|
Edited on Wed Oct-15-08 07:17 AM by Bragi
To measure the effectiveness of this strategic voting campaign, the Citizen calculated the concentration of the non-Conservative vote. If voters are split in a riding, the NDP, Liberals, Bloc and Green will share smaller chunks of votes not cast for Tories. But if the "ABC" vote is concentrated behind a single candidate, he or she would stand a better chance of winning.
In 2006, these candidates averaged 61 per cent of the non-Tory votes cast in their ridings. But that figure dropped to 58 per cent last night, suggesting voters never got behind the idea of pooling their votes strategically. Rather than stick to together, anti-Conservative voters scattered.
Even in ridings expected to be close, voters showed little signs of gathering behind one candidate.
In the last election, there were 48 ridings where the margin of victory was less than five per cent of valid votes. Environmental groups targeted these key ridings as ripe for strategic voting. In those ridings in 2006, the concentration of non-Tory votes ran at 57 per cent. Last night, that number fell to 56 per cent.
The result: the Tories were on course to pick up 27 of these seats, better than the 16 of the closely-contested ridings they won last time. The Liberals had won 23 of these seats last time, but staggered away with only 10.http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=832e5b09-2500-4976-8732-698310091024
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
