Provincial Politics

[PoscStudent]

Interesting that Brian Warr has been struggling with social media page growth. I noticed his PC opponent, Lin Paddock, has nearly 1000 likes on Facebook in that last number of weeks.

Be good to see some more polling to see if Liberals are really so far ahead.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by PoscStudent

Interesting that Brian Warr has been struggling with social media page growth. I noticed his PC opponent, Lin Paddock, has nearly 1000 likes on Facebook in that last number of weeks.

Be good to see some more polling to see if Liberals are really so far ahead.

Yeah. Like I said before starting the analysis, you do have to take it with a grain of salt, and page growth is typically skewed in the favour of new candidates. However, even still, you would think that a current MHA would be able to register some type of growth. Over 21 days you lose 1 like? There are candidates who have no shot in hell of winning who are able to get a few people on their social media pages. All incumbents have been able to grow except him. The fact that he's a Liberal MHA in a historically PC stronghold is what's most eye-catching of the entire thing here.

I too would like to see more polling. I do think the Liberals are pretty far ahead, but I'm likening this election to 2015. Many people predicted a clean sweep in 2015, but in the end it wasn't the case. I'd like to see more regional data, though regionals have very high margins of error. But it can give me a better sense of where there may be gains or holds for parties. Based on Mainstreets regionals, the Liberals may be able to crack into the PC strongholds of the suburbs, while the PCs best chances at keeping some seats, outside the suburb seats that will never flip, may be in central/eastern.

[PoscStudent]

Judging from a tweet, Mainstreet appears to be getting ready to release a poll. Amazing that we’ve only seen one so far in the campaign. I’ll be interested to see if the campaign has made any difference. The Covid-19 events of the last few days won’t likely show up in polling, not sure what result this could have.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by PoscStudent

Judging from a tweet, Mainstreet appears to be getting ready to release a poll. Amazing that we’ve only seen one so far in the campaign. I’ll be interested to see if the campaign has made any difference. The Covid-19 events of the last few days won’t likely show up in polling, not sure what result this could have.

Forum will drop a poll literally as late as they're legally allowed to, which will be Friday night, as they usually do. Surprised they haven't done one already as they've done 2 per election cycle for the last 2 elections. Surprised not to see anything from Abacus either; maybe the fact that this isn't a "close race" isn't super exciting for polling agencies, but there's literally no other elections happening right now. Unless they're holding on to their pennies expecting a federal election call in a few moths.

Social media posts from the general public aren't great at determining how the average person feels, but if the average person feels the same way as the posts from the past two days then the Liberals should be very lucky that a lot of people have voted in advance, they might not survive if everyone had to vote on Saturday based on their current feelings.

[PoscStudent]

It’s always difficult to know if the silent majority feels the same way as the vocal minority. This is such a different issue though. We’ll have to wait and see if we get any polling. However, most will not reflect the last couple of days.

[PoscStudent]

Mainstreet will be releasing a poll tomorrow and Forum is also in the field.

[Marty_Mcfly]

I also think that today we're going to get a definitive answer on whether the election will proceed or not. If the chief electoral officer doesn't think they'll have enough staff to move forward then that's pretty telling.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Voting has been suspended in 17 electoral districts, essentially the Avalon Peninsula. You can re-apply for special mail-in ballots.

[PoscStudent]

Voting postponed on the Avalon.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Mainstreet Poll - February 9-10th
https://www.scribd.com/document/494225360/NewfoundlandandLabrador-Final-2021

Liberal: 54%
PC: 26%
NDP: 17%
NLA: 2%
Other: 1%

Liberals down in that timespan, but benefits the NDP not the PCs. Still looking like a rump.

Regionals:

Urban St. John's

LIB: 42%
PC: 26%
NDP: 31%
NLA: 0%
OTH: 0%

Suburban St. John's

LIB: 60%
PC: 27%
NDP: 9%
NLA: 1%
OTH: 4%

Avalon

LIB: 59%
PC: 26%
NDP: 13%
NLA: 2%
OTH: 0%

Labrador

LIB: 44%
PC: 26%
NDP: 13%
NLA: 15%
OTH: 3%

Rest of Newfoundland

LIB: 53%
PC: 25%
NDP: 13%
NLA: 9%
OTH: 1%

[PoscStudent]

Looking at the numbers further is making that poll a bit questionable. Like 90% of the people polled were on the Avalon and most of them of them lived outside the north east Avalon.

