Everything you could possibly want to know about the pair voting process, the current stats on voters and what you can do to make a difference (in addition to pair voting) is here.
With just under a week left in pair vote registration, the NDP and Greens are in a tight race for the most voters in swing ridings. Winner gets to go first in the pair voting matching process (read how the process works).
In terms of total number of registered voters, the NDP are also slightly ahead of the Greens:
Ottawa South is the top ranked NDP riding while Vancouver Centre and Central Nova are tied for top spot for the Greens.
Conservative party supporters and political pundits, decide what ridings the Conservative party has the best chance of winning. Refer to this list of 68 ridings with the closest contests.
Just a reminder that the pair vote process will use the riding rankings here to allocate seats, so be careful what you wish for.
Deadline to vote: Friday, October 3
Add information about potential ridings in the comments below, to help people vote.
Vote and /or add a new riding (This requires an account at Squidoo, just register and continue, sorry for that but I’m just one guy trying to use whatever free and simple tools I can find to make this process work!)
You can also embed this list in your own site and have people vote there.
Are you a neglected and abused citizen who yearns to be represented in Parliament, only to be turned away because your vote elects no one?
OrphanVoter.ca is a campaign launched by Fair Vote Canada to reach out to these neglected voters. This is a fun and informative site that has all kinds of stats on how many people elected no one last time around, nationally, provincially and in each riding. They also have a contest this election for people to guess how many votes won’t count, both nationally and in each province.
More from Orphan Voter Facebook group:
The throngs of orphans include Liberals in the West, Conservatives in urban centres, and New Democrats and Greens everywhere. In fact, the MAJORITY of Canadians who cast ballots in federal elections usually elect no one. Last election, most Canadians casting ballots – 7,584,409 in fact – were abandoned by our political system.
Why are so many voters deserted & ignored by our uncaring electoral system? Most of us live in ridings where the winner is a foregone conclusion, and it’s only in a few dozen “swing” ridings where the election will be decided and which get most of the attention. Moreover, in each riding only the voters supporting the most popular party can elect an MP: the other voters send no one to Ottawa. And because politicians can win seats even when the majority vote against them, the overall election results are skewed. In fact a party often wins a majority of seats
without even winning a majority of votes.Join other orphan voters across the country to demand a fairer system from our politicians. After all, there’s more of us than there is of them.
Bloc party supporters and political pundits, decide what ridings the Bloc party has the best chance of winning. Refer to this list of 68 ridings with the closest contests.
Just a reminder that the pair vote process will use the riding rankings here to allocate seats, so be careful what you wish for.
Deadline to vote: Friday, October 3
Add information about potential ridings in the comments below, to help people vote.
Vote and /or add a new riding (This requires an account at Squidoo, just register and continue, sorry for that but I’m just one guy trying to use whatever free and simple tools I can find to make this process work!)
You can also embed this list in your own site and have people vote there.
Liberal party supporters and political pundits, decide what ridings the Liberal party has the best chance of winning. I plan to add to this list soon, but figured I’d get it up sooner than later so people could start adding and voting for their picks. Refer to this list of 68 ridings with the closest contests.
Just a reminder that the pair vote process will use the riding rankings here to allocate seats, so be careful what you wish for.
Deadline to vote: Friday, October 3
Add information about potential ridings in the comments below, to help people vote.
Vote and /or add a new riding (This requires an account at Squidoo, just register and continue, sorry for that but I’m just one guy trying to use whatever free and simple tools I can find to make this process work!)
You can also embed this list in your own site and have people vote there.
Holy cow. In Elizabeth May’s words:
“I’d rather have no Green seats and Stephen Harper lose, than a full caucus that stares across the floor at Stephen Harper as prime minister, because his policies are too dangerous,” she said.
So determined is May to keep Harper from power she also told the Star she wants Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton to join her in a pact to beat Conservatives candidates.
The Green, Liberal and New Democratic parties should prevent vote-splitting that would favour Conservatives, and carve up electoral ridings according to who has the best chance of winning, May said. “We sit down and say, `Who has the best chance of winning in all these ridings?’ What I’ve been calling for is proportional representation by other means.”
