Canadian Election Results vs. Projections

ThreeHundredEight:

Well, at least I got the order of the parties right.

Clearly, the final projection was wrong. It under-estimated both the Conservatives and the New Democrats and over-estimated the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois. While I was not alone in making this error, I humbly recognize that of all the projections mine was among the worst.

Of the 308 ridings in the country, ThreeHundredEight.com correctly called 235 of them. That's an accuracy rate of 76.3%, which is absolutely unacceptable. (Note: I had incorrectly calculated the accuracy rating at 71.8% earlier this morning).

However, it was not the seat projection model that failed. The seat projection model actually performed very well - or would have had the popular vote projection model not missed the mark so completely.

That is a very tough gig.  Nate Silver looked really good in 2008, but trying to match polling and anticipate how much to weigh each poll by each pollster seems like a really thankless job.  Posting it for everyone to see makes it even tougher.

Election Results Up North

The CBC is calling the election with the Conservatives holding 167 seats, 12 more than was needed for a majority government.  The New Democrats picked up 102, an all-time high for them, while the Liberals won an all-time low 34 seats, the Bloc won 4 and the Green Party won 1.

Canadian Election Update

ThreeHundredEight.com is still projecting huge pick-ups by the New Democrats, at the expense of Labour and the Bloc Quebecois.

I guess that tomorrow night they'll know how close they are to being right.

New Democrats Make a Move Up North

From ThreeHundredEight.com, the latest polls show the New Democrats making significant gains in Monday's election:

I think multiple parties in the U.S. could make things more interesting, and maybe tamp down the influence of the crazy Republican base.  We might end up with a strong Southern secessionist party, much like the Bloc Quebecois.  I would guess that the current Democratic party would split into more of a Labor and New Democratic makeup like up north. The question would be whether many moderate Republicans would go to the centrists and away from the nutty right.  It is at least an interesting thought-exercise.

So I Guess It Has Been a Long Winter

Calgary Herald:

A house party in Dover turned ugly at the bad end of an ice scraper Saturday morning.
Calgary Police duty inspector Victor Trickett said at least two adult men were treated for minor injuries after a fight broke out at around 2:30 a.m.
"Somebody was beat up with an ice scraper," he said. "It turned out to be very minor."
The fight broke out in the 2200-block of 41st Street S.E.

Canadian Election Projections

Conservatives are predicted to win, but with less than 40% of the vote (via Yglesias):

Why the U.S. ended up with red meaning conservative and blue meaning liberal, I don't understand.  Anyway, here is the projected seat breakdown by province:

I think it is interesting how the Western provinces are almost entirely Conservative, the Maritime provinces are slightly leaning Labor, and then there's Quebec.  I would think that minority government in parliament would be tremendously difficult and frustrating.

An election that changes 4 seats seems like a waste, too.

A Primer for the Canadian Election

A funny explanation of  the Canadian election coming up on May 2:

On to the election campaign itself. The big news is that there actually is an election campaign, and the good news is that it's already half-over. Canadians view an election like we do sex: it should be fast and cheap, and leave us feeling slightly dirty afterward.
This vote should meet our expectations. The government fell on March 26, and we'll vote for a new Parliament May 2. That's less time than the U.S. takes between electing a president and swearing him in, much less the 18-month campaign period that Obama just kicked off. Yeah, this country has one-tenth the population. But get real!
Same for costs. On the donation side, no corporate or labor-union contributions allowed. Each citizen can give $1,100 to a political party and $1,100 to a candidate. That's it! Oh, and each party collects $2 for every vote it got in the last election. Expenses are also strictly limited, depending on the number of potential voters the candidate is trying to appeal to. Constituencies (quaintly, we call them ridings) vary a bit in size, but the average limit is less than $100,000. Exceed that, and you might have your victory annulled. Although I'm not sure of that since, being Canadian, nobody ever cheats.
As for feeling dirty, we're still in jockeying-for-position mode. Nobody is desperate enough yet to go for a really low blow. But the English and French-language leaders' debates are now scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, and there might be some fireworks then. Or not.

The explanation of the parties and the issues at stake is humorous and interesting for this poorly-informed neighbor to the south (99.9% of the U.S. population should be considered poorly-informed neighbors to the south, but very few are interested).  I definitely like the idea of short election campaigns without massive special-interest money.