Update: haha maybe I’m reading it wrong but the numbers are confusing when you look at the regionals.

[Marty_Mcfly]

That's why margins of error are huge when looking at regional breakdowns. It's nice to look at, and you can infer some stuff from it, but unless you have a large n then things get fuzzy.

Mainstreet has at least been polling large total populations. Good for them I guess.

[PoscStudent]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

That's why margins of error are huge when looking at regional breakdowns. It's nice to look at, and you can infer some stuff from it, but unless you have a large n then things get fuzzy.

Mainstreet has at least been polling large total populations. Good for them I guess.

If you look at the actual number of people polled though, it looks like the Avalon peninsula, outside metro, was way over sampled.

[Marty_Mcfly]

It's an unfortunate random sample, that's for sure.

Quito Maggi said Mainstreet will poll again before the Avalon votes. I wasn't sure if they'd be able to or not once part of the island had voted (polling isn't allowed on election day) but I guess this is very uncharted territory. They did note that for those who answered that they had already voted, that the Liberals were well ahead in those votes, so it's likely a moot point anyway.

[PoscStudent]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

It's an unfortunate random sample, that's for sure.

Quito Maggi said Mainstreet will poll again before the Avalon votes. I wasn't sure if they'd be able to or not once part of the island had voted (polling isn't allowed on election day) but I guess this is very uncharted territory. They did note that for those who answered that they had already voted, that the Liberals were well ahead in those votes, so it's likely a moot point anyway.

I usually ignore results when it comes to questions on if people have voted or if they are likely to vote. We’d have like 90% turn out in elections if the results were to be believe. I remember doing a course on polling that discussed questions such as that. Most people will not admit in a poll that they won’t vote so they’ll say they did or are going too.

[Marty_Mcfly]

In-person voting has been suspended. You HAVE to request a ballot and vote by mail.

[PoscStudent]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

In-person voting has been suspended. You HAVE to request a ballot and vote by mail.

What a mess.

Don’t want to sound like Trump, but hopefully another minority government is elected because voting is going to be a mess and I don’t think we should end up with a government in power for 4 years based on the results of this election.

[rthomasd]

I voted last week in the advance poll, very little risk of covid exposure, whole process took
only 5 minutes.

Only 60% voted in 2019, under 200,000 people. I believe about 80,000 voted so far with another 20,000
special ballot requests in up to yesterday, we may see a near-normal turnout.

Perhaps it's time now finally to automate this whole election setup, manual voting, etc. If I can renew my driver license, car registration, MCP, Passport online surely a secure voting system can be
implemented, online and by phone or by mail, whatever you have available. We've voted by
mail in St. John's for municipal elections for a number of years and it's worked well.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by rthomasd

I voted last week in the advance poll, very little risk of covid exposure, whole process took
only 5 minutes.

Only 60% voted in 2019, under 200,000 people. I believe about 80,000 voted so far with another 20,000
special ballot requests in up to yesterday, we may see a near-normal turnout.

Perhaps it's time now finally to automate this whole election setup, manual voting, etc. If I can renew my driver license, car registration, MCP, Passport online surely a secure voting system can be
implemented, online and by phone or by mail, whatever you have available. We've voted by
mail in St. John's for municipal elections for a number of years and it's worked well.

Online voting in an election is a thing that is often talked about but rarely understood. The security concerns are major, and surprisingly enough despite living in a world dominated by the internet for about 20 years now, no one knows how to address those issues to ensure a safe, secure online election. We're likely still years away from that becoming a reality.

Mail-in voting only is much more probable. We need parties to prioritize releasing platforms BEFORE mail-in votes are due. Otherwise you're voting for a colour only, and that hasn't served us very well at all up to this point.

[PoscStudent]

You now have until Friday to request a ballot. Hopefully that will be enough time for people to signup.