having one tendency to vote where the bread is buttered. Every one of those seats the Tories won after they were government. [The 1 showing in 1999 was a by-election after their general victory. Where they went from distant third in the general.] The trend just continued with Rodney as Leader.

The same trend that got them those seats, puts every one of them at risk in this election- even the Premier's seat.

My daughter has a bunch of relatives in Inverness electoral district, and she would like to help the NDP campaign there, but cannot afford the air fare to fly out there. Is there a contingency fund available for that type of thing?

Especially true if you can remember the 1988 Nova Scotia election.

Most pundits thought that the John Buchannan Tories were about to be defeated by the Vince MacLean Liberals when the Tories produced a poll just before election day, claiming they were in the lead.  That swung enough last-minute voters who wanted to 'vote for the winners' to the Conservatives for them to eek out a narrow majority (28 government members to 24 opposition members).  It was later learned that the 'poll' was not as it seemed, but releasing those results had the desired effect.

I am one of those who has believed that there should be no poll results reported in the week prior to an election.

I'm wondering if any one else feels this way, or in this 'Internet Age' is such a view is now obsolete?

Stockholm, anecdotally when it comes to Cape Breton it's one of the few places where I would actually say there *is* a bit of evidence for the bandwagon effect.

In first place, doesn't always work. Also..

Harper is more disliked in Cape Breton. And the Cons are organizationaly nowhere there for years back now. Even the old fed PCs were very weak there during Chretien years, and Reform/Alliance non-existant.

It definitley happens, but isn't that predictable when... just being one [local] factor in the mix.

I always got the sense that (at least for the last 20 years or so) Cape Breton was basically a Liberal bastion which stayed NDP federally in protest of the EI cuts in 97 and Tory provincially in 06 because of the 'native son' factor.

I would think the NDP needs to snag at least one or two new seats in Cape Breton in order to win a majority government. The NDP is pretty much maxed out in Metro Halifax (Halifax Clayton Park and Hammonds Plains-Upper Sackville seem to be the only real targets) so those additional 7 seats will have to come from places like Cape Breton and the rural mainland.

For CB-

default: votes Liberal

would be more apt description than 'Liberal bastion', which it is not.

During the Mulroney and Buchannan years there were plenty of Tory seats provincialy and federaly.

And other things can intervene.

And while it is slower to slough off old patterns, some day CB also will stop even being the [tentative] 'Liberal default'.

Could even be now, but probably unlikely.

It would be very surprising if the NDP does not gain at least a seat there [but maybe only one], and there will be gains in the "rural mainland" [that mostly isn't so rural], just a question of how many.

There won't be much change amongst Cape Breton's 9 seats, since most incumbents are running again.  SEATS TO WATCH:  Cape Breton West, Glace Bay, North Sydney, Victoria-The Lakes.  I don't see any change coming in the other 5.

In the Halifax Metro Area, again only a few of the 17 seats are in play, given that the NDP has continued it's domination of that part of the province.  SEATS TO WATCH:  Eastern Shore, Halifax-Citadel-Sable Island, Halifax-Clayton Park, Hammonds Plains-Upper Sackville, Preston.

Rural Nova Scotia's 26 seats will be the main battleground in the up-coming election.  At least 13 ridings will be in play:  Chester-St. Margaret's, Guysborough-Sheet Harbour, Hants West, Kings North, Kings South, Lunenburg, Lunenburg West, Pictou East, Queens, Shelburne, Truro-Bible Hill, Yarmouth; along with the interesting race in Cumberland North, where ex-P.C. M.L.A. Ernie Fage is running as an independent.

Stay tuned!

Usually when elections are called, there are a steady stream of polls.

As of today, already one week into this election campaign, I find it strange that I haven't seen any polling data in any media.

I've always seen polls that show the ruling party in front as headline news.  I'm starting to wonder if the lack of polling data could be a sign that the Conservatives know they are in trouble!

Has anyone else seen or heard of any polling in regards to the Nova Scotia Election?

