Author: Stephen Samuel (samuel@bcgreen.com)
Curator: Stephen Samuel (samuel@bcgreen.com)
Written: June, 1995 Last Updated: Sun Jun 16, 1996
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A probable candidate for the `best kept news secret' may be the Green party of BC, this last election. Despite being denied a place in the leader's debate, treated as almost non-existent by the Sun and Province, and even having their TV add censored by BCTV, the Green party managed to achieve some reasonable results...
Province wide, the Green party received about 5 times as many votes as the Social Credit party did. Few, if any Socreds beat a green party in any given riding. The top five Green party candidates received more votes than the Socreds did province wide. Probably, the real reason why the Socred's leader withdrew bare days before the election is that he would have had to bear the humiliation of being beaten by his Green Party opponent.
In the City of Vancouver, the Green Party not only beat the Socreds by a large margin, but it also outpolled Reform by a slim margin -- even though both of those parties were allowed onto the Leaders' debate and treated as `serious' by the Sun and Province.
Stephen Samuel 876-0426(msg) 279-5422 ext 331 (work )
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 20:42:09 -0700 From: Julian West <julian@math.uvic.ca>
Final count: Greens surge to 1.99%, beat Reform in Vancouver, Victoria
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54,060 votes appeared between preliminary and final counts. Most of these fall under sections 98,99,100,101,104,106. Additionally votes are added and subtracted as miscounts are corrected, especially if a recount is requested. Greens obtained 1634 new votes, or about 3.02 percent (!!). This raises us from 1.95 percent at preliminary count to 1.99 percent at final count. (We are 143 votes shy of an even 2 percent, so call it "morally 2"). The actual numbers are 31501 votes out of 1,582,170.
I don't know why we did so much better in these special polls than among the population as a whole, but I have a preliminary guess. In my own riding, Cowichan-Ladysmith, the largest number of special-section votes was section 99, and I did very well here -- 6.63 percent (13/196). This is the section for voters who voted in the correct district but the wrong poll. I speculate that this might include a large number of people who don't have cars, who live in rural areas, or perhaps who are young people who have moved to live with a different nearby relative.
Can anyone confirm whether their own increase was accounted for by section 99? (Check with your District Electoral Officer.)
Other final-count tidbits:
* The margin of victory for the Liberal in Okanagan-Boundary was reduced from 108 to 33. This strongly increases the chance of a judicial recount, especially as (1) the government can use every seat they can get and (2) the defeated incumbent was a cabinet minister.
It would be interesting to see whether a judicial recount increases the number of Green votes in a riding where we did not have scrutineers...
* For the first time in our history, we had candidates who received over 1000 votes. Andy Shadrack's total was raised from 2151 (10.95%) to 2282 (11.16%). Meaghan Cursons goes from 1202 (4.13%) to 1296 (4.19%). And joining the elite group is Stephen Demeulenaere (Victoria- Beacon Hill) whose total increased from 956 (4.34%) to 1008 (4.43%). Congratulations to Stephen!
* The final-count effect was more pronounced in the city of Vancouver than in the province as a whole. While province-wide 3.2% of votes were cast in special-section polls, in Vancouver 4.5% were. Furthermore, we actually got 3.6% in those polls (as opposed to 3% in the province as a whole).
* Whereas we had been 95 votes behind Reform in the city of Vancouver, we are now 23 votes ahead. The final figures for Vancouver are Green 5007 (2.45%), Reform 4984 (2.44%). (Reform only got 2.3% in special- sections in Vancouver.) Because of some miscounts, Reform lost votes in Victoria Beacon-Hill and we also beat them in Victoria (i.e. the 3 ridings) on final count: Green 2364 (3.33%), Reform 2308 (3.23%).
* If the NDP had been able to pick up all the Green votes, they would have won 3 ridings which they actually lost: Kamloops-North Thompson, Peace River South, and Okanagan Boundary. The 4 most marginal Liberal seats would have been Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain (27), Parksville- Qualicum (61), Oak Bay-Gordon Head (74), Prince George-Omineca (99). Thus we "cost" the NDP 3 ridings, and are within 100 votes of being able to take credit for 4 more. This is a significant fraction of the widely-reported 17 seats which Reform "cost" the Liberals.
Complete Green results follow (* indicates preliminary)
( Click here to skip the dry stats.)
