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More political geekfest number-crunching of the Vancouver election shows Aquino would have been elected by NE, Yuen and Wong by SE

November 22nd, 2011 · 47 Comments

A reader — “Rick” — sent me this breakdown, which I like because it gives a sense of how councillors ranked in different parts of the city. It seems to show that the NE votes straight Vision/COPE slate, the SW votes straight NPA slate, and it’s the other three quadrants of the city that mix things up.

Ok, I’m a geek.  But I’ve wondered about that whole E/W and N of 16/S of 16 divide for a while and wanted to see what the poll results said about what kind of council 5 areas of the city would elect.

My 5 were: the Downtown pen (West End, Coal Harbour, Yaletown) NE of Main & 16 (Strathcona, DTES, Granview, etc) NW of Main & 16 (Kits, Pt Grey, Fairview, etc), SW of Main & 16 (Kerrisdale, Shaughnessay, Dunbar, etc) and SE of Main and 16 (Sunset, Langara, Collingwood, etc)

If DT elected 10 councillors they would be:
DEAL, Heather
REIMER, Andrea
STEVENSON, Tim
LOUIE, Raymond P
JANG, Kerry
CARR, Adriane
MEGGS, Geoff
TANG, Tony
WOODSWORTH, Ellen
AFFLECK, George
(7 VV, 1 GRN, 1 CPE, 1 NPA)

If NE elected 10 councilors:
REIMER, Andrea
DEAL, Heather
LOUIE, Raymond P
JANG, Kerry
STEVENSON, Tim
MEGGS, Geoff
WOODSWORTH, Ellen
TANG, Tony
LOUIS, Tim
AQUINO, RJ
(7 VV, 3 CPE)

If NW elected 10 councillors:
REIMER, Andrea
DEAL, Heather
LOUIE, Raymond P
JANG, Kerry
MEGGS, Geoff
STEVENSON, Tim
CARR, Adriane
TANG, Tony
WOODSWORTH, Ellen
LOUIS, Tim
(7 VV, 1 GRN, 2 CPE)

If SW elected 10 councilors:
BALL, Elizabeth
AFFLECK, George
CHARKO, Ken
YUEN, Bill
KLASSEN, Mike
MCCREERY, Bill
WONG, Francis
BICKERTON, Sean
CARANGI, Joe
LAMARCHE, Jason
(10 NPA)

If SE elected 10 councilors:
LOUIE, Raymond P
JANG, Kerry
YUEN, Bill
TANG, Tony
DEAL, Heather
REIMER, Andrea
WONG, Francis
BALL, Elizabeth
STEVENSON, Tim
AFFLECK, George
(6 VV, 4 NPA of and the other 4 areas of the city had similar populations ~70-80,000 but the SE is much more populous at 120,000)

I also did a little thing on party strength in each area.  I took the total vote for a party’s candidates/number of bubbles filled in:
DT:
VV 35.7%, NPA 34.3%, CPE 10.7%, GRN 5%
NE:
VV 41.5%, NPA 23%, CPE 15.2%, GRN 4.3%
NW:
VV 38.8%, NPA 31.9%, CPE 11.4%, GRN 5.1%
SW:
NPA 53.1%, VV 25.6%, CPE 7.3%, GRN 3.5%
SE:
NPA 39.9%, VV 33.2%, CPE 10.9%, GRN 3.0%

My little conclusions:
-the SW of the city is the part least like the rest, and home to the most NPA slate voters
-the NE is where COPE benefited from partnership with VV
-the SE is where having a Chinese surname is most important

My little geekfest was challenged by:
-some polls span 16th
-the city does not number its polls with these 5 areas in mind so it is a bit of a cut and paste challenge so I may have missed some polls or counted them twice but if you’d like to have a look at my spreadsheets drop me a line!

Rick

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Paul T.

    Sweet stuff Frances! I love analyzing this kinda stuff! Thanks for your take.

