Hmm - Elections BC's official numbers have a much wider lead for Clark: 127/134 - Clark 5,499, Eby 5,167Those numbers at NDP HQ don't seem right.
Elections BC is calling Clark at 5957 to Eby's 5656 with 138 of 134 polls reported. How can you report more polls than are available?
That's interesting, Elections BC now reports that 138 out of 134 polls have reported??? It seems to be unclear how many polls there actually are!
damn. i hate that woman, too bad she won. Shes just full of BS.
OK, something very wonky here. Elections BC website says 138/134 polls reporting (?) and Clark 5,957, Eby 5,656. If these results are correct, it looks like she won by 301 votes.
The pro-Clark spin in the Province article above is almost laughable!
Ugh, that Province article makes me want to puke. They obviously had a canned puff piece that they had to hastily re-write. Some of the more egregious lines:
Premier Christy Clark ended a decades-old government curse Wednesday and overcame her first minor bump in the road as leader of B.C. by winning her predecessor's seat in the Vancouver-Point Grey byelection.
Clark, the favourite, overcame strong criticism from her rivals and last-minute signs that her shoo-in victory wasn't a guarantee to take ex-premier Gordon Campbell's seat over the NDP's David Eby.
...
Despite a spirited campaign, Eby, the former executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, wasn't able to overcome the premier's star power and experience, although the results show it was close.
...
In the end the riding, which has voted B.C. Liberal red since 1996, chose to be represented by the premier rather than a novice politician.
As the saying goes, I'd use The Province for toilet paper, except it's already covered in crap.
Now 145 out of 134 polls are reporting (?!)
Maybe they're working in base-negative-eleven?
With these mysterious 'extra' polls, Clark's lead has widened to 6,225 to 5,836. Hmm, where's my tinfoil hat?
buddhall Budd Hall
by AndreaWoo
Following from Istanbul- so exciting!RT @AndreaWoo: Elections BC says final = Clark 5947 (48.15%), Eby5656 (45.72%). #vpg11
AndreaWoo Andrea Woo
Officials here saying many advance poll boxes still not counted for. #vpg11. Everyone waiting for Eby now.
AndreaWoo Andrea Woo
Elections BC says final = Clark 5947 (48.15%), Eby5656 (45.72%). #vpg11
Yes even if it is a win for Christy it is considered a loss by most people on these boards - this despite the fact that no governing party has won a by-election in this Province in more than 30 years. So after 30 years of opposition party wins in by-elections the current opposition party considers it a win when they lose a seat that history says they should win.
Politics101, you have to admit that having the Premier running makes this an unusual byelection.
Politics, generally I enjoy your contributions to this board as a balanced perspective from 'the other side of the aisle', but you can do better than parrot Christy's talking points. Comparing the sitting premier running in a safe seat to the NDP winning some by-elections in the late 80s at the height of Vander Zalm's unpopularity is comparing apples to oranges.
Face it, this is a not a good result for Clark. Even guys like Norman Spector and Vaughan Palmer have admitted as much. This will shake the confidence of the party and the caucus in her and her inner circle of advisers. And you can be sure that this result has pretty much killed any talk of a snap election call this year.
Its quite amusing how the BC Liberal spin is now to retroactively try to claim that Crusty was the underdog in this race. She is in the midst of what is supposed to her honeymoon enjoying what pases for "Christy-mania" and she is running in one of the richest most solidly rightwing seats in the whole province full of monster homes and filthy rich people - and she barely hangs on.
Niow suddenly it turns out there are actually 167 polls not 134! I guess Crusty had to create 30 extra polls to stuff with pre-marked BC Liberal ballots in order to win.
She is the Katherine Harris of BC!
Hey Stock, c'mon, let's not say things we can't take back! 
In all seriousness, some reporters are tweeting that the ballot box issue is because of local decisions in some polling places to split polling divisions into two boxes.
I will say, in Clark's favour, that it may be more difficult to knock her off in a general election unless the Liberals are tanking province-wide. This by-election presented voters with an opportunity to bloody the Liberals' noses without actually electing an NDP government.
Its quite amusing how the BC Liberal spin is now to retroactively try to claim that Crusty was the underdog in this race. She is in the midst of what is supposed to her honeymoon enjoying what pases for "Christy-mania" and she is running in one of the richest most solidly rightwing seats in the whole province full of monster homes and filthy rich people - and she barely hangs on.