The parties are doing internal polling but you're right, there has been no public polling since the one that Caissa cites.  I myself was called by a pollster within an hour after the government fell and after doing my usual guilt-inducing lying-through-the-teeth performance ("Does anyone in your household work for a political party, media etc. ...?"), it turned out that they had already reached their quota in my age demographic.

N.S. Tories step up campaign attacks on NDP

Updated Sat. May. 16 2009 3:57 PM ET

The Canadian Press

HALIFAX -- The Nova Scotia Conservatives stepped up their attacks on the New Democrats on Saturday as a quiet campaign for the June 9 election began to heat up in advance of a leaders' debate.

Following up on the RiskyNDP campaign his party launched a few months ago, deputy premier Angus MacIsaac slammed the NDP election platform, released last week, as having no credibility.

.....

New Democrat Maureen MacDonald, who was at Tory campaign headquarters to listen to MacIsaac's remarks, called it an act of desperation

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090516/ns_election....

and yes, there is internal polling but so many undecided make even them wonder. I actually think the NDP traditon of 3 canvasses- whether by phone or at the doorstep (still works in rural areas and some urban ones here!) provide much better info re getting out the vote on Eday and how parties are doing. I think by that account, the NDP is doing well. But again, it is close in so many ridings!

How close, you might ask?

Look at it this way.

Besides the 20 seats the NDP won in 2006, in which all 20 incumbents are re-offering, they finished second in the following ridings:

Cape Breton North - repeat candidate

Chester-St. Margaret's - new candidate

Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley - repeat candidate (PC incumbent retired)

Eastern Shore - repeat (3-time) candidate

Glace Bay - repeat candidate

Guysborough-Sheet Harbour - repeat (3-time) candidate

Halifax-Clayton Park - repeat candidate

Hammonds Plains-Upper Sackville - repeat candidate

Kings North - repeat (3-time) candidate

Kings South - new candidate

Lunenburg - new candidate (incumbent PC deceased)

Lunenburg West - new candidate

Pictou Centre - new candidate

Truro-Bible Hill - new candidate (PC incumbent retired)

Yarmouth - new candidate

8 repeat candidates and 7 new ones

Should the NDP hold on to the 20 ridings they have, they need to add just 7 seats for a majority.

Stay tuned!

Yep, I know from the canvassing that people who never before would agree to say take a lawn sign or volunteer are doing so. It also occurs to me as a univ prof that Rodney deliberately wanted this campaign NOW when univ students are home but they can vote wherever they are - and help in the ridings they live in so that might help the rural vote (imho). The thing is tho, loathe as I am to quote Mr. Kimber, this is not my grandmother's CCF but in many ways it IS. (thinking of a title for a column he wrote in The Coast). Granted, he did not use the term CCF and I think he is out of touch with NS politics yet they have him writing a col on it. He rarely ventures far from his Hfx digs and is also writing a book on another Hfx institution so how can he write about the campaign? I will admit he did not a bad job on the Swiss Air Disaster but any book on that topic could have been as melodramatic as his. And the media seem to promote the Libs so much, it just irks me so much! Arrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! (or is it just me?)

Leaders Debates may make good TV, but I doubt it swings very many voters.

It's the ground work done by the door-to-door canvassers and phone canvassing which I find does the best job in convincing people to try to break with tradition.

Stay tuned!

It would take an NDP government to even begin to consider Proportional Representation.

The two old-line parties have the present First Past The Post system ingrained into their consciousnesses.  It's all they know, so it's all they want to know.  It's been to their success in the pass, it's what their minds tell them that will be to their success in the future, so forget about the Liberals and Conservatives ever wanting to change the status quo.

How would I change things in Nova Scotia, if given the chance?

1.  Create a new 55-seat Legislature based upon 11 federal ridings, with 5 provincial members per federal riding.

2.  Political parties would hold riding 'Nomination Meetings', where each selects 5 members, ranked 1 to 5 according to the number of votes cast, prior to an election call.  Parties which do not have members selected prior to the election call do not get onto the ballot in a riding.