  • Frances Bula

    @Paul T. And thanks for yours!! Vancouver elections are so much more complex to analyze because of the 11-vote thing at council. It really helps if we all pile in.

  • Monte Paulsen

    Thanks to “Rick” for this interesting analysis.

    I’d love to see a similar breakdown on two non-geographical factors: Home ownership (or not) and attitude toward density.

    My sense is that we’re slouching out of an era defined by left-vs.-right or east-vs.-west, and into a phase of city-building in which one’s attitude toward density will play a pivotal role. And from my limited personal experience, homeownership (or, more specifically, HOUSE ownership) is a top factor in determining one’s attitude toward density.

    The ugly, us-vs.-them, truth is sometimes that those who own houses tend to want Vancouver neighbourhoods to remain low-density, wood-frame, suburban-like places dominated by cars… while those who fear they’ll never own a house are more open to envisioning a dense green city of parks and condo towers and transit.

    My hunch is that Vision has done a better job of recruiting these (often younger) density-friendly voters, while NPA, COPE and NSV remain dominated by older house-owning voters.

    I’ll be interested to read what others thing about this opinionated (and untested) thesis. — M.

  • Diego Maranan

    Interesting. Thanks for this breakdown. Is it really a surprise that the southwest of the city is so different from the rest? 😉

  • Frank Ducote

    Thanks to all the geeks and political junkies for this scrutiny and analysis. It should be be prime bedtime reading by all parties and wannabe politicians running with them or independently.

    There’s clearly more than two solitudes in this fascinating city, and the voting patterns may or may not so easily lumped into traditional have/have not or single family/apartment or renter/owner or worker/employer or younger/older categories. But geography still does matter, however, and the interests facing the various neighbourhoods can be quite different, and thus the political message more nuanced than some might think. VV’s positive tone clearly struck a chord with more people across the city than negativity. I only hope they have learned that municipal level governance is not a parliamentary model and will include all of Council working together (not as government and opposition).

    My main complaint about VV’s first term is that they tended to run roughshod over neighbourhoods and interests to achieve their stated platform goals. “We said we were gonna do it and now we’re doing it.” The long and honourable civic traditions of public consultation got tossed out with this approach. Anti-STIR reactions in the West End sort of put the lie to this way of doing things IMO.

    A minor but interesting geek footnote – 16th Avenue was formerly the boundary between the City of Vancouver (to the north where most density, employment and mixed-use still is located) and the leafy municipality of West Point Grey (to the south and east of Ontario Street), where single family neighbourhoods are still the norm. The working class municipality of South Vancouver filled out the rest of the peninsula centred around … Commercial Drive and Kingsway!

  • Morry

    Is this an argument for having a Ward system?

  • Michael Geller

    Very interesting indeed. Now, based on this, do Fabula readers think it’s time to open up the debate on introducing wards in Vancouver? Or a hybrid system with both ward and ‘at-large’ councillors?

    And how about Vision and COPE? When NPA in control, I’m told they were the ones opposed to wards. Has the situation changed?

    I for one am in favour of a combined ward and at-large system. The current strong party system, with so many candidates, just doesn’t work for me!

    ps I also want to see ballots redesigned so that every candidate has his or her name on top an equal number of times. Not to take anything away from the ABC’s or YZ’s who have been elected, but I’m convinced the current system penalizes lesser known candidates whose names are in the middle of the alphabet.

  • jesse

    The class divide is evident here; as the city continues to grow in population, the NPA seemed to have attempted, with little success, to appeal to the DT crowd.

    Engaging the naturalized immigrant vote (not just Chinese) is important, and will be even more so in the coming years.

    The SW is getting rather lonely. Look at the population growth stats.

    My 2 cents.

  • Agustin

    I’m open to a mixed ward/at-large system, but I think that switching entirely to wards would be a bad idea.

