Poll by Poll analysis

Poll by poll analysis of the Ottawa West-Nepean Riding.

OttawaWestNepean-pollbypoll_bureauparbureau35066.xls

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Larry Rochette on April 1, 2011 at 12:54pm

John this is great to have this. I suppose now we need a plan of attack on how we can target our resources and volunteers for maximum impact. One thing that really stands out is the low turnout rate in every poll.

Permalink Reply by David Balson on April 1, 2011 at 2:22pm

This is excellent!

I too think that the key criteria in the analysis for focusing attention is low turnout, but even more given that we have limited human resources, focusing attention on geographic areas where there was low turnout in multiple contiguous polling areas. We had discussed targeting polls where the vote was close during our meeting last week; is this an important criteria or is it better to aim for increasing the total number of votes period for the endorsed candidate?

A technical question - I seem to be able to read postings on this forum without providing my password but only able to post by giving my password. Shouldn't the riding forum but completely password protected? Or, is it felt that transparency with our tactics is a positive?

Cheers David

Permalink Reply by Francis Fuller on April 3, 2011 at 11:22pm

David

I count 35 poll locations in which the poll had both low turnout and Baird was the winner. It would seem reasonable to target these but I do not know how to identify the geographic boundaries of the polls.

My hunch is that a lot of people were disillusioned and stayed home and most of those votes would have been for other than Baird.

Permalink Reply by John Elliott on April 4, 2011 at 12:47am

If you click on the photo at the bottom of the page here http://catch22campaign.ca/notes/Ottawa_West%E2%80%94Nepean

you will see a map with all of the riding numbers..

Permalink Reply by Lanny Ferreira on April 4, 2011 at 9:57am

Hi Francis,

I don't live in the riding, but I'm totally on board with your idea. I think targeted leaflet drops in key polls would be the most effective method of informing voters. There's a reason candidates do leaflets. They work!

Punditsguide.ca has a neat mapping feature that lays out exactly where the boundary lines are:

http://www.punditsguide.ca/riding/?riding=1119&pane=3 (scroll to the bottom)

The only slight difference I would have with your approach would be to focus on polls where the NDP and Greens did well, and try to flip them. I think that's where we'll find more success.

I think there's something to be said about low turnout polls as well though. Perhaps if we could identify polls that saw a drop in turnout from 2006 to 2008, we could identify polls that were hit by the "Dion effect".

Permalink Reply by Francis Fuller on April 4, 2011 at 3:55pm

Lanny:

I am outside the riding as well but work within it and traverse it more or less daily.

I have a spreadsheet for 2008 polling data which omits the Green votes for some reason. I am going through the Google Earth map, pulling up poll by poll information and then adding it into the spreadsheet.

In approx 25% of the polls the vote went to Baird due to splits on the left between Lib, NDP, and Green. I have not completed my review but these appear to be relatively high turnout ridings (57% to 75%).

My basic premise remains: Providing actual polling data information to resident of poll precincts will enable them to act in their own self interest to vote strategically to defeat Baird.

According to Elections Canada it appears any spending I do on behalf of Catch-22 constitutes a reportable expense. Catch-22 appears very de-centralized and I am not sure who I should contact to get clearance on using Catch-22 name and URL on a leaflet.

Cheers!

Permalink Reply by John Elliott on April 4, 2011 at 4:54pm

The spreadsheet at the top of this post, OttawaWestNepean-pollbypoll_bureauparbureau35066.xls has all of the data. The Greens were omitted as the number of votes were insignificant.

If you want the raw data you can get it here: http://www.elections.ca/scripts/resval/ovr_40ge.asp?prov=&lang=e which will save you a lot of cutting and pasting.

Permalink Reply by John Elliott on April 4, 2011 at 5:15pm

If you really want to know the gren votes, just add another column to the spreadsheet above and subtract the total of the CONS, LIBS and NDP from the total votes cast.

Permalink Reply by Francis Fuller on April 4, 2011 at 10:12pm

The raw data here: http://www.elections.ca/scripts/resval/ovr_40ge.asp?prov=&lang=e

Is great. Easy to download and pull into OpenOffice or Excel of Google Docs.

Permalink Reply by Francis Fuller on April 4, 2011 at 6:07pm

Thanks John

I sent a query to Tracy Morey. Can you view that on her page?

I am trying to determine how to create a landing page on Catch-22 so that persons getting a printed flyer can enter that URL and arrive here at a page with a list of polling stations and additional URLS so they can click and view the vote split in their own polling district.

I posted a sample of the google map presentation idea elsewhere on Catch-22. Trying now to confirm the entire process, make sure it works as intended and then create sample flyer for distribution and approval / sign off.

Permalink Reply by John Elliott on April 4, 2011 at 6:55pm

Francis,

The underlying CMS appears to be ning. http://www.ning.com/.

It looks like you could do a blog post which would be accessed with a URL like:

http://catch22campaign.ca/profiles/blogs/"NAME-of-BLOG-POST".

something like this:

http://catch22campaign.ca/profiles/blogs/stephen-harpers-war-against

Someone may be able to offer a simpler approach but as I am not an admin this is how I would work around the issue.

jre

Permalink Reply by Catch 22 on April 4, 2011 at 6:03pm

You're right Francis. All expenses have to be pre-approved. They can be routed through the Ottawa group co-ordinator(s) preferably. We're just wrapping up the literature and will have a process in place to expedite approvals for printing.

Gary Shaul