3.  The gender of the candidates alternates:  #1, #3, & #5 are male, #2, & #4 female, or vice versa, whichever the parties decide.  In subsequent elections, the order is automatically reversed, so that in each election, the #1 slot has someone of a different gender.

4.  Ballots show the Parties on the ballots, not the individuals.  It is up to the Parties to inform the public about who their 'team' of candidates are in each particular riding.

5.  After the ballots are cast, the Returning Officer takes the results and creates a Percentage Table. 

Example - The federal riding of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley contains 5 provincial seats:  Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley (CMV), Colchester North (CoN), Cumberland North (CuN), Cumberland South (CuS), and Truro-Bible Hill (TBH)

Provincal 2006 Election results:

             CMV        CoN         CuN           CuS          TBH    TOTAL VOTES       %

PC        4790       3809        4640         5087         3711         22037        58.7

NDP      1891       1979        1085           753         2248          7956        21.2

LIB         707       1511        1480           691         1674          6637        17.7

GR/OTH  160         176          202        105/72        217            932          2.4

Under the First Past The Post system, one party gets all five seats, even though more than 40% of the electorate voted otherwise.

With Proportional Representation, the leading party would earn 3 seats, and the other two major parties 1 seat each.

6.  The Returning Officer establishes the order of preference:

Leading Party - #1 Position

Second Party - #2 Position

Leading Party - #3 Position

Third Party - #4 Position

Leading Party - #5 Position

7.  According to the rankings resulting from the riding Nominating Meeting, the Returning Officer declares which members from the lists submitted are the 5 new members elected.

8.  Each new member, in order of preference, chooses which of the 5 provincial ridings they would represent.

9.  The remaining members on each list become potential 'Members in Waiting' to fill any vacancy caused by the death or resignation of any member chosen on election night between the date of the election and the next vote, negating the need for costly by-elections.

This system (not perfect, but I believe better than what we have now!) would better serve the voters.

What do you think?

To be clear, while I don't have the best memory for issues that have been discussed in the NSNDP, this would be one that I think at most we might have had a workshop on sometime.

People may think that is lax of us to have not discussed PR.

But the point here is that Rodney MacDonald is just making this up out of thin air.

And I think that given that we have not talked about it- let alone have a policy- Darell did exactly the right thing by not getting drawn into a discussion of the merits of PR.

Dexter polling as the preference for premier is good as well. It would be interesting to see how he did as second choice among PC and Libs. The interesting poll will be the one soonest after tonight's debate.

Am very excited about this election, will almost definitely be making the trip over for an elect-cation.  Trouble is knowing what riding to go to, we're being pulled in a number of directions.  Hard to tell if you should work on what you figure to be a 'target' seat, or an incumbent's, seeing as you can't count your chickens &c.

I think no 1 is Pictou East (if I were coming fr away let's say) but there are so many that are close that I agree with Charles ... and there will be surprises as well. What worries me (not to be a naysayer) is the vote split, sigh! ie, how many votes will the Libs take from the NDP but if they take take fr the NDP, one hopes they are in ridings with a strong NDP presence!!! There is more excitement amg Libs and we need to consider that - some has to do with the Leader (Mr. MacNeil is no Francis Mackenzie, alas) and I hope Darrell can outshine in the debate- the debate IS an opportunity for many Nova Scotians to really see the Lib Ldr and pay more attention to him - which they generally have not been doing and so many are so anti Rodney that IF he does well, he will help his party. So I will watch for that tonight.

That said, debates rarely if ever change the outcome of an election!

dp

Darrel is winning the debate- see this comment on CBC site for ex

[Comment From kaz]
Dexter is the only one who seems relaxed at all up there

Darrell just has to keep shaking his head in disbelief as Rodney continues to make stuff up.  He keeps saying "The NDP says..."  "Mr. Dexter says ..."  And most of it is completely untrue!

What a shit-eating oilslick that MacDonald.  He's got the same mannerisms as Harper, it's scary.

MacDonald just referenced an "M.O.U."  ..  Quick, without looking, do you know what that is [rhetorical question]?  I sure didn't until a couple of years ago.