    Wards promote NIMBYism and parochialism by pitting neighbourhoods against each other every council meeting. The common good gets overlooked and there is strong incentive to find solutions that barely rise above the lowest common denominator.

    The at-large system promotes more big-picture thinking.

    However, I recognize that the at-large system also leads to valid local concerns sometimes being overlooked, which is why I’d be open to a mixed system.

    On a similar subject, I’d like to see mayors (and ward councilors, if they exist someday) elected by a ranking system. First-past-the-post is too divisive.

  • Dan Cooper

    As a little though experiment, say that each of these five areas got to elect 2 representatives instead of the entire city electing 10. (They don’t have the same populations, but let’s just ignore that for a moment.)

    If we look at:

    If DT elected … (7 VV, 1 GRN, 1 CPE, 1 NPA) = 2 VV

    If NE elected … (7 VV, 3 CPE) = 2 VV

    If NW elected … (7 VV, 1 GRN, 2 CPE) = 2 VV

    If SW elected … (10 NPA) = 2 NPA

    If SE elected … (6 VV, 4 NPA) = 1 VV and 1 NPA.

    Totals: 7 VV (8 VV with an extra for SE), 3 NPA and no one else, which Vision would have to love and give or take a Green is close enough to the current situation to call for a “why bother?”

    On the other hand, if we look just at percentage of vote, and depending on how the winners are determined (first past the post as presently? transferrable vote? vote for just one or vote for two?) it would seem we might end up with:

    DT:
    VV 35.7%, NPA 34.3%, = 1 VV and 1 NPA

    NE:
    VV 41.5%, NPA 23%, = 1-2 VV and 0-1 NPA

    NW:
    VV 38.8%, NPA 31.9% = 1 VV and 1 NPA

    SW: NPA 53.1%, VV 25.6% = 2 NPA

    SE: NPA 39.9%, VV 33.2% = 1-2 NPA and 0-1 VV.

    Totals: 3-5 VV, 5-7 NPA, and everyone else shut out. Give Southeast another counsellor and you have about 6-8 NPA and 3-5 VV. NPA has to love this idea, since it gives them far more counsellors than their city-wide vote percentage would suggest.

    I’m not dedicated (or good!) enough to figure out how “NPA 39.9%, VV 33.2%” turned into “6 VV, 4 NPA” in SE. I would think it should be the other way around, no, but I expect Rick’s number crunching is correct, based on the current voting system. It seems to me that a different system, though, could greatly change the balance of power without being either more representative, decreasing the power of parties, or spreading representation through more parties. Not to say a ward system shouldn’t be introduced, but the devil would be in the details.

  • MB

    When wards were considered a few short years ago the NPA indeed were dead set against them, and COPE under Larry Campbell was luke warm (or luke cold, depending on who’s commenting) because they saw the potential to get elected beyond their traditional territory.

    I agree that wards alone could lead to divisive and possibly unresolved policy and project debates and would cater to base interests, more or less depending on the maturity of the ward councillor.

    But I’m the the other commentors above who said wards would bring neighbourhood interest to the forefront, whereas the at-large system is best to address city-wide issues.

    Thus there is much merit, in my view, to five councillors representing wards (DT and the four quadrants) and five councillors elected at-large in a mixed system.

  • Frank Ducote

    Gee, Frances – did you see this coming out of your little stats teaser? I certainly didn’t but probably should have. My generally positive feelings about wards (actually a mixed ward/citywide model as suggested by others above) a few years ago pretty much evaporated when the local councillor of that day looked at the DTES, near where I live, as one big redevelopment opportunity – Woodwards-type developments everywhere. No thank you.

    So, it does eventually come down to who’s on Council, doesn’t it?

  • A Dave

    Reimer and even Robertson, as noted, have done about-faces on voting reform, both advocating for it earlier in their careers — it would obviously help the Greens get some seats. Reimer was even chair of the anti-STV committee, I believe, much to the chagrin of her former Green colleagues, many who felt very betrayed.