It's definitely not a good result for "Crusty" but I don't know if I'd call it "one of the most solidly rightwing seats" in BC. Campbell never really won it by much, it includes Kits and UBC etc.
No, it's definitely not a "solidly rightwing seat". It's got lots of Seawall Liberals, to be sure, but it's never been as safe for them as, say, Vancouver-Quilchena. Speaking of, it's no wonder that Clark was hoping that Hansen would quit and make way for her. I believe he was actually overseeing her campaign in the by-election - I imagine if she had actually lost we would have seen his head on a pike outside the legislature!
Clark is damn lucky that the BC Conservatives don't have their act together (at least not yet). If they had run a candidate who pulled in as little as five or six hundred votes, it would have sunk her.
Elections BC: 158/167 - Clark 6,765, Eby 6,241. She's had a steady 500-vote lead for the last half hour or so.
Let's keep in mind though that Vancouver-Point Grey and the whole federal riding of Vancouver-Quadra is the last teeny weeny enclave in all of BC where being a dyed in the wool federal Liberal (like Crusty is) would be a plus. The last people in Canada who will cling to the Ignatieff/Crusty brand of rightwing Liberalism are a few snooty professionals in place like Point Grey who have multiple six digit incomes. If Crusty can barely win there - what does that say for her appeal in the rest of the province. Note that the BC Conservatives had no candidate either - in the general election they will probably field a full slate.
Its quite amusing how the BC Liberal spin is now to retroactively try to claim that Crusty was the underdog in this race. She is in the midst of what is supposed to her honeymoon enjoying what pases for "Christy-mania" and she is running in one of the richest most solidly rightwing seats in the whole province full of monster homes and filthy rich people - and she barely hangs on.
It's definitely not a good result for "Crusty" but I don't know if I'd call it "one of the most solidly rightwing seats" in BC. Campbell never really won it by much, it includes Kits and UBC etc.
True, it's been somewhat close in the past. Worth noting is the collapse of the Green vote
"BC First" party (whatever that is)
Chris Delaney is with them now
Libs got 50.4% last time, 48.9% this time, not much of a drop in their vote, considering that the "BC First" party (whatever that is) got 2.5%.
The NDP vote went up 4.5% and the Green vote plummeted from 8.8% to 3.4%. Hopefully, this pattern of NDP up, Greens down and right-wing minor parties up will repeat in the general election.
Final Elections BC Results:
167/167 ballot boxes reporting
Clark 7,371 (48.92)
Eby 6,776 (44.97)
Raunet (Green) 511 (3.39)
Alie (BC First) 369 (2.45)
I keep reading comments like "full of monster homes and filthy rich people" and "snooty professionals in place like Point Grey who have multiple six digit incomes"
and I don't get it... I have lived in this area most of my life, the houses are only 900-1400 sq feet, virtually all of them divided into 2, 3 or 4 apartments
and many are rented by students. There are masses of apt buildings in the Kits area. I know there are more wealthy people past Alma towards UBC, but the
people living in the majority of this area, from 16th and Arbutus to the water, and west to Alma, are definitely low to middle income. In terms of numbers, there are
approx 40,000 people in this riding and approx 9000 of them are students. (I understand the by-election was timed to occur after approx. 8000 of the students are gone,
so I think the NPD did really well considering 1/4 of the voters were missing.) As for the rest of the people, down here in the MacDonald to Alma area, it is mainly retired people
and very young families. I just hate to see my neighbourhood characterized in this way.
BTW our local newspaper the Courier (published twice weekly and normally focussed on social issues with a
heavy emphasis on the Downtown eastside) ran four unbelievable biased and inflammatory articles about Eby today then made sure the whole area got the paper delivered
early. We were also subjected to a battery of last-minute flyers and postcards published by the Liberals denouncing Eby today. When I went to the polling station,
there was a lot of anger about the last-minute Liberal tactics and media harrassment. If people want to blame someone, they might well direct their efforts at the harrassment
we had to undergo here, not the people!
Liberals - the margin is big enough not to be very damaging. It looks a bit bad, but Clark can also say she didn't back away from a tough fight.
NDP - very good showing. Eby can now say he is strong contender, and has widespread support for his views.
Greens - a disaster. They are down to their very core, with a percent only slightly higher than in 1996.
In the big picture, between the NDP and Liberals, I say its inconclusive.
Vancouver-Point Grey largely overlaps with the federal riding of Vancouver-Quadra. I think looking at the federal results from last Monday in Vancouver-Quadra give us a good indication of what a huge hill the NDP would have had to climb to actually win in this riding.
