Greg Morrow of democraticSpace (my favourite election site) posted a few days ago his list of battleground ridings , 68 in all.

Catch the sad irony? That means only about 25% of the total ridings matter in this election, the rest are already decided. The people in a whopping 75% of ridings who want to vote for the party not predicted to win might as well stay home, their vote won’t matter. I digress.

I plan to use Greg’s list as a basis for deciding which ridings to focus on. Once I get back some data from a volunteer, I’ll post the following:

  • A list of swing ridings for each party that they have a chance of winning.
  • Number of vote pair registrants per riding, their preferred party and who they are willing to vote for.

We need Pair Voters in Swing Ridings

The number of pairs is determined by the number of voters signed up in those ridings. We could have 1000 people signed up, but if there are only 100 voters in swing ridings, then there is a max of 100 pairs. Take a look at the list of swing ridings , and invite people you know in those ridings to sign up if their vote won’t otherwise matter.

Add other Ridings to the Lists

The list of 68 is not cast in stone. You can add other ridings to a party list, and I suggest you add a comment as to why you feel a riding should be included, to encourage others to vote for it also.

Influence the Vote – Rank the Ridings

How to decide what order of ridings to allocate pairs to? I’m going to make the pair vote process as participatory as possible. I like James Surowiecki ‘s the Wisdom of Crowds , which I got to hear James talk about at a conference. You’ll get a chance to rank the ridings for your preferred party, which will influence the pairing process. Bascially, the process will try to match pairs for the top ranked riding for a party first, then the second, and so on. There is one exception, and that happens when a riding ranked lower has a significantly higher number of pair voters, and it makes sense to allocate pairs to that riding ahead of higher ranked ridings. So give the options some thought, and vote on the rank (when it is published). Your collective wisdom is better than anything I can come up with on my own.

Influence the Vote – Proportional Pairing

So which party gets first dibs on pairings? I’ve been wrestling with that question also. My idea is this – pairs are allocated proportionally to parties, according to the percentage of registered pair voter supporters they have in strategic ridings. The party with the highest number of supporters goes first. They are allocated pairs to their highest ranked riding. Then the party with the second highest number of supporters goes next, and so on.

An Example

Let’s say the number of paired voters in strategic ridings turns out to be the following:

  • Greens: 100
  • Liberals: 75
  • NDP: 50
  • Conservatives: 25

In this example, the Greens go first. All the potential pairs for the Greens in the top ranked riding are allocated, followed by all potential Liberal pairs in their top ranked riding, and so on. After one round, the process is repeated in the same order.

Let me know what you think of this approach. Nothing is cast yet in stone. This seems like a fun and fair approach, but you may have an even better idea or improvement. Post your thoughts as a comment.

Tagged with: • • •

Filed under: Canada 2008

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!