    And now that they are Vision incumbents with a solid mandate, the chance of their advocating for any type of voting reform, or campaign finance reform, are slim to none. The number crunching above shows quite clearly why it’s not an ethical question to them any more, but a strategic one. As Dan says, the devil is in the details.

  • Chris B

    Living in a ward system now (Ottawa) and having lived in Vancouver most of my life, I can unequivocally state that I find that the ward system is inferior because it promotes parochialism and an us vs them mentality.
    Granted this is exacerbated in a city like ottawa which is a mixture of downtown urban, Point Grey style semi-urban, langley-style suburban and true rural, but too often decisions on urban issues are made by the suburban councillors who have a working majority.

  • Agustin

    And now that they are Vision incumbents with a solid mandate, the chance of their advocating for any type of voting reform, or campaign finance reform, are slim to none.

    I am hopeful about campaign financing reform. According to Robertson in an interview on the CBC yesterday morning, campaign finance is provincial jurisdiction.

    This is from the Vision Vancouver platform document:

    We will continue to advocate for electoral and campaign finance reform, including donation limits, and financial disclosure.

    Does anybody know why campaign finance reform would be in provincial jurisdiction?

  • Frank Ducote

    Augustin@15 – Don’t know, but the “electoral reform” part of that platform statement is intriguing. Anybody know what that means in plainspeak, given this ward discussion?

  • rf

    I feel like a hypocrite wanting wards now.

  • spartikus

    Does anybody know why campaign finance reform would be in provincial jurisdiction?

    Municipal elections (and campaign financing) are governed by provincial legislation – the Local Government Act and the Vancouver Charter.

  • Glissando Remmy

    The Thought of The Day

    “Can’t see the Forest for the Trees!?”

    Too much crunching numbers, analyzing percentages, guessing, implying…

    Here:
    Voter Apathy.
    Money Spent.
    Useful Lies.
    These are IMHO the three biggest reasons why we’ve got the results we’ve got.

    TRUE ANECDOTE:
    Why VISION Won!
    I Asked A Friend:
    “Who Did You Vote For?”
    She Answered:
    “Yes, First They Took Her Daughter Away… Then Her Son Died… Then The Mom Giraffe Died Of A Heartbreak!”

    Also…
    Humans are a perverse species. I have no doubt in my mind that Kits/WestEnd/DTES/Stratchona/N&SFC/ Chinatown/ Fairview voted in accordance to their wishes of having the majority of Vancouverites and Lower Mainlanders (and only when it’s time for spending the public money on their neighborhoods, shall there be no financial discrimintion and so, the common bag of Municipal dough, shall be shared fairly) kept out of their “Leisure & Entertainment District” just look at the map with Mayor’s support and see for yourselves:

    http://francesbula.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2011-Robertson-Support5.png

    People against too many cars crossing their neighborhoods, afraid of gentrification, of falling home prices, or on the contrary wishing that by applying an iron grip on NIMBY those prices are going to continue to rise…
    In the end the bottom line is, 18-20% of the total number of voters , actually voted for the Vision Sweep and their wet dream policies. Period.

    Democracy needs to worry about why the remaining 80% didn’t bother to vote.
    The only ones that don’t need to worry are the beneficiaries. It suits their agenda perfectly.

    We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

  • brilliant

    Anybody who thinks Vision will go for wards is dreaming in technicolor. Especially if COPE decides to dump their champagne socialist “partners”.