So, what's the buzz on who is thought to have won the debate? What are the pundits saying?

60% of the CBC viewers who voted (not scientific but interesting) thought the NDP's Darrell Dexter won. I'd say that is a good analysis - will have to wait for pundit report, lol (it is too early even if there are a few comments)

Janey, would you give us a link for that survey, please?

I DID copy all the comments however if anyone is interested. I could make a synopsis of the more intriging ones since I see no useful purpose in hearing each and everyone. (Sme are the typical debates between people who post).

Agreed.

Although it does play into the fears of those who say that third parties always advocate PR until they become one of the two largest and have a chance to win a false-majority.

Including Cape Breton - Canso? Really?

Anyway, a PR model based on five-seat districts has one of the same flaws as BC-STV; the districts are too large for some folks, yet still too small to provide decent proportionality.

The most saleable feature of the OCA's MMP model was having two votes, one for a party, one for a candidate, so you could vote for the party you want in government AND for the best person for local MLA. Voter choice was also a strong plus for STV. Closed-lists were a major defect of the OCA's MMP model. Would this idea really fly in Nova Sctoia?

I completely support this, but parity is a separate point. Some people who want a fair voting system dislike parity. I suppose there may be some people who like parity within one-party majority governments but don't like PR.

One problem with brand-new models is that you can't show people a working model anywhere. We have to speculate. Would this system result in more majority governments? Yes if you had a uniform trend throughout the province, not if you didn't. It might just give an even bigger bonus to parties with regional concentrations of votes. It might have unpredictable results, encouraging minority governments to roll the dice with an early election in the hope of votes splitting their way this time. It would be interesting to see a series of simulations of the last five or so elections on this model. I doubt that it would really give more proportional results.

Exercises in model design are great for getting people thinking about voting systems.

When you get thinking about implementation, though, you may want something that will attract more consensus.

Maybe. But we didn't discuss, let alone advocate, PR when we were a 2-3 seat third party either. Just wasn't on the radar.

Can't say it was never discussed. But certainly no extensive discussion.

There have over the years in the NSNDP been a number of discussions about how, as a civil society as well as a political party, we make democracy more meaningful. No doubt PR would have come up. But I dont remember PR ever being anything like an initiating impulse to any of those discussions.

Anything can happen in Kings South.

A lot of PCs vote NDP when they shift. The Liberals are improving more than the NDP if you are comparing to previous votes. But the NDP has never put serious resources into Kings South [and a lot of other places] before. Sprinkling resources around was part of the mix in the 1998 wave- more resources even than successive elections.

I don't think there is any bandwagon effect here. Darell still has the momentum. Hard to tell how much of the shine of MacNeill and the Liberals- which is less in the first place- is simply because they are finally living up to the brand.

Poll released yesterday and talked about by commentators on the debate, shows things have not changed.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Election/1122852.html

The pollster is about as sure as they ever sound that it is most likely the NDP is going to form government. [And for what its worth, as far as I know, Dennis Mills still has PC sympathies.]

Mills said pretty much the same thing in the last poll released, couple weeks before the election.

Given the current numbers, the NDP's victory won't be a big one, but it should be a victory. The Tories are still top-dogs in the non-Halifax, non-Cape Breton sections of Nova Scotia- so the NDP may not pick up many seats in rural Nova Scotia. Not that they need to pick up many to win.

The true decider of this election will be turnout though. I'm guessing it will be a record low turnout, so the most motivated supporters are going to carry the day. Let's hope the NDP has put some proper organisation in to the swing ridings to try and put enough of those over the top and give them the margin they need to govern stably. The central campaign seems to be maintaining a fairly even ship.

