Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Pat Barclay on April 27, 2011 at 12:49am

Oraclepoll Research is the company which produced the fudged "document" you refer to. To follow your reasoning, this does not exactly give one confidence in today's poll.

Permalink Reply by Geoffrey on April 27, 2011 at 1:53am

One of the problems was that greenpartystrategies never made the original poll results available to the public. Their analysis didn't make a lot of sense to me either.

in 2008 Oracle Poll had Elizabeth May at 29% in Central Nova, where she wound up getting 32%, so they weren't that far off then. I thought they did some polling during the London North Centre by-election as well, but not certain about that.

Permalink Reply by Pat Barclay on April 27, 2011 at 12:02pm

I've got the original results someplace.  Will see if I can find them, though as they got the S-GI demographics wrong when they sampled, only  two Q&As were corrected and the rest left as is.

Permalink Reply by Steve Abbott on April 27, 2011 at 3:55am

Pat, you do notice that, as I pointed out, the fudged document does not make clear which poll it is "correcting"?  Abuse of any statistical document can be achieved by a variety of means, and I suppose one might or might not hold the original authors responsible to see that they are not abused.  The reason I specified the names of the firms that implemented the different polls, was to make clear that competing firms have basically agreed on their results.  If you wish to look up the Nanos poll of November '09, you would find that, while the three polls we've mentioned here agree only in general terms, they present a progression from Cons leading Greens by 10 points in November 09, to leading greens by 2 points in August '10, to trailing Greens today.  The other two parties were trailing all the way.

You do need to ask yourself, whether three polls in general agreement, plus one more that was in agreement, but was rejected and hidden by the agency that had commissioned it, doesn't offer a fairly consistent trend.

We all do the best we can with the information available to us.  If this is not sufficient, I suppose we could watch and wait as the results come in on May 2.  Then we will surely know what we should have done.  It will be a little late for my taste though.

Best regards.

 

Permalink Reply by Nathan Grills on March 19, 2011 at 8:18pm

While being a local would likely be of benefit to Heatherington, being the leader of a political party would be of benefit for May. Because of her advantage in the polls I believe that in this riding she is still the candidate with the best chance of unseating Lunn. Also, it will be a lot easier for people working on the Catch 22 Campaign in other constituencies to convince supporters of the Green Party to vote Liberal/NDP/Bloc if Greens knew that there is also a campaign going on in support of their leader, and even if May does not win this riding supporting her could benefit Liberals/NDP/Bloc candidates in other ridings, and thus benefit the country. It is also of note that the in the 2008 election, the NDP canidate had withdrawn from the race, and that could have benefited the Liberal candidate. Furthermore, the Liberal canidate in the last election was Briony Penn, and the votes that were cast for "Penn" instead of for the "Liberal Party" will be up in the air. That being said, this riding is being watched and there will likely be more polls conducted in the near future, which may contradict the early poll that Me and Bob are going off of. I think that if this is the case, we should be quick to reconsider.

Permalink Reply by Wendy Perry on March 19, 2011 at 8:53pm

Yes I remember the last election when the N.D.P. candidate dropped out, a demon dial call went out saying to vote for the N.D.P. Many did,it is rumored that the Cons did it, would not surprise me many dirty tricks went on! I think keeping our eye on things,and throw our support behind whoever can beat a Con!  Troy Desouza who is running in Esquimalt Juan de Fuca is one of the 67 Cons on the list in the In and Out Scandal.I wish more people knew that,I dont know how he can even run! Today there was a cross Canada rally for democracy.Victoria's was at Mile 0. We had about 25 people show up with signs! We stood along the road and chanted and waved at the cars.Lots of thumbs up"s and honks for Dumping Harper! We plan to stay in touch thru the facebook page {Rally for Democracy in Canada} Victoria Rally } and make it a regular thing! Would be great if you could join in too! Give Steve the Heave eh!

Permalink Reply by Nathan Grills on March 19, 2011 at 9:00pm

Awesome! That is exciting! I am shocked by how many Canadians seem unfazed by the Conservatives dishonesty and disrespect for Canadian democracy. I am disappointing that the opposition parties seem unwilling to work together in order to topple Harper. Hopefully we will see change in the next election, and maybe Canadians will be more willing to consider a coalition straight out of an election? The Rally for Democracy in Canada sounds like it was a great idea!

Permalink Reply by Wendy Perry on March 19, 2011 at 9:17pm

Yes, it was lots of fun, you can check out the site, also blogger,{ woman at mile 0} on Liblogs took pictures and video of the rally so you can see pictures there when she puts them up.I am shocked too, but am hopeful the partys will go with the contemp of parliment and go with an election on ethics or lack of instead of what Harper wants, the economy.Lots of people from all different partys came out today,all said the same thing we have to work together to get rid of Harper! I brought signs from the Prorougation rally, one said Get Back To Work Gary Lunn! We had fun with that, Gary Lunn comes up short! Ha, Ha!

Permalink Reply by ernie yacub on April 25, 2011 at 10:41pm

how about joining with the mayday walk from saanich to the legislature http://salmonaresacred.org/blog/mayday

with overnight vigil and then vote together - i'm in vi north, we have our own fish to fry up here so i won't be there with you, will definitely fly the salmon flag.

Permalink Reply by ndplifer on March 29, 2011 at 12:33pm

Elizabeth May's biggest challenge is Gary Lunn's entrenched support in Saanichton and Sidney where she needs to focus. Seniors will respond to her campaign for bringing civility to the House of Commons and while her outsider status may be her achilles heel, word on the ground is that her experience and status as party leader will compensate. Lib and NDP candidates are credible but inexperienced and Elizabeth has already made first person contact with more voters in 18 months than Lunn has in 14 years.

Harper is very worried and he should be, this riding's vote will be person not party. After a lifetime of voting NDP based on policy, I will be voting for Elizabeth May -other NDP voters will be doing the same under cover. Watch for dirty tricks here, where CON bully tactics will play right into her hands. Btw, to assuage my socialist guilt, I examined Green Party policy and the NDP-generated rumours of libertarian tendencies are not to found anywhere.

Permalink Reply by Wendy Perry on March 29, 2011 at 1:02pm

The Liberals came close last time, they have a great candidate ,  climate scientist Renee Heatherington,who is from the riding,is popular and knows the local issues.Sigh, vote split again is good for Lunn.

Permalink Reply by Bill Davidson on April 27, 2011 at 12:26pm

It's too bad that good candidates must go after the same turf because of an antiquated electoral system, just as site like this one exist because of it. Sighing about vote-splitting seems reasonable. It is a drag, isn't it. I liked that you did not accuse. Accusing one or another party of vote-splitting is to deny the principles of our parliamentary democracy. What is needed is electoral reform to some form of proportional representation. There are several ways to do this.

I have been waiting for Jack Layton to bring out this discussion and have been disappointed. The Liberals seem only to have nightmares about it. Elizabeth and the Green Party is not afraid to mention it and to champion it clearly. Without proportional representation, accusations and/or sighs regarding vote-splitting are expressions of frustration. I want my new MP, whoever that may be, to work toward P.R.. Period. 

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