The federal Liberals ran Joyce Murray a very rightwing ex-BC Liberal cabinet minister and Gord Campbell clone who had been his Environment Minister - during which time her nickname was "Minister AGAINST the Environment" . She got 42% of the vote
The federal Tories ran Deborah Meredith - a typical rightwing social conservative who hid from the media and the public and ran the usual Tory stealth campaign - she got 38%
The federal NDP ran a very progressive candidate Victor Elkins - he won 14% of the vote
Oh yeah and some doo-hickey running for the Greens got 5%.
This is clearly a very small "c" conservative riding. last week in the federal election EIGHTY PERCENT of the vote went to the two rightwing candidates whose parties are merged at the provincial level to be the Social Credit/Tory/Liberal/BC Liberal party.
The Liberal/Tory vote went from 80% to 49%, while the NDP vote went from 14% to 45%.
Is there a message here?
The Liberal/Tory vote went from 80% to 49%, while the NDP vote went from 14% to 45%.
It does overlap with part of Van Quadra...but it's the northern part of the riding which is more progressive.
I think comparing the result with the last provincial election makes more sense. The NDP went up by 5 points while the percentage of the vote received by the Greens was less than half.
Implying that the NDP just tripled their vote - ignoring the federal vs. provincial context as well as the fact that the boundaries are not the same - is quite the stretch.
ETA: None of this however changes the fact that Christy Clark's squeaker of a win does not bode well for her and the BC Liberals.
I realize that its not perfectly comparable - but the fact remains that Christy Clark is a dyed in the wool federal Liberal and her BC Liberal Party is a coalition of federal Liberals and federal Tories. One week ago those two parties won 80% of the vote in Vancouver Quadra - why was she so incapable of getting all the people who voted for her two coalition partners federally to vote for her provincially. Joyce Murray the federal Liberal MP who won is a former reactionary Gordon Campbell cabinet minister and a close ally of Crusty's - 100% of her 42% of the vote ought to have been available to Crusty - and the 38% of people who voted Tory federally should have voted en masse for Crusty as well since there was no Conservative candidate and she was the next best thing for them. What happened to the "Social Credit/BC Liberal/We are anything but NDP" coalition in this byelection?
Lib: 2011-48.9, 2009-50.4, 2005-45.6, 2001-56.1, 1996-48.9
NDP: 2011-45.0, 2009-40.3, 2005-37.7, 2001-18.6, 1996-42.8
Let's not forget that Crusty was chosen as BC Liberal leader for no other reason than that she was supposed to be VASTLY more popular than Gordon Campbell among chic upper middle class federal Liberal voting types in Vancouver. So much for that theory.
Approximately 15, 000 out of 42, 000 voted, just under 30% The Premier seems to have been elected by less than 15% of the eligible voters. So explain to me how the NDP won when they failed to get even 15% of the voters to come out and vote for them.
However this does show that boycotting voting will never apply pressure because Clark is loudly proclaiming the support of the people and the MSM will not point to the obvious fact her constituents don't give a damn. Voters can't be bothered to vote.
I dare say the NDP should take the low turn out as a very loud warning bell. The party better crack the code to engage with the 20 to 35 year olds who don't give a fuck about politics because that is where the votes are. As well if no party has anything that appeals to this large group then maybe it is time our MLA's and party policy wonks figured out what is missing.
The turnout in byelections is almost always abysmal...this is nothing new.
NDP actual votes in Van P-G
1996 11, 074
2001 4,441 low point
2005 10, 428
2009 9, 232
2011 7, 371
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver-Point_Grey
I sincerely hope that the NDP jubilation is momentary and that someone will look at how they lost this by-election. Sure they got a bigger slice of pie in this by-election but the size of the slice was smaller than in any election since the 2001 meltdown.
I expect the Liberals to call a snap election for August when people are the least interested and it will have the minimum days for the election period. They will promote their phoney baloney electronic town halls as direct democracy and gamble on a low voter turnout. Given that Jack used it during the fedral campaign it will be hard to argue it is inherently undemocratic. The Conservatives won without local candidates debating and I am sure the BC Liberals are about to do the same thing.
The NDP better figure out a better response than railing about it. They better work on GOTV as a primary objective.
Maybe it is time for the BC Fed to really push a non-partisan GOTV campaign aimed at young people. From now to the next election lets have third party groups bombarding our youth with reasons to vote without telling them who to vote for.