Re: "One problem with brand-new models is that you can't show people a working model anywhere." With respect, the Irish model - without specifying gender or any specific ethnic "seats", is an the best STV model I have particpated in. If for example, I am a voter in

County Galway, and this is all hypothetical since offhand I do not recall the numbers and names and parties rep'd in Tipperary North . It is done with counties to start with so I will use this one as an example. Say as an illustration there are three members to be elected based on the size of the area and the riding, ie,  Tipperary North . So, there are

local members just like we have which is one of the downsides to many prp, like say Israel, possibly the purest form where with just two per cent, one can form a party. Thus, one has a plethora of tiny partes with single issue focii - and I DO mean single issue!! Like the Pensioners Party etc. In Ireland, to become registered as a party, a group must have at least 300 members 18 years of age and older,

and one half of those must be eligible to vote (another complexity which we will leave out for now). If you wonder about this, consider the fact that in Canada, both the Tories and the Liberals have Young Libs and Young Tories in which young people from 14 and up and allowed to be card carrying, voting members of the party

who indeed take part in national votes. These youth, not permitted to vote in an election by virtue of age or possibly other issues, (they may for example not be citizens and convenientlyly leave that part out - I have seen it done, more so by the Libs but I digress) are permitted to register at Leadership conventions and have a vote there. So, for example, some of the Tories who selected Kim Campbell in 1993, were not legally eligible to vote in

an election yet they were among a small elite group whose $500 or so fee may have been waived so they could vote. In the Cons party at least, one of these 14-30 Youth delegates must be a woman and one mut be a male. Too, younger Tories also elected Rodney MacDonald to be Leader of the Party and thus (like campbell) automatically to an important post, the former Prime minister , the latter Premier of NS. This was also true when John Turner was elected Leader of the Liberal Party.

How representative of the voters of Canada were these groups? Firstly, they were younger since in order to vote in an election, one must be a citizen as well as 18 years old. I can recall campaigning in NS in the 80's and discovering to my horror that Commonwealth members could still vote there while lnded immigrants studying to become new citizens could not! Did a professor who

was from England know enough about NS to vote? This anachronism has been changed but what does one say while canvassing in an apt bldg to discover that the women VERY knoweldagble and married to a Cdn but not a citizen and who has lived in Canada for 10 yrs cannot vote but a visitor from England, here for 6 months and not at all interested, can and does plan to vote. How dd that skew NS elections? (Tho, as Gad horowitz has pointd out , the British labour movement has

impacted the development of democratic socialism on Canada as opposed to the business unionism so prevalent in the US so I best not take this debate too far, lol)

OK, back to Tipperary - i's a a long way to go, lol No, not really anymore.

We will say there are three seats available

These are the candidates and the further down the list you go, the greater potential your vote has in affecting the result.

Say the candidates were.
Coonan, Noel (Finna Gael FG)
Dwan, Bill (Sinn Fein S)
Hocter, Máire ( Fianna Fail FF)
Lowrey, Michael (Ind)
O'Meara, Kathleen (Labour) L
Smith, Michael (Finna Gael FG

Cleary, Siobhan (Labour) L

Murphy, Michael (Sinn Fein SF)

O'Sullivan , Caitlin (Fianna Fail FF)

Like many do in municipal elections where there is no ward system, I could as a voter I could just plump for Michael Lowrey, writing a 1 beside his name in honour of him.

That way, he gets so many more votes as the others do not get any from me. Many strategic voting can elect candidates this way. But it is the exception to the rule.

However, I am a Labour member and thus, with two on the ticket, I vote for those two - O'Meara and Cleary. I have a third vote and

since I am a nationalist, I use that vote for Mike Murphy of SF. I also have to rate these candidates, I pick No 1 for Cleary, No 2 dor O'Meara and No. 3 for Murphy. It is essential to rate the votes so the counters

will know who is my preferred candidates so my vote COUNTS!!! And is counted!

All the elections are counted in front of everyone - unlike Canada where we send in agents for each candidate in each riding and the doors are locked at 8 PM (in NS or NB) or whatever time is listed provincially. Federally, it depends on where you live due to the CRTC ensuring peole from the west do not know the results

from the east tho in an Internet age, this is just ridiculous and impossible and we in Atlantic Canada at least vote first. <g>

In Ireland, the First Preference votes are counted first. A quota is established based on a formula (One can read about the math of this here in a paper done on it, very interesting reading actually: http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/papers/voting.)

pdf

The Total Number of Valid Poll is P and the number of seats is N and Q is the quota needed to ascertain who has reached their quota and is this elected.