  • Tom-Pierre Frappé-Sénéclauze

    .. I’ve put the “unofficial” data published by the city on a google fusion table last night – which should allow anyone easy access and some capacity for graphing/mapping/aggregating…

    here is a map of voting turnout, with popular vote by party for each voting division (click on division to get mayoral and councilor vote breakdown).

    https://www.google.com/fusiontables/embedviz?viz=MAP&q=select+col3%3E%3E1+from+2234350+&h=false&lat=49.24629475701811&lng=-123.12418350000002&z=11&t=1&l=col3%3E%3E1

    and here is the original data: https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1Fz3lqCkEcxdcAeuPAoA_DcxbMkTvt9vAAw1CEgc&hl=en_US&pli=1

    haven’t had much time myself to crunch, but thought that others might get some more (visualizeable) insights by having easy access to plotting and graphing.
    enjoy,
    TP

  • Agustin

    Thanks spartikus.

  • Morry

    re #21 original data link:
    Sorry, does not have the permissions to view the requested table.

  • jesse

    @Tom 21 If you can share the data that would be awesome. Andrea Reimer will hunt you down and destroy your very being if you don’t.

  • Bill Lee

    Re: Aquino
    I’m glad “RJ” Aquino didn’t get in. I would throw him under Mable Elmore’s corrupt bus.

    The Pinoy press was touting their hoped-for breakthroughs in elections such as Manitoba’s Tyndall Park riding where all three candidates were Filipino. Two in Ontario’s recent election, Carino defeated in Scarborough East and Cheryll San Juan defeated in Etobicoke Centre.

    They lament the previous unsuccessful Maita Santiago for Vancouver City Hall.
    Gabby Kalaw unsuccessful for NPA on Parks (why do we have a Parks Board since they don’t hold the purse strings)

    Is the Philippine community so complacent?

    And as far as Tim Louis and Raymond Louie, some would have voted for the “other” as they were adjacent and in Chinese they have the same single character for a name.

  • Rick

    Wow Tom I’m in awe of your geek powers!!!

    And to Dan — my data manipulation took the combined votes of a party’s candidate in an area and divided it by the total number of votes in that area…or count up all the bubbles filled in for party X and divide it by all the total number of bubbles filled in for that area.

    This method means that even though DT the % vote for VV and NPA is similar that only 1 NPA candidate made the top 10 but all 7 VV candidates did.

    As for duh, of course the SW is different…I agree but when I sorted the data I was just impressed with how very different the results were!
    E. Ball was the top vote-getter here & she outpolled H. Deal (the highest vote-getter DT) by almost 5000 votes

  • Michelle

    Tom #21 Thanks for the map!
    In a way it proves Glissando’s post#19 Further away you go from Kits/WestEnd/DTES/Stratchona/N&SFC/ Chinatown/ Fairview areas there is visible less support for VV and for Roberston.
    Wait until they are going to destroy the viaducts…

  • Morry

    re #21 original data link:

    Thanks for the fix. working now

  • Morry

    “Wait until they are going to destroy the viaducts…”

    As one living in the areas that voted for VV … I can’t wait to get rid of the viaducts. They serve no purpose at all. Except as 1Km speeding zone. Totally useless.

  • Mary

    I think everyone on the Westside must have been hit on the head by falling mannequins and suffered brain damage resulting in loss of memory of how ineffective Elizabeth Ball was last time ’round.

  • mezzanine

    @Bill Lee,

    Actually, I don’t see any differences between the filipino community and the aspirations of other immigrant groups in vancouver. If anything, indo-canadian and chinese-canadians have a higher level of political organization than filipinos.

    If you think Mable Elmore is corrupt, I hope you think it’s due to a innate corruptness unique to her, as opposed to her being corrupt b/c she is filipino.

    Don’t be so afraid of Filipino Canadians, Bill Lee. We’re like freemasons, but with better food. 🙂

  • Hans Goldberg

    Mezz, Your last paragraph is the best line of this whole post.

  • brilliant

    Its not the SW that is different. Take a look at the ring around the smug minority who have convinced themselves living in 600 sq ft is “winning”. They only have the artificial municipal boundaries to protect them from the majority in our conurbation.

  • Michael Geller

    It’s interesting to see that Morry #6 asked the question about wards while I was writing out my comments. I would like to see this conversation continue.

