Saturday, January 21

Electoral calculus

The latest electoral predictions: Seats (% of national vote)
Liberals: 94 (28.2%)
Conservatives: 128 (37.4%)
New Democrats: 28 (17.8%)
Greens: 0 (4.4%)
Bloc Quebecois: 57 (11.2%)
Other: 1 (1%)

Total: 308 (100%)
If % of votes directly equalled seats, the predicted results would be:
Liberals: 87
Conservatives: 115
New Democrats: 55
Greens: 14
Bloc Quebecois: 34
Other: 3

Total: 308
To me, the most interesting thing about this is how, while the two major parties would be relatively unaffected by a switch to proportional representation (PR), it would really hurt the Bloc (who must benefit from the first past the post system) and really help the Greens and New Democrats. All the more reason to support PR, in my opinion.

Source of predicted figures: democraticSPACE.com

Posted by Milan at 7:15 PM  

7 Comments

  1. B posted at 7:32 PM, January 21, 2006  
    Actually, the change from PR would probably be rather bigger than this.

    People who will never vote Green because they know it's hopeless (like me) would be far less likely to resort to voting for the Liberals under a PR or partial PR system. The big parties would suffer an even worse loss than this calculus implies, therefore.

    Not a lot of incentive for them to make the change, is there?
  2. Milan posted at 7:39 PM, January 21, 2006  
    Excellent points. I suppose it really would change the reasoning of voters if the electoral system was modified.

    A decision based on: "Here's the party I like best, I will vote for them" seems far preferable to one that has to take into account the oddities of first past the post.
  3. Anonymous posted at 8:27 PM, January 21, 2006  
    Also, look at how much more powerful a force the Bloc is in federal politics than the NDP, even though they have a smaller share of the popular vote.
  4. Anonymous posted at 9:13 PM, January 21, 2006  
    very scary:
    www.harperstiestousa.org

    very funny:
    http://arkady.indymedia.org/media/video/StandUpnSING-lo.mov
  5. Milan posted at 2:05 AM, January 22, 2006  
    That video is neither funny, clever, convincing, or politically astute. I'd advise people not to waste their time with it.
  6. Milan posted at 8:29 PM, January 22, 2006  
    There are more electorally related posts on the blog:

    Canadians go to the polls on Monday

    On the state of Canada's armed forces (Jan 17)

    On the possibility of a Harper government (Jan 15)

    Casting my absentee ballot (Jan 9)
  7. Milan posted at 5:31 PM, January 23, 2006  
    Election day (Jan 23)

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