quote:
Somehow 5000 votes abandoned the NDP and went to Elizabeth May.
Not necessarily. The NDP lost over 6000 votes actually. But there were over 4000 fewer votes cast and many NDP as well as Liberal supporters may not have voted. I doubt many NDP supporters voted Conservative, but obviously some Liberal supporters did (MacKay got 1105 more votes), leaving over 9000 Liberal supporters who probably voted Green or didn't vote (some may have voted NDP). Thus the NDP vote that went Green could have been less than 3000, but was likely more.