I'm not sure why you're prattling on about the raw count in a byelection and comparing it to general elections. The turnout in byelections is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS a fraction of what it is in a general election. In this case the whole byelection campaign was literally one week long since no one paid any attention or lifted a finger until after the votes were counted in the federal election. Then Crusty emptied the entire BC treasury trying to buy the byelection with tax payers money. The conventional wisdom was that she would win this race in a landslifde becaiuse she's "young" and "hip" and photogenic" etc...the NDP was going to declare it a triumph if they could keep her margin down to 2,000 votes. She won by 500 votes in the end - despite all the vast advantages she had at her disposal.I have a hunch she and her party will be so freaked out that BC will end up not having a provincial election until May of 2013 - as scheduled.
These results show if the federal Liberals cease to exist or merge with the NDP, there is more potential in Quadra than one would think.
sorry Stockholm
Rah Rah NDP Rah Rah NDP
NDP can do no wrong Rah Rah NDP
Is that better?
Is that kind of talk allowed on here without being PRATTLE.
If Christy Clark had not assumed that winning Point Grey was going to be a piece of cake - she would never have run there in the first place. It was supposed to be landslide cake walk for her - and it wasn't. That's the way i see it.
These results show if the federal Liberals cease to exist or merge with the NDP, there is more potential in Quadra than one would think.
Here's the other part of Quadra
A colour-coded map of V-PG from the 2005 election, which provides a good overview of the riding. West of Alma is the more wealthier Lib parts and east of Alma is the more densely populated Kitsilano with its large base of renters and urban progressives.
Federally, the Libs take all of the Kitsilano polls, which are mostly NDP provincially.
[img]http://bc2009.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/vancouver-pointgrey-quilche...
The turnout in byelections is almost always abysmal...this is nothing new.
Many students could have gone home after finishing their year. A higher turnout in a general election in the fall may benefit the NDP.
Northern Shoveller, please reread the thread as it is quite obvious from your comments that you did not read that this by-election was scheduled for when the UBC students had finished the semester. Nor did you include the Premier's buying of votes into your calculations, not all candidates can buy votes with tax payer's money.
Nor did you account for the nasty partisanship of the Van media for Christy Clark that came out, on election day.
Considering all those things, and that it is a by-election Eby did extremely well. I would bet come general election, if not held in July or the first part of August, Eby could beat Christy.
Wonder why none is mentioning just how anti-democratic and skewed for the BC Liberals this by-election was.
The turnout in byelections is almost always abysmal...this is nothing new.
Yes - - unless there is a tide of opinion wanting to turf a government. The bad turnout suggests otherwise, unfortunately.
even when there is a tide of opinion wanting to turf a government - turn out in byelections is still invariably way down from a general election since people know that they cannot "turf" the government in a byelection.
Northern Shoveller, please reread the thread
Remind I will politely ask you. Do not mini lecture me. Don't you have friends and family for that?
I'll remind you of my comment above. By the way aren't you the person who said she would never support the NDP after they dumped Carole for being a woman.
[quote=northern Shoveler]
sorry Stockholm
Rah Rah NDP Rah Rah NDP
NDP can do no wrong Rah Rah NDP
Is that better?
Is that kind of talk allowed on here without being PRATTLE.
9/quote]
Ok, so I have 2 questions regarding the validity of this whole thing.
1) How did 33 ballot boxes magically appear 1.5 hours after the polls closed? All day long elections bc and the media had 134 polls, at 9:30pm the number changed to 167 and Clark took the lead all the way to win by 450 or so.
2) How come this was timed to happen shortly after most of UBC closed for the summer and 60% of the student voters were no longer in the riding? I would imagine there may have been a different result if the normally non-coservative student vote was still there and turned out.
Regarding #1 - Perhaps Canadians need to look more carefully at electoral fraud and not treat it as something that happens "somewhere else".
Ok, so I have 2 questions regarding the validity of this whole thing.
1) How did 33 ballot boxes magically appear 1.5 hours after the polls closed? All day long elections bc and the media had 134 polls, at 9:30pm the number changed to 167 and Clark took the lead all the way to win by 450 or so.
Advance polls?
It was pointed out in one of the earlier posts that in a number of the polling stations there were more than one ballot box - each box is counted separately - I have had this happen at polls I have workerd in the past where it might start to get busy and the DRO will opened up another line to speed things up.
