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More post-mortem analysis of the Vision vote

September 23rd, 2008 · 12 Comments

This is the story I had in the Globe and Mail today about the meaning of the results. I wish someone who was in on the vote count could tell me how many people who voted for David Eby also voted for Kashmir Dhaliwal, so I’d know whether the thesis in this story is valid or not.

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  • Sean

    Frances, I was there for part of the count as a scrutineer – while those numbers you ask for can’t be tracked, anecdotally I’d confirm it wasn’t many people that voted for both.

    Since we were counting approximately 50 ballots at a time , what you did have at points was an eerie number of identical ballots (at one point literally 45 in a row) coming out of the box. This made the votes somewhat difficult to tally as our eyes had glazed over by then…

    Regardless of the different slates, mass identical ballots only came from one select group – the council slate that won. I will not speculate as to who was casting those votes.

  • lenova

    I was one of those that voted for both Eby and Dhaliwal. My primary vote was for Eby, and chose Dhaiwal after much deliberation (it was him over Stevenson, whom I am sad to see nominated purely for being an incumbent).

  • clavio

    This may fall on deaf ears – plus I realise it’s rather gauche to quote Wikipedia, but I object to being referred to as ‘caucasian’ in your Globe and Mail article. Please see:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race

  • jf

    Andrea Reimer was not on the Louie slate. She teamed up with Jang and Dhaliwal, and although the other two were on the Louie slate Reimer was not.

  • ptak604

    I was a scrutineer, and I saw a lot of Eby/Dhaliwal votes (as well as adding my own into that mix). A few hundred, for sure, and I was by no means watching at every count table. I don’t think that undercuts your thesis, however, as there weren’t as many as, say, Eby/Evans or Dhaliwal/Jang. The different currents are coming together (the Jang/Reimer/Dhaliwal slate showed up a lot, for example), but aren’t there yet.

    As a final note, Dave was on a slate card with Catherine Evans.

  • macadavy

    I, too, had both on my ballot – and I’m disappointed both didn’t make it. The Indo-Canadian community in Vancouver has not been successful at a municipal level, despite good success federally and provincially.
    And the Downtown Eastside desperately needs a voice at City Hall, despite having Libby Davies federally and Jennie Kwan provincially – that’s not enough. Just one more argument for a ward system in Vancouver, IMHO.

  • ptak604

    Feel free to remove that last line in my above post pending confirmation from either candidate that my statement was factual.

  • ptak604

    There were at least 2 very common slates (ie showed up on many hundreds-thousands of abllots)-one that was the incumbents + Jang, Dhaliwal, Meggs and Harrison, and one that was the switched out Harrison for Reimer. Reimer’s slate of seven showed up a lot as well, with many different 8th choices (and Eby was on a bunch of those, which made up the majority of Eby/Dhaliwal votes I saw). There were also a whole host of less common, though clearly visible slate patterns showing up

  • vote counter

    There were too many slates to keep track of, in my opinion, and I thought only the Reimer-Jang-Dhaliwal one was official; the rest just seemed like endorsements rather than any coordinated campaigning.

    Unlike ptak, I didn’t notice many incumbents plus Harrison-Dhaliwal-Jang-Meggs ballots. The Reimer slate with Eby was common; her voting suggestions for the 8th spot included Eby, Meggs and two others (can’t remember who).

  • Rick

    Where were these 8th vote suggestions by Reimer? I delivered literature for her and didn’t see any sort of suggestion. Was this something that was being handed out at the door? Was it on her website? I didn’t see it there!

  • annonymous

    I think the point about the slate recommendations is that some strong candidates didn’t run for office this way and some did. Some voters might have followed the recommendations, some might not have… (I did notice that all her choices were “Leaders, Experts” as opposed to being mere “Community organizers, or activists” and at least one of them is a lawyer…

    Handed out at all entrances to Sir Charles Tupper, all day, by her supporters, who yelled”Andrea Reimer’s Cheat Sheet!:

    (it was blue in colour, like the ballot paper, and had a photo of her on it)

    “Andrea Reimer’s RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CITY COUNCIL
    NOTE: YOU MUST MARK EXACTLY EIGHT (8) NAMES, OR YOUR BALLOT WILL NOT COUNT
    Andrea recommends the following SEVEN (7) choices:

    X (in box) CHOW, George
    Elected City Councillor

    X (in box) DEAL, Heather
    Elected City Councillor

    X (in box) DHALIWAL Kashmir
    Community Leader
    and Entrepreneur

    X (in box) JANG, Kerry
    Psychologist, Expert on addiction and homelessness

    X (in box) LOUIE, Raymond
    Elected City Councillor

    X (in box) REIMER, Andrea
    Environmental Leader,
    former Green Party
    School Board Trustee

    X (in box) STEVENSON, Tim
    Elected City Councilor”

    [on other half of the page…]

    “For your remaining choice, Andrea recommends that your choose ONE (1) of the following:

    (box with no X) EBY, David
    Community organizer, housing advocate

    OR

    (box with no X) EVANS, Catherine
    Education advocate, community activist

    OR

    (box with no X) HARRISON, Heather
    College professor, sustainability advocate

    OR

    (box with no X) MEGGS, Geoff
    Social justice advocate, environmentalist

    NOTE YOU MUST MARK EXACTLY EIGHT (8) NAMES, OR YOUR BALLOT WILL NOT BE COUNTED”

  • RossK

    I’ve just got to say, as someone who is naive to the nuts and bolts part of the process, that I’m suprised that scrutineers/counters are not asked to treat the specifics of the count as confidential.

    .