Tag Archives: 2015 federal election

Federal campaign in 2015 caused headaches for Elections Canada: report

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Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand says Elections Canada had hoped last year’s fixed election date would bring some predictability to their planning for the 2015 vote. But after then-prime minister Stephen Harper asked Gov. Gen. David Johnston to dissolve Parliament, Elections Canada had to deploy its field operations immediately, causing challenges.(CHRIS WATTIE / REUTERS)

By  JOANNA SMITH   The Canadian Press

September 21, 2016

OTTAWA—Elections Canada experienced some headaches dealing with the longest federal campaign in modern Canadian history, says a new report from the chief electoral officer.

Chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand said Elections Canada had hoped last year’s fixed election date would bring some predictability to their planning for the 2015 vote.

That went out the window, however, when then-prime minister Stephen Harper asked Gov. Gen. David Johnston to dissolve Parliament on Aug. 2, kicking the campaign into gear more than a month earlier than expected.

“The absence of a fixed start date, or a specified time range within which to conduct the election, resulted in significant deployment challenges and delays,” said the report released Wednesday.

Elections Canada plans to make recommendations on how to better define the duration of an election period in its upcoming report to Parliament, expected within the next two weeks.

The report said Elections Canada had been anticipating that the campaign period for the Oct. 19 election would be officially launched in mid-September.

The plan was to begin deploying field operations Sept. 1, which included finalizing temporary office leases, arranging for computer and telephone services, ordering election materials and hiring local office staff.

When the campaign got underway a full month earlier than expected, Elections Canada had to review its planning and deploy its field operations immediately.

That meant many returning officers had to renegotiate new leases for the 78-day writ period, with 107 of them having to find new office locations entirely.

The report said about 95 per cent of the returning offices were open within eight days of the election call, with the last one opened Aug. 18 and the last satellite office opened the next day.

For the 2011 election, all offices were up and running within three days of the start of the writ period, the report noted.

“There is no doubt that, for the first few days of the election campaign, some electors and political entities did not get the level of service they had been accustomed to in previous elections,” said the report.

It also said moving more of their services online might have eased the impact.

The report also outlines issues with voting on First Nations reserves, where 14 polling places in nine ridings ran low on ballots on election day.

A total of 13 voters, all from the same polling place, were unable to cast a ballot when election officers were uncomfortable with photocopied ballots and refused to give them to voters, contrary to instructions issued by Mayrand.

“Elections Canada sincerely regrets that these electors could not exercise their franchise,” said the report.

The report said a contributing factor was the low rate of voter registration, which caused officers to underestimate the turnout on election day.

“Returning officers will take this into account to improve their planning for the next general election.”

Mayrand said his upcoming report to Parliament will include suggested changes to the Canada Elections Act that would give the independent agency the flexibility it needs to modernize the voting process, including by increasing the use of technology.

“Electors increasingly want to vote when and where it suits them — no longer just on election day at a designated polling station,” Mayrand wrote.

It is unlikely, however, that Mayrand will recommend a wholesale move to online voting.

He expressed concerns about its risks when he appeared before the House of Commons committee studying electoral reform in July, saying that Elections Canada was not currently planning to introduce it for 2019 and asked the committee to consider limiting its scope, at least at first, to Canadian living abroad or with mobility issues.

Source: Federal campaign in 2015 caused headaches for Elections Canada: report | Toronto Star

Comparison of Federal Election Results to Nanos Estimates

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An election is a torture chamber for politicians, voters and pollsters – and rightly so. 

At Nanos we take very seriously our responsibility as a research firm and the trust Canadians place in our numbers. In addition to the exceptional coverage by our clients — CTV News and the Globe and Mail, and Bloomberg News — the Nanos numbers were cited by virtually all major media outlets in Canada and several international ones such as by The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian Newspaper in the UK and the BBC.

Over the course of the election, the Nanos numbers were also a central part of the dialogue on social media.  For example, our polling was cited in 55.2 million tweets during the campaign.

A review of our tracking in Canada’s 42nd federal election suggests that the Nanos track record of reliability in national and provincial elections continues from strength to strength.  Our approach of using random land- and cell-line samples with live agents, in our opinion, remains the most consistently robust means of measuring opinion.

Here is a comparison of the election results to the Nanos data using the Election Canada data as of 1:20 am ET.

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As you can see, this contributes to the Nanos track record which is among the most consistently accurate for national and provincial elections in Canada. 

For this federal election, Nanos accurately called the winner in all regions, the results for every party were well within the margin of error and accurately forecast the Liberal victory.

Nanos Nightly Ballot Tracking: Liberal (37.3%), Conservative (30.5%), NDP (22.1%), Green (4.7%) – Three-day Tracking Ending October 17th

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Liberal seven point advantage continues over closing weekend

  • National Ballot – Tracking over the closing weekend has the Liberals with a seven point advantage over the Conservatives.  The Liberals have 37.3% support, the Conservatives 30.5%, the NDP 22.1%, and the Greens are at 4.7% nationally.
  • One Month Change – Compared to a month ago, the Liberals are up six points, the NDP are down nine points, and the Conservatives are up two points. The Liberals have been the primary beneficiaries of the decline in NDP support over the course of the campaign and over the past month the Liberal – NDP trend lines have been mirror images of themselves.
  • Larger Sample – Please note that today’s three day rolling average is based on 2,000 interviews (800 interviews Saturday, 800 interviews Friday and 400 interviews Thursday).
  • Last Report – Nanos will continue to do tracking today (Sunday) and will release its last election survey this evening ahead of the Elections Canada deadline.  No new polling can be released on Election Day but polls released prior to Election Day can be reported on Election Day (Section 328 of The Canada Elections Act).

The team at Nanos in conjunction with Klipfolio have launched our new live political data portal where you run the numbers you want and can explore the trends and data you need.  This is part of our campaign, not only to provide the most reliable data to Canadians but to let them use it as they wish. We were the first to do nightly tracking and now we are the first research organization to post live public opinion data for Canadians.

We were the first to do nightly tracking and now we are the first research organization to post live public opinion data for Canadians. Here’s the link to check it out

To view the detailed tracking stats please visit our website.

Methodology

A national random telephone (land + cell) survey using live agents of 1,200 Canadians is conducted by Nanos Research throughout the campaign over a three day period.  Each evening a new group of 400 eligible voters are interviewed. A double sample of 800 interviews, per night, were conducted on Friday and Saturday.  Today’s daily tracking figures are based on a three-day rolling sample comprised of 2,000 interviews.  To update the tracking a new day of interviewing is added and the oldest day dropped. The margin of error for a survey of 2,000 respondents is ±2.2%, 19 times out of 20.

The respondent sample is stratified geographically and by gender.  The data may be weighted by age according to data from the 2011 Canadian Census administered by Statistics Canada.  Percentages reported may not add up to 100 due to rounding.  The research has been registered with the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association of which Nanos is a member.

Results are based on the three day calling window October 15 to 17, 2015. The research was commissioned by CTV News and The Globe and Mail.

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