If you’re an eligible Aboriginal elector who does not subscribe to the notion that participation in Canadian elections is inappropriate, be it as a candidate or as a voter, you may be curious to know whether your vote could prove decisive in your local race.

Certain ridings (officially known as federal electoral districts) have now reached a critical mass of Aboriginal people of voting age, prompting some to crunch the numbers so as to highlight the theoretical possibility of those voters effectively ‘swinging’ the riding, that is, delivering the margin of victory for any candidate who caters to their concerns. This is an unusual position for Aboriginal people to be in: so much so, it may partly explain why they don’t seem to ever vote as a bloc. As far as I can recollect, no-one’s specifically researched into that.

But it’s hardly a unique thought: in fact, it is now almost routine for wonks like me to undertake the exercise of calculating where a hypothetically cohesive Aboriginal vote — call it the brown bloc — could be what tips one party to victory or not.

Indeed, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo recently suggested there are some 60 ridings where Aboriginal votes could, unified behind a candidate, help push that person to victory. Here, I only wish to present twelve, or 12 at a time, anyway.

Why only a dozen ridings, you ask? Well, I am a single-digit typist, for one thing. But in fact, I only need 12 examples to make my point: that, in a divided House like these past few Parliaments, Aboriginal people currently possess on paper the electoral numbers needed to make or break the majority government aspirations of the Conservative Party, the only party in a position (as of the drop of the writ) to do so. That’s because, as noted by the Toronto Star, the Tories are exactly 12 seats shy of forming such a majority in the 308-seat House.

Drawing on data gratefully gleaned from the Chiefs of Ontario (COO) and Pundits’ Guide, I have put together a series of tables, each featuring 12 ridings, sorted in three different ways:

* Table 1: By rank of Aboriginal people as a proportion of all the people in a riding

* Table 2: By rank of Aboriginal people as a percentage of the electorate only, i.e., those of eligible voting age

* Table 3: By rank of Aboriginal electorate vs. 2008 margin of victory

Each table ranks the (latent) potency of the Aboriginal vote in different ways in different ridings (with a certain amount of overlap), and not all ridings see the Aboriginal proportion of the population or electorate exceed the margin of victory as determined in the 2008 election. That said, for many of these ridings, Aboriginal voters are not only in a great position to rock or block a Harper majority, they may arguably be able to do so in a way that could promote a pro-Aboriginal agenda — or at least in a way that serves to halt one that is decidedly anti-Aboriginal. Which party deserves to be slotted where is, well, up to you.

To view these tables and read the rest of this post visit mediaINDIGENA.