Election thoughts

I have a monster post planned, basically a day in the life of a poll. It's dull, but I took so many notes I have to do something with them. I analogue-blogged yesterday (note to self: get BlackBerry), and I'll have to go through my notes to find the interesting bits.

But for now, a few simple thoughts about the results from yesterday's big win.

1) Peter Ladner had his ass handed to him, and I mean this in the least partisan way possible.* 48,794 votes. Suzanne Anton got more votes (52,941) than he did. Geoff Meggs, who received the fewest votes of any successful Vision candidate (49,538), got more votes. Ladner would have barely squeaked onto Council with those numbers. Edit: I just checked, and Anton beat Ladner in the 2005 council race as well. Future mayoral candidate?

2) It looks like a fairly clean geographic split (for the mayoral race, anyway; see the Gazeteer for his opinion on density), but I think we'll have to hold off until someone does a full numbers analysis. My sense is that those big red NPA blocks in the southwest aren't that red. For example, in poll 104 (solid NPA territory near UBC south of 16th), Gregor got 395 votes to Peter's 885. Contrast that to poll 40 (Commercial to Clark, 1st to 8th), where Gregor got 674 to Peter's 107.

3) Is anyone else excited about the tie in the mayoral vote in poll 88 (each got 464 votes)? Has that happened before? Edit: In 2002, 88a (now part of 104 in the SW) was a tie.

4) Voter turn-out was low, but not disastrously so. The city's website has it at 30.79%, down from 32.45% in 2005. What will make for interesting reading is where the turn-out was low (and trying to guess how that affected the election). A quick glance shows the highest turn-out (39.1%) in the heart of NPA-land, poll 129: Blanca to Discovery, 8th to 16th. Poll 9 (downtown: Broughton to Bute, Haro NE to the water) had the lowest turn-out (13.6%), one of two downtown polls with less than 15%. Absentee condo owners, anyone?

Thanks for reading, everyone.


* I was hoping to keep this blog relatively non-partisan (tm), but last night and the events leading up to the victory were just too much. I've worked and volunteered for the Vision/Gregor team, and I've enjoyed it all. Great people to work for/with. I volunteered all day yesterday (nothing like a 12-hour volunteer shift), and really felt like a part of the victory was mine. So, apologies to those that might be reading this thinking I'm a party hack. I'll try (when I can) to keep my personal feelings on the side.