This is the formula:

Q = 1+

P

N +1

,

where we round down if this number is not an integer. This is the smallest number

of votes that guarantees election.

If the number of votes for any candidates is equal to or greater than the quota

they are deemed elected.

Say for example, in Tipp North,O'Meara meets the quota straight away as the Irish might say, she is elected

on the first count!

Then we move to the second round but we must also take into account the surplus votes of candidates!!!

 As the count proceeds, the non-transferable ballots are being set aside. In effect,

the total poll is decreasing and the quota is being reduced. It can thus happen

at the end that candidates are elected without reaching the official quota. After

the final count, the candidate or candidates who have the highest votes among

those remaining will be deemed elected, even if they have failed to secure a

quota.

After all the seats have been filled, if a candidate could possibly reach one

quarter of the quota then surpluses should still be transferred.

The most complicated part is the surplus votes. When a

candidate is elected on the first count, their transferable papers are divided into

sub-parcels (literally, piles of ballots) according to the second preference. These

sub-parcels are distributed according to how ppl voted. On later counts, when the votes

credited to an elected candidate consist of original and transferred votes, the last

received sub-parcel consists of those ballots received in the count that resulted

in the candidate reaching the quota. In this case, the returning officer examines

the papers contained in the last received sub-parcel by the candidate who has just

been deemed to be elected, and arranges the transferable papers in this sub-parcel

in further sub-parcels according to the next available preferences for continuing

 candidates recorded on those papers. A new sub-parcel is also made for the nontransferable

papers.

If candidate A is elected on the first count, then the last sub-parcel consists of

all A's first preferences. However, if A is elected on a later count, the last subparcel

will not involve the ballots that have A as a first preference, so the transfers

do not reflect the preferences of the voters who put A as their first preference. See

section 8 for further discussion of the last sub-parcel.

Note that if the number of transferable papers is less than the surplus, some

of the non-transferable votes of that elected candidate are used to make up the

remainder of the surplus. These ballots are called "non-transferable not effective"

and are set aside. The remainder of the non-transferable votes are retained as part

of the candidate's quota and placed with that candidate's papers. These are called

"non-transferable effective" votes. (For example, if A is 50 votes below the quota

and receives a surplus distribution of 100 votes, then A's surplus is 50. Suppose

that the 100 votes received have 40 transferable and 60 non-transferable. The

surplus of 50 consists of 40 transferable and 10 non-transferable not effective

ballots.) This terminology is not entirely self-explanatory! You may think of it

as follows. If a non-transferable vote is included in the quota, it was effective

and is called "non-transferable effective". But if it has no further preferences for

continuing candidates and was not used in bringing the last candidate over the

quota, then it was not effective in any way and is called "non-transferable not

effective".

(This is taken from the math paper)

Of course, it is most unusual for a candidate (like our Ms. O'Meara here) to be elected on the

first round. It does happen primarily to prominent candidates, party leaders like say Bertie Ahern and Mary Heany who is Leader of the Social Democratic Party

or someone well known for some reason or other. (Think Bill Casey, lol)

To state it simply, STV works well because

a) every vote really does count
b) on minor decisions, well down the voting preference list, elections are won or lost. So even so called "minor" or what some in Canada

term "third" or "fourth" parties have their votes counted and their support is noted and may even allow for the election of one of their candidates!

Sinn Fein has TD's (members of the Dail or Irish Parliament) from Dublin and I believe the west of Ireland and the Green Party also has TD's.

I believe the Irish system of voting doesn't force voters there to choose between the pragmatic (who is most likely to win?) or listen to such arcane arguments as "Vote for the Govt side!"

and the ideal (who would I like to win?). This system allows Irish voters and participants in the process to express their beliefs in both issues though intelligent use oftheir preferences.

A successful campaign will have to involve a message that all votes are welcome. But more basically than that, it will have to involve ensuring that as many people as possible get the chance to vote.