    Another conversation I think needs to take place is whether in an at-large system with 40 candidates, whether those whose names begin with ABC have an advantage over the KLM’s, all other things being equal.

    Some of you may enjoy the comments from George Affleck and Elizabeth Ball to my suggestion that the alphabet is a factor.

    You may also want to read Barry Link’s editorial in today’s Courier, arguing exactly the same thing, but in a more colourful manner!

    Here’s my post and the Affleck and Ball comments
    http://gellersworldtravel.blogspot.com/2011/11/election-post-mortem.html

  • Eric

    Another day another map of election results. Instead of a straight up map these maps of the mayoral results alter the size of each subdivision based on the total people who voted. Thus the bigger the subdivision the more people who voted.
    In map making we call this a cartogram.
    Check out the results here: https://picasaweb.google.com/greenschoolbus/CartogramOfVancouverElectionResultsVotesForMayor?authuser=0&feat=directlink

  • Joseph Jones

    Monte Paulsen #3

    Those who fear they’ll never own a house are more open to envisioning a dense green city of parks and condo towers and transit.

    One of the lessons I have learned from years of Norquay struggle is that there is almost no money for anything in the public realm except cynical gestures in the form of public art, gussied up garbage cans, curlicues on lampposts, etc. Meanwhile a pittance CAC usually gets cycled back into a specific development to enhance the developer’s selling of the project with a semi-privatized added feature (like an on-site plaza).

    Little comes back to a surrounding neighborhood from massive new developments – except increased competition for already existing public facilities (libraries, community centres, swimming pools, ice rinks, etc.), and streets filled with cars that joust for curbside spots so the decreasingly required sheltered parking space can be crammed with personal stuff.

    Get some facts from Park Board about their level of funding to increase park space. We in Norquay have. Then natter on about “green city of parks.” About the only parks we’ll ever get are the parks we already have – parks ever more targeted for conversion of their green openness into build-out and profitization. (Here a quick nod to the travesty of still unrealized Creekside Park – facing reconfiguration even before it comes to be.)

    I cannot stomach any agenda that starts from conversion of existing public goods (start with parks and streets) into grist for yet more of the rapine profiteering and environmental degradation that has made Vancouver what it is.

  • Silly Season

    Ah, the alphabet factor. We need some data on that, all.

    How about exit polls asking voters how they chose. Is there a study saying that voters do this?

    And, what is the perceived difference between a) people who that method to choose (if indeed they do) B) those who don’t care to vote at all c) party members who are supplied with lists of candidates for whom they should vote?

    Which of those three groups should we consider “most ignorant’?

    🙂

  • david hadaway

    The irony of support for wards from inside the NPA makes me smile. The chance was there a few years ago and, with proto-Vision, you destroyed it. The situation you find yourselves in now is called being hoist with your own petard. What is the chance of Vision giving up a system that works so well for them? This won’t be anything but a fringe issue for quite some time.

    As for randomizing names to avoid alphabetic bias. If this phenomenon tipped the balance to put Affleck and Ball into council (and despite their high opinions of themselves that seems likely) then spreading those votes around all NPA candidates would quite possibly have led to none of them being elected.

    So that’s one reform Vision may well support!

  • Something is Wong

    Can we call a spade a spade and talk about the racism of the se? A Chinese name superseding politics? This old white man is offended. I’m tired of cultural communities voting as a block instead of issues. By any other name this is racism.

  • IanS

    I think David Hadaway #38 is correct.

    Does anyone expect Vision to undertake electoral reforms which would not be of direct benefit to it?

  • Monte Paulsen

    Wholeheartedly agree with the point I believe Jones #36 is making.

    Additional park space is a prerequisite for green density, not an “amenity” for negotiation.

    My sense is that if COV (and Surrey, et al) were to create and/or guarantee creation of park space and transit FIRST, then a sufficient number of forward-thinking green-minded voters would accept a thoughtful (albeit dramatic) increase in density withing their neighbourhoods.