Pair voting is one method of strategic voting that lets people still get a vote for their preferred party. I doubt any party will come out and endorse pair voting because it is new and less understood in Canada, so that means those of us inspired by the idea need to reach out to fellow party supporters and invite them to participate.
NDP party supporters and political pundits, decide what ridings the NDP party has the best chance of winning. I plan to add to this list soon, but figured I’d get it up sooner than later so people could start adding and voting for their picks. Refer to this list of 68 ridings with the closest contests.
Just a reminder that the pair vote process will use the riding rankings here to allocate seats, so be careful what you wish for.
Deadline to vote: Friday, October 3
Add information about potential ridings in the comments below, to help people vote.
Vote and /or add a new riding (This requires an account at Squidoo, just register and continue, sorry for that but I’m just one guy trying to use whatever free and simple tools I can find to make this process work!)
You can also embed this list in your own site and have people vote there.
More party riding lists coming tomorrow…
Green party supporters and political pundits, decide what ridings the Green party has the best chance of winning. I plan to add to this list soon, but figured I’d get it up sooner than later so people could start adding and voting for their picks. Refer to this list of 68 ridings with the closest contests. I noticed Elizabeth May’s riding isn’t on the list – how many are willing to bet she has a realistic chance?
Just a reminder that the pair vote process will use the riding rankings here to allocate seats, so be careful what you wish for.
Deadline to vote: Friday, October 3
Add information about potential ridings in the comments below, to help people vote.
Vote and /or add a new riding (This requires an account at Squidoo, just register and continue, sorry for that but I’m just one guy trying to use whatever free and simple tools I can find to make this process work!)
You can also embed this list in your own site and have people vote there.
More party riding lists coming tomorrow…
Greg Morrow of democraticSpace (my favourite election site) posted a few days ago his list of battleground ridings, 68 in all.
Catch the sad irony? That means only about 25% of the total ridings matter in this election, the rest are already decided. The people in a whopping 75% of ridings who want to vote for the party not predicted to win might as well stay home, their vote won’t matter. I digress.
I plan to use Greg’s list as a basis for deciding which ridings to focus on. Once I get back some data from a volunteer, I’ll post the following:
The number of pairs is determined by the number of voters signed up in those ridings. We could have 1000 people signed up, but if there are only 100 voters in swing ridings, then there is a max of 100 pairs. Take a look at the list of swing ridings, and invite people you know in those ridings to sign up if their vote won’t otherwise matter.
The list of 68 is not cast in stone. You can add other ridings to a party list, and I suggest you add a comment as to why you feel a riding should be included, to encourage others to vote for it also.
How to decide what order of ridings to allocate pairs to? I’m going to make the pair vote process as participatory as possible. I like James Surowiecki‘s the Wisdom of Crowds, which I got to hear James talk about at a conference. You’ll get a chance to rank the ridings for your preferred party, which will influence the pairing process. Bascially, the process will try to match pairs for the top ranked riding for a party first, then the second, and so on. There is one exception, and that happens when a riding ranked lower has a significantly higher number of pair voters, and it makes sense to allocate pairs to that riding ahead of higher ranked ridings. So give the options some thought, and vote on the rank (when it is published). Your collective wisdom is better than anything I can come up with on my own.
So which party gets first dibs on pairings? I’ve been wrestling with that question also. My idea is this – pairs are allocated proportionally to parties, according to the percentage of registered pair voter supporters they have in strategic ridings. The party with the highest number of supporters goes first. They are allocated pairs to their highest ranked riding. Then the party with the second highest number of supporters goes next, and so on.
Let’s say the number of paired voters in strategic ridings turns out to be the following:
In this example, the Greens go first. All the potential pairs for the Greens in the top ranked riding are allocated, followed by all potential Liberal pairs in their top ranked riding, and so on. After one round, the process is repeated in the same order.
Let me know what you think of this approach. Nothing is cast yet in stone. This seems like a fun and fair approach, but you may have an even better idea or improvement. Post your thoughts as a comment.
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Pair Vote – 2011 Ontario Election 
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