1.5% of Voters Will Determine Election Outcome
Friday September 21st 2007, 9:51 am
Filed under: - 2007 ON Election, Canadian Politics

Here’s a remarkable stat for you — 1.5% of voters will determine the outcome of the election. That’s right, since the government is decided by a series of one-on-one riding battles, whether we have a Liberal or PC government, minority or majority (all four remain possibilities) it will be determined by 5% of voters in the closest 30% of the ridings (i.e. 5% of 30% is 1.5%). Pretty amazing, eh?

So who are the lucky voters who will determine the next government? Voters in the following ridings (the top 30% closest races) — click riding name to leave your comments:

Northern Ontario
NICKEL BELT — France Gelinas NDP vs. Ron Dupuis LIB
NIPISSING — Monique Smith LIB vs. Bill Vrebosch PC

Central Ontario
NORTHUMBERLAND-QUINTE WEST — Lou Rinaldi LIB vs. Cathy Galt PC
PETERBOROUGH – Jeff Leal LIB vs. Bruce Fitzpatrick PC

Eastern Ontario
OTTAWA CENTRE – Yasir Naqvi LIB vs. Will Murray NDP
OTTAWA-ORLEANS – Phil McNeely LIB vs. Graham Fox PC
OTTAWA WEST-NEPEAN — Mike Patton PC vs. Jim Watson LIB

Southwestern Ontario
GUELPH — Bob Senechal PC vs. Liz Sandals LIB
HURON-BRUCE — Rob Morley PC vs. Carol Mitchell LIB
KITCHENER CENTRE — Matt Stanson PC vs. John Milloy LIB
LAMBTON-KENT-MIDDLESEX — Maria Van Bommel LIB vs. Monte McNaughton PC
LONDON-FANSHAWE — S. Maynard NDP vs. J. Chapman PC vs. K. Ramal LIB
SARNIA-LAMBTON — Caroline Di Cocco LIB vs. Bob Bailey PC

Hamilton-Niagara
HAMILTON EAST-STONEY CREEK — Paul Miller NDP vs. Nerene Virgin LIB
NIAGARA FALLS — Bart Maves PC vs. Kim Craitor LIB

York-Durham
AJAX-PICKERING — Kevin Ashe PC vs. Joe Dickson LIB
OAK RIDGES-MARKHAM — Phil Bannon PC vs Helena Jaczek LIB
OSHAWA — Jerry Ouellette PC vs. Sid Ryan NDP
PICKERING-SCARBOROUGH EAST — Wayne Arthurs LIB vs. Diana Hall PC
RICHMOND HILL — Reza Moridi LIB vs. Alex Yuan PC
THORNHILL — Peter Shurman PC vs. Mario Racco LIB

Peel-Halton
BRAMALEA-GORE-MALTON — Kuldip Kular LIB vs. Pam Hundal PC
BRAMPTON-SPRINGDALE — Linda Jeffrey LIB vs. Carman McClelland PC
BRAMPTON WEST — Vic Dhillon LIB vs. Mark Beckles PC
MISSISSAUGA SOUTH — Tim Peterson PC vs. Charles Sousa LIB
MISSISSAUGA-STREETSVILLE — Bob Delaney LIB vs. Nina Tangri PC
OAKVILLE – Rick Byers PC vs. Kevin Flynn LIB

Toronto
DON VALLEY WEST — John Tory PC vs. Kathleen Wynne LIB
ETOBICOKE CENTRE — Donna Cansfield LIB vs. Andrew Pringle PC
ETOBICOKE-LAKESHORE — Laurel Broten LIB vs. Tom Barlow PC
PARKDALE-HIGH PARK — Cheri DiNovo NDP vs. Sylvia Watson LIB
WILLOWDALE — David Shiner PC vs. David Zimmer LIB
YORK SOUTH-WESTON — Paul Ferreira NDP vs. Laura Albanese LIB


8 Comments/commentaires
Leave a comment/Enregistrer un commentaire

I’ve made a battleground map

I’d also like to note that by posting the maps here I’m giving Greg the right to use them (on his own or through ipsos reid) should he wish.

Comment/commentaire by Nick J Boragina 09.21.07 @ 3:32 pm

Thanks, Nick. It’s interesting to see the geographic pattern of the battleground ridings. Given the sea of blue that surrounds the GTA, it does make Kitchener-Centre and Guelph staying Liberal look less likely, doesn’t it? Sarnia-Lambton, Lambton-Kent-Middlesex, and Huron-Bruce for the northern flank of what was once Liberal territory — it suggests that if one goes, all three very well might. It also shows that the three ridings of Prince Edwards-Hastings, Northumberland-Quinte West and Peterborough will be critical ridings. And of course, there are many ridings in and around Toronto that are PC-Liberal battles — I suspect the first ones to go PC would be starting from the furthest outside Toronto — Oak Ridges-Markham, Ajax-Pickering, Oakville, for example…

Comment/commentaire by democraticspace 09.21.07 @ 4:00 pm

Nick to make the battlegrounds easier to follow, how about 8 maps, using the regions Greg uses:

1. CENTRAL ONTARIO
2. EASTERN ONTARIO
3. HAMILTON-NIAGARA
4. NORTHERN ONTARIO
5. PEEL-HALTON
6. SOUTHWESTERN ONTARIO
7. TORONTO
8. YORK-DURHAM

Then its up to Greg but there might be some links directly from the text portions of Democraticspace to the maps and some possible space for comments on the regions as a whole. e.g. the sea of blue surrounding the GTA.

Comment/commentaire by PJC 09.21.07 @ 5:18 pm

I would say that Prince Edward hastings should be added to the mix of ridings that could go either way. Leona Dombrowski is FAR from having this riding sewn up.

Comment/commentaire by Neal Ford 09.21.07 @ 8:37 pm

yes, there are about half a dozen liberal ridings I’d add to this list. These ridings might be battlegrounds now, but remember – during the last federal election the grits held a lead over the tories, consistantly, until the x-mas break. Once it was over, the tories came back and were polling in majority territory. These numbers would give the PC party a total of 54 seats, if they won every single battleground riding. I think that more needs to be added to that. I did an old battleground map myself found here. it’s a bit out-of-date but I think that many more Liberal ridings should be in the battleground column. Especially if the PC’s start polling better.

Comment/commentaire by Nick J Boragina 09.21.07 @ 9:52 pm

Prince Edward Hastings, Hamilton Wentworth, Hamilton Mountain, and all the Mississauga ridings should be added to the PC-Liberal battlegrounds IMO

Comment/commentaire by Nick J Boragina 09.21.07 @ 9:57 pm

You do know your math only works if these “30% of the ridings” also happen to have “30% of the population”, which is quite the statistical unlikelihood.

Comment/commentaire by Feynman & Coulter's Love Child 09.22.07 @ 8:19 pm

[...] will vote on Oct 10. In a recently-published online report, Morrow estimated that only about 1.5% of voters will determine the outcome of the election. Under today’s FPTP system, “since the government is decided by a series of one-on-one [...]

Pingback by What the Media Doesn’t Want You to Know About Our Current Electoral System | Democratic Policy and Party Talk 10.05.07 @ 7:15 pm



Leave a comment/Laisser un commentaire
E-mail address never displayed/Votre adresse email ne sera jamais publiee. HTML: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

(required/requis)

(required/requis)



If your comment doesn't appear, it is because our automatic anti-spam software is blocking it. If so, just send us an email and we will post it for you.