Is election math really that hard?

It seems that, for a set of the population, it might be. The current format for reporting election results is that the networks report the current total, that total as a percentage of the counted votes, and the percentage of the votes counted.



For a very simple example, in a riding of 100000 people, at the start of the counting the counts could be:

Red 9000 90%
Blue 1000 10%
With 10% of the vote counted


As more votes are counted, the score could be:

Red 25000 50%
Blue 25000 50%
With 50% of the vote counted.


It could end up being:

Red 30000 30%
Blue 70000 70%
With 100% of the vote counted.


Now, if you understand how math works, (and have a decent grasp of time progression) this seems entirely reasonable. The amount of votes keeps increasing for both candidates and the percentages reflect the percentage for each of the percentage counted.


But, if you don’t, and you are only looking at the percentages, it can seem odd that some numbers are dropping.



To help those people out, and to avoid them complaining about rigged elections as the percentages adjust as more votes are counted, I propose the following change.


I believe the networks should report the current total, that total as a percentage of the total votes, and the percentage of the votes counted.


So using the previous example of a riding of 100000 people the same results would now look like:

Red 9000 9%
Blue 1000 1%
With 10% of the vote counted



As more votes are counted, the score could be:

Red 25000 25%
Blue 25000 25%
With 50% of the vote counted.


It could end up being:

Red 30000 30%
Blue 70000 70%
With 100% of the vote counted.


This way the percentages only increase as more votes are counted, and they never decrease. It also becomes quite clear when one candidate has won as they finally achieve over 50% of the total votes, not just the current counted total.

Re-election?

Okay, to get you up to speed, in Canada we run on a Westminister system of parliamentary government.
Westminister system
which allows the queen's rep - in our case the Governor General - certain powers:
Lascelles Principles
Prorogation

An example of this was the so called
King-Bing Affair

A coalition government is allowed in this type of system and has actually been the case several times prior.

This isn't some arcane concept brought out by bitter parties but an actual part of the rules by which our country is governed.

Okay, now that we're on the same page, this is how it stands as I see it (granted, again, I am not the big Poly-Sci guy):
The Blue party became the government with a minority - choosing not to form a group with another party for a majority. They put through a budget that the other colors didn't like and in voting it down would normally force a new election. To prevent a new election, the other colors are forming a group which, having the majority, are recommending that they be the government instead of having to go through a new election (a side note - had they done this right after the election, they would have been the ruling party instead).
The Governor General, being the GM of parliament, will have to decide this on Monday.

It should be an interesting weekend.
2008 dispute wiki

Vote Early, vote often

Election day up here.
I don't care who you vote for but get out there and vote for someone.

Be part of the process.

Poly-sci guys

I’m not a big political science person and yet a lot of the people I am in contact with are poly-sci guys. Christine, JP, Paul, and Shannon are all big poly sci people.

I’ve always been more interested in the personalities rather than the policies. That said, Shan flipped over to the leader’s debates after Survivor and I was hooked for the full two hours. I only saw the English one so I’m going by that. I hadn’t really seen anything from them before so my impressions are solely based on the debate – and my own bias of course.

The clear winners were Elizabeth May of the Green party and Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois. Both came across as solid and confident. Elizabeth had her facts down cold. Gilles was a pleasant surprise with a fairly good grasp of English – and a funny way of pronouncing development – and not at all wing-nutty as you would be led to expect from the Bloc.

Stephane Dion of the Liberal (Red) party came across very poorly. If you read his transcript, he was clear and focused but he had came across very weak and sounded like he was having a lot of trouble with English. I have trouble seeing him standing up to whoever wins the election down south.

Stephan Harper of the Conservative (Blue) party came across very indifferent. He has a squinty look that makes it seem like he isn’t listening to what you have to say and doesn’t care about your opinion. He also seemed to deny some easily checked facts.

Jack Layton of the NDP (Orange) came across as a bit of a bully. I’ve been told that his people had told him He also kept saying his name – like the comedians doing impressions of Bob Dole. A good drinking game would have been to take a shot ever time he said “Jack Layton”. In this format, either because of the camera angle or because he kept leaning forward, he also appeared very bald.




The Canadian edition?