1/24/2006

Canada results: Conservative minority government

Link to results.

Analysis: Conservatives met expected result, 124 seats.
Liberals did a bit better than polls and spread betters forecast, 103 seats.

Especially note the good Liberal result in seats in Quebec, where they won far more seats than Conservatives with fewer votes.

So although this is a hammering for the Liberals, no doubt because of the persistent scandals, the party machine is still in pretty good shape. A change of leader will happen, so now the best favour the Tories could do for the Liberals is clean up Canadian politics for the next five years. the Liberals simply need to support any anti-corruption measures to regain credibility. (But will they?)

1/23/2006

More on the demographics that hit Democrats

Gadfly has more on the way that Democrats voters at U.S. presidential electors don't match up with congressional elections.

It reinforces what I've said before (in passing here) about the importance of gubernatorial elections: the more Governors a party has, the less likely the other party can gerrymander against it.

Follow the Canadian election live

You can follow the elections from a Conservative media perspective here, or by audio broadcast here.

Note for Canadian Liberal readers, these could be hilarious if the polls have seriously underestimated your party's performance today!

I regret that I can't recommend a Liberal slanted media source for today's election results. For those repelled by Conservative politics, I suggest this link for general coverage.

142 seems to be the ceiling for Conservative expectations, that's still 13 seats short of an absolute majority. The Liberals are projected to hold fewer than 100 seats, whatever projectio you look at.

BTW, it's illegal for a Canadian to blog during the voting, so expect a lot of traffic on expat sites.

1/22/2006

Canadian roundup on eve of poll

The round-up:
Polipundit has a running daily commentary on the Canadian election.

Did the blogosphere have an effect in Canada this time?

My guess is it must have done. The majority of my traffic for the last month has come from Canada, and hundreds of people finding this site from a search along the lines of "latest-Canadian-election-polls" (though not usually with those strings).

If the official media loses it grip, this must help the non-conformist opposition, in this case the Conservatives. So whilst I wouldn't bet on the number of seats, it's a safe bet that the Tories are bound to show a significant percentage gain.

Forecast: Conservatives largest party, but short of a majority. No way for a Liberal win unless they've fixed it.

Backlog of interesting links (2 of 2)

Once again apologies for the interruption in posting, and the haphazard subjects on this posting:

Three links [1, 2, 3]about the Iraqi election results (finally). Now they get to negotiate who forms the government.

Democrat blogger panicking over George Allen leading in the very early polling for the U.S. Senate in Virginia. Worth noting that Tradesports (see sidebar) have Senator Allen as a leading potential candidate for the Republicans at the 2008 presidential election.

Le Figaro's take on the start of Mexico's election campaign.

This could be an important blog posting. Or it could be yet another bit of U.S. Democrat wishful thinking for the 2008 presidential elections. Either way, I'm bookmarking this analysis, based on the normall excellent Charlie Cook (see sidebar).

What happens when terrorists win the election? We could soon find out in the Palestinian Authority.

The American Enterprise Institute (whose excellent Election Watch is on the blogroll) has a project analysing redistricting and the court cases about them.

More on those voting machines...

Mexico's election: lead changes.

A Democrat blogger asks the world if his faction should try to oust Senator Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primaries. The cheque from Karl Rove is in the post.

Palestinian muscle: Le Monde reports on terrorist action designed to swing Palestinian votes.

The U.S.A.'s Federal Elections Commission (a pretty poor operation in my view) is promising podcasts soon. How about sorting out voter registration, polling station closing times, exit polls, media reporting results while votes are still being counted, frauds of every kind in the counting process, and a sensible system for settling disputed results? Also, how about sorting out the absurd election spending regulations and attempts to gag bloggers? Obviously not sexy enough or beyond the competence of the F.E.C..

Problems with voting machines, yet again in California.

Egyptian government releases members of the Muslim Brotherhood after the recent elections, in which the Islamist party gained an impressive number of seats in the parliament.

News from Pennsylvania's gubernatorial election in the U.S.A..

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas promises to resign if he doesn't get a mandate from the assembly elections.

Spanish court orders re-trial of Basque terrorist suspect. This affects the legality of the Basque political parties, so it's worth following.

News from Ohio's U.S. Senate primaries.

Three months ahead of elections in Peru, evidence that Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) may be re-emerging, according to Le Monde.

Ehud Olmet takes over as leader of Israel's Kadima party, as Ariel Sharon remains in a coma.

Democrats delay vote for Judge Samuel Alito, for a week. This could turn out to be the most important election in the U.S. for a decade, so although it won't work, I don't blame them.

First African female president is sworn in after winning in Liberia.

Bias

I oppose vote rigging and I oppose electoral systems that make it easy.

The U.S. Democratic Party activists who slashed tyres in Milwaukee were no less criminals than if they'd shot up a polling station at peak time, or planted blazing crosses in front of the homes of their opponents.

Next time a Democrat moans about "vote rigging" in Ohio in 2004, or Florida in 2000, or any other place where they just didn't get enough votes to win, remember this case.

And yes, I would run this story if it were Republicans that escaped justice on a technicality...

[hat-tip to Instapundit]