HawthorneVillager.com

After getting wrapped up yesterday in the broader federal campaign, I'll try go back to Halton & area specific politics.

That said, while I think we'll have a definative winner in Halton, vote-splits in other ridings across Ontario and Canada will determine the face of the next Parliament (that and voter-turnout; hand-in-hand). I think b/c Garth-is-Garth, the Halton dynamic is a bitter different. Halton seems to be less a referendum on the incumbent government (as most elections [i[typically[/i] are), but a referendim on Garth. As such, I really don't think we'll have a vote split on the left as there will be in some key ridings ridings across Canada. From what I read on this forum, and see in forum polls as well as even the 2006 Halton election results, Halton looks like a Garth-Lisa race with NDP and Greens far behind. So, whomever we elect will likely be the person who gets the most votes on purpose (not by default which is the result of vote-splits). I wonder what voter turn out will be in Halton as well. Likely high? Garth is polarizing and, to be fair, so are Harper (his personality) and Dion (his carbon tax).

Anyhow, all that said, I found this Toronto Star piece on vote-splitting (which I think Halton will be immune from, but I could be wrong) was an interesting read.

http://www.thestar.com/FederalElection/article/514404

OPINION
TheStar.com | Federal Election | Vote splits create unexpected results

Vote splits create unexpected results

Oct 09, 2008 04:30 AM
Comments on this story (2)
James Travers

All of this is eerily familiar to Bob Rae. A ruling party forces an early, cynical election to gain political advantage and campaigns on the warning that the opposition represents a reckless, unacceptable risk.

In 1990, that strategy and those tactics cost Ontario Liberals their mandate and the premier, David Peterson, his London seat. Rae and the provincial NDP fared considerably better. In arguably the flukiest outcome in the province's political history, Rae weathered a final flurry of Liberal hyperbole to form the party's only Ontario government.

That campaign, a political science case study, never slips far from mind. Here in Toronto this week, Stephen Harper again rammed home the point that Conservatives are the safe, competent choice by revisiting the rocky economic road Rae and the province travelled after that upset victory.

Peterson didn't convince Ontario then and Canada is skeptical of Harper now. Prudence isn't easy to claim after record spending and a slew of politically targeted tax breaks reduced a $12 billion federal surplus to a rounding error. Raising the tired Rae spectre is just as hard work when the memory of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty slagging the province is so fresh.

Rae, now among the highest profile federal Liberals, is understandably sensitive to both Conservative attacks on his record and to the critical importance of the economy in this election. But over breakfast he talks as animatedly about another factor common to two campaigns separated by 18 years – helter-skelter vote splits. A confused division of ballot box spoils helped Rae win 74 of 130 seats in 1990 with just 37 per cent of the popular vote. In this election, those splits will decide the difference between winning and losing, minority and majority. Almost as significantly, they'll also determine the next Parliament's stability.

Parties and pollsters have their own, if heavily overlapping, lists of "in play" seats. They usually include the 45 closest contests in the last election, 20 of them in Ontario, and roughly two dozen more made almost impossible to accurately predict by local variables, particularly how the vote splits. What it comes down to is this: Small changes in voter preferences bring hugely disproportionate results.

In the last election, the Strategic Counsel research firm reports, fewer than 15,000 votes spread over a dozen seats elected a minority Conservative government. This time, political backrooms are forecasting that the four-party cocktail, laced by stronger Greens, could mean seats are won with as little as 30 per cent of the popular vote.

Every party is counting on the splits to help them somewhere, somehow. Conservatives, after squandering their Quebec edge, have the most to gain where it still matters most, Ontario and B.C. With a solid base and sophisticated database they are best positioned to take maximum advantage of minimal shifts, notably in Ontario's 905 and 519 area code ridings.

Where Conservatives are poised to be opportunists, Liberals are vulnerable. Stéphane Dion's much improved performance this week, including a confident speech to the joint Empire and Canadian clubs in Toronto yesterday, helps re-establish Liberals as the Conservative alternative and protect against NDP and Green vote poaching. It doesn't fix a strategy that isn't effectively focusing on ridings where the splits will be decisive.

That tilts the election toward Conservatives and is a critical error in a campaign where so few ballots can mean so much. If an 11th hour blitz scatters the vote to his party's political left, if Harper can bring himself to connect emotionally with deeply worried Canadians, Conservatives will regain some grip on a victory now slipping away.

Splits, as Rae and Peterson remember, are full of surprises, some pleasant, some not.

James Travers' column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.