Thus, a SF party candidate in County Mayo might get elected on the 6th count or 12th depending on the no. of candidates because enough people seexcted him or her as their no 2 or 3 or even 1 preference somewhere long the way.

believe it or not, this system or something akin to it, was utilized by the leadership campaign that selected Peter MacKay over Davcid Orcahrd to be Leader of the Progressive Conservative

Party when MacKay promised Orchard he would not make a deal with the then named Alliance Party and he of course proceeded to do exactly the opposite and now Mr. Orchard is a Liberal

and even Scott Brison, who ran in tht campaign, joined the Libs and served for a time as a Minister in the Paul Martin govt. (There is an intriguing article I have lost but would like to find again either Walrus or Beaver mag) about

the relationship or lack thereof between Brison and MacKay. (Brison termed MacKay "thick as a brick" and was not very nice to his then fellow Tory but it seems he knew him well, lol)

If anyone has that article, I'd love a scanned copy!! Mine has disappeared and it i not in the archives. It was written not long after this leadership campaign in 1998 or 1999.

I forget right now (I am tired, lol)

In any case, this systrem, while complicated, does ensure all parties and candidates get accored the votes they deserve! It has a few flaws (there is NO perfect system) but it is the best one

I have seen. In the Tory version, each rising was gievn equal status (100 pts) nd the returning officer had to ascertain how that worked out. One does wonder if that was realy followed in Quebec

where cndidates like Orchard did not have agents. Still, I would give them a T for trying as they say.

After the vote- as in Israel, the oarties get together to form a govt but it takes much less time in Ireland since one is not dealing with 19 parties who all want to blackmail the winners - ie Tzipi Livni in

Israel won the most votes but many male dominated ultra right wing parties did not want a woman who seeks a two state solution and I was admittedly disapointed when Shimon Peres, a fomer Labour arty Leader

and one of the last surviving pioneers, asked Benyamin Netanyahou to form a govt! (sigh!!).

I hope this is not too compcated

=========

btw, I sit on a Boardf with Don Mils (ironically, my sister sits on another one with him, a univ bd in Quebec) and his wife is not named Rose Dale, lol (which does not mean I agree with him too often). I am not saying more lest I get into trouble, lol

We've had a problem in the NDP campaign here in the riding of Lunenburg.

The candidate in 2003 and 2006, Chris Heide, used about 400 signs during each of his campaigns.

This time, the Election Planning Committee ordered 500 signs, just to be sure that they had enough.

As of Wednesday, May 20th, with 20 days to go in the election, the NDP have run out of signs, and have to order more.

I guess those are the kind of problems you'd like to have during an election campaign, eh?

Stay tuned!

I like Irish STV, and I like Northern Irish STV even better. But those who are not in the habit of watching elections in Ireland or Northern Ireland -- which unfortunately included almost everyone in BC -- do indeed find it too complicated.

Afraid not!  I work for the Post Office (and that is NOT a contradiction in terms, thank you!)  At least you don't have to worry about me 'going Postal'.  That's an American term.  Canadians don't 'go Postal'...we form discussion groups!

And the fun never stops!

It's just been announced that the person who contested the NDP nomination with Pam Birdsall, Milton Countway, has entered the Lunenburg campaign as an Independant.

Stay tuned!

Stockholm wrote:
If you want a good example of a place where PR is a total non-starter - it would be Nova Scotia. In the last few elections, FPTP has yielded results that are pretty close to what PR would produce and the minority governments there have been stable and long lasting . . I suspect that most Nova Scotians would say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"!

I would argue that there IS something broken with FPTP. I've never understood why people are so taken with PR as the only alternative to it. It can accurately transform the confusion and divisions with the voters into crippled government (Israel, Germany) and often ends up with unpredictable issue by issue deal making on the floor of the house.

I'd rather some kind of preferential voting like the australian system or maybe BC-STV. In Australia, members are only elected with 50%+ of the vote, and voters are still involved in the outcome even when their first choice fails. Unlike PR, PV tends to return majorities, based on voter preferences.

Another long thread - continue in a new one if you like.