Riding . . total . . GP . . . GP %
. . . . . . . votes . votes . . votes
NEL . 20442 . 2282 . 11.16%
VTB . 22778 . 1008 . 4.43%
VMP . 17416 . 759 . 4.36%
COM . 30939 . 1296 . 4.19%
VTH . 21728 . 790 . 3.64%
SAN . 28113 . 898 . 3.19%
VLM . 23954 . 714 . 2.98%
VQU . 22583 . 627 . 2.78%
MJF . 21973 . 601 . 2.74%
VHA . 18318 . 486 . 2.65%
VPG . 25861 . 683 . 2.64%
VBU . 21420 . 563 . 2.63%
CWL . 24570 . 645 . 2.63%
NOI . 18308 . 479 . 2.62%
NVS . 25139 . 645 . 2.57%
ROS . 17018 . 434 . 2.55%
WVG . 21562 . 532 . 2.47%
KNT . 16837 . 401 . 2.38%
POW . 22084 . 518 . 2.35%
KOO . 16581 . 363 . 2.19%
NEW . 22313 . 488 . 2.19%
SWR . 31081 . 677 . 2.18%
OBG . 26487 . 566 . 2.14%
PGM . 11588 . 247 . 2.13%
NAN . 22996 . 486 . 2.11%
NVL . 20112 . 417 . 2.07%
NOC . 11259 . 232 . 2.06%
BUN . 19631 . 395 . 2.01%
BUW . 23061 . 458 . 1.99%
WVC . 23391 . 461 . 1.97%
OKB . 18279 . 356 . 1.95%
PMB . 22964 . 441 . 1.92%
OKP . 24750 . 464 . 1.87%
VKE . 18716 . 349 . 1.86%
FLA . 25383 . 472 . 1.86%
VLA . 18337 . 337 . 1.84%
COL . 14733 . 270 . 1.83%
BUE . 21341 . 387 . 1.81%
MSS . 18642 . 324 . 1.74%
CBS . 15373 . 267 . 1.74%
DLN . 20449 . 347 . 1.70%
MPR . 28099 . 464 . 1.65%
SYW . 14752 . 243 . 1.65%
ESQ . 23232 . 376 . 1.62%
SKE . 13269 . 205 . 1.54%
OKW . 33857 . 519 . 1.53%
DLS . 22822 . 333 . 1.46%
OKE . 24453 . 347 . 1.42%
PGO . 14950 . 209 . 1.40%
VKI . 18978 . 264 . 1.39%
SAS . 24708 . 343 . 1.39%
ALB . 14223 . 195 . 1.37%
OKV . 25029 . 334 . 1.33%
LAN . 19901 . 262 . 1.32%
RIC . 17876 . 235 . 1.31%
POR . 31844 . 417 . 1.31%
PAR . 32672 . 422 . 1.29%
RIE . 18353 . 235 . 1.28%
ABB . 21889 . 274 . 1.25%
CBN . 13539 . 168 . 1.24%
SYC . 29616 . 366 . 1.24%
SYN . 28198 . 340 . 1.21%
PCS . 12233 . 145 . 1.19%
VFV . 19085 . 225 . 1.18%
PGN . 14749 . 173 . 1.17%
BVS . 12908 . 151 . 1.17%
SYG . 20512 . 228 . 1.11%
RIS . 17022 . 188 . 1.10%
MSI . 21457 . 216 . 1.01%
SHU . 24879 . 237 . 0.95%
CWK . 24467 . 232 . 0.95%
PCN . 10945 . 0 . 0.00%
KAM . 22878 . 0 . 0.00%
COQ . 23551 . 0 . 0.00%
YAL . 17241 . 0 . 0.00%
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 23:06:58 -0700 From: Julian West <julian@math.uvic.ca>
party votes vote % seats base rem total Liberal 661670 41.91% 31.4346 31 1 32 NDP 624243 39.54% 29.6565 29 1 30 Reform 146644 9.29% 6.9668 6 1 7 PDA 90778 5.75% 4.3127 4 0 4 Green 31501 2.00% 1.4965 1 1 2 SC 6272 0.40% 0.2980 FCP 4150 0.26% 0.1972 NLP 2919 0.18% 0.1387 Libertarian 2041 0.13% 0.0970 BCC 1002 0.06% 0.0476 WCC 374 0.02% 0.0178 CCF 291 0.02% 0.0138 Communist 218 0.01% 0.0104 no-affiliation 6581 0.42% 0.3126 independent 3486 0.22% 0.1656 1578684 100.00% 75.0000 71 4 75
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 23:21:45 -0700 From: Julian West <julian@math.uvic.ca>
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