The latest on pair voting

5 October, 2008 (23:06) | Pair Vote | By: gerrykirk

Time for an update, and probably this will be my last significant post before the election, as I will be away at a conference from Tuesday - Sunday. Great timing, I know. Thanks, Stephen, maybe next time consult with me on the date, ok?

I’ve got some good news and some bad news:

Good News

  • Registration deadline extended to Friday, October 10
  • Ranking ridings for your party deadline extended to Friday, October 10
  • Over 730 registered pair voters, should hit 1000 before Friday! Registrations are ramping up with just over a week to go before the election.
  • Pairing process is largely automated now, using the lists of ranked ridings per party and rotating between parties based on their number of voters in swing ridings.
  • As soon as some riding data is cleaned up, the first round of automated pairings will begin. I was hoping to pair a small batch of voters tonight, now hoping to do that tomorrow (Monday).
  • Pairings will be made throughout the week, with the last pairings happening on Saturday, if all goes well.
  • A few pairings have already been made, for people voting in advanced polls. I have to say it was fun to be the match maker.

Bad News

  • We need more voters in swing ridings , especially for the Green party. The number of possible pairs is entirely dependent on the number of voters in swing ridings. There are hundreds of Greens wanting to pair their vote, but just a handful of swaps available. Green supporters, do whatever you can to reach out to voters in your swing ridings.
  • Those of you who live in very secure ridings, i.e. there is a clear projected winner won’t likely be paired.
  • Few people have taken time to help rank ridings for their preferred party. I’m not sure if people just aren’t aware, don’t understand it, don’t feel they have enough knowledge to rank or just don’t want to be bothered to participate. This was an experiment, so interested in people’s feedback as to why it isn’t working.

Measuring Impact - Swing Voter Breakdown

I will post a breakdown of potential swing voter pairings by party and riding tomorrow, hopefully. The code is in place, just need to clean up the riding data (and wishing I had enough coding chops to have consistent riding data coming in instead of various spellings).

Tags: pair process , registration ,

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