    Sadly, however, these discussions too often begin with a proposal from a developer. Then reaction from the city. Then anger from neighbourhood. Yada yada yada.

    Thanks for being on-point, Jones.

  • Bill Lee

    @Eric // Nov 23, 2011 at 2:02 pm #35
    Thanks for the isomophic cartogram on mayor elections.
    It really shows the concentration of votes and decreases the southwest low-density housing areas to actual vote sizes from large collection of super lots.

    Eric also has a nice What-If tsunami, climate change etc. map of rise of water levels in the Metro region of March 13
    https://picasaweb.google.com/greenschoolbus/TsunamiAndVancouver#5584086799475187394

    Others might like his galleries of the Marais district and also the Left Bank of Paris.

  • Dave

    @ Michael Geller #34 – The issue of name placement on the ballot is real, and could be eliminated by randomizing the lists of multiple-candidate names on the ballots. In fact it would be particularly easy if we moved towards a form of electronic or online voting.

    I know professional pollsters are aware of the bias created by the order in which options appear because, when polling on certain multiple-choice questions, they deliberately use technology that randomizes the order of the choices for each respondent, every time, so that the rank-order bias is weeded out and they get a truer reflection of people’s opinions on the various options.

    There’s no magic reason why we have to list candidates in alpha-order, and if we move to technology that makes it easy to do, I’d be all for randomizing the candidate order on the ballots. I’d be curious to know, though, if alpha-order is mandated by provincial law, or if it’s something a municipality can change on its own?

  • Eastvan man

    If the At Large system is so “great” how come no other major cities use it? Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina use the Ward system. I checked Toronto and they have 44 wards! Imagine if they had the At Large system and you would have to vote for 44 people it’s ridiculous. Vancouver should learn from other cities and scrap the At Large system. I’m also in favor of Wards because it would take party politics out of the municipal level. I could be wrong but in other cities there aren’t political parties at the Municipal level. No more slate voting would be great. I just want to vote for the guy or gal in MY Neighbourhood.

  • rick in sooke

    All this discussion about wards feels like deja vu all over again. Just over 9 years ago (2002) COPE, with Larry as mayor, swept the elections, winning all but 2 seats on Council. Big difference then – COPE ran on a promise to bring in the ward system if they won. “A vote for COPE is a vote for wards” was the buzz phrase.
    Immediately following the election, City staff started developing the process for ward elections next time around. But then a funny thing happened – the soon-to-be Vision faction of COPE did an analysis like the one above and noted that they would probably never get such a strong majority again if the ward system was implemented. So they set the wheels in motion to kill the idea wihout actually reneging on their promise.
    I think there’s a fairly convincing argument to be made that this reversal pissed off a significant portion of COPE’s more middle of the road supporters, which directly led to COPE’s reduction to a fringe group.
    And those same Visionistas who realized that a ward system would only restrict their election chances and who now have a stranglehold on Council, are certainly not going to see the light and start pushing for changes, no matter how much these changes might benefit Vancouver residents.

  • Morry

    @Tom-Pierre Frappé-Sénéclauze
    great map and great information.

    We have a question:
    Is there a way to see what the colours mean (i.e. a key)?

    what is an orange area vs a light blue area?

  • Michael Geller

    Dave #43. I’ve been told that the District of North Vancouver randomnly selected the names on its ballot. However, I wouldn’t advocate this either, since I feel it still gives an unfair advantage to those whose names are on top, and perhaps at the very bottom.

    Instead, I’d argue for different ballots with rotating names, so that each candidate has his/her name on top approximately an equal number of times. I can appreciate this would complicate the printing and distribution, and perhaps the computer reading of the ballots.

    However, given that we now have technology that allows my wife to read the price and reviews of a bottle of wine by simply holding her phone up to the label, I’d like to think this can all be done!