Talk:Alberta Alliance Party
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[edit] 84,174 votes
I deleted this: "However, mathematically, if the party managed to take 84,174 more votes in its top 42 ridings, it would have formed the government: 7 seats were lost by less then 1,500 votes; 13 more seats were lost by between 1,501 - 2,000 votes; 11 more seats were lost by between 2,001 - 2,500 votes; 11 more seats were lost by between 2,501 - 3,000 votes". Quite simply, this is just mathematically wrong (probably overstated, see Cloveious and my response). The AA lost Duvegan-Central Peace by 338 votes. Their next closest was Red Deer North, which they lost by over 2000 and were in third place. A quick look comes up with one loss under 1000; 8 losses of between 2000-3000. (Note also that the average riding in Alberta is 10,000 voters.) To put it another way: the AA had two seats over 40% (one of which they won); two seats between 20% and 40%; seven seats between 15% and 20%; twelve seats 10% to 15%. I'm not sure whose calculations have gone astray here, or the reason (it strikes me that this may be pro-AA POV trying to make a disappointing result look better). But the basic facts seem simply wrong (see Cloveious next). Bucketsofg 23:37, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
- You failed to calculate it right, The Alberta Alliance takes votes directly from the Progressive Conservatives. Take all the plurality numbers and divide by 2. If Candidate X from the Alberta Alliance wants to beat Candidate Y from the PC's who has 8000 votes then Candidate X only needs to swing 4001 PC votes for Candidate Y to loose. Final result 4001 to 3999. The numbers are accurate. The results on the page were posted verbatim from an official party document. In First Past the Post system in the top 42 performing ridings the Alliance would have only needed to swing 84,174 from the Progressive Conservatives to form goverment --Cloveious 06:42, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks for the clarification, Cloveious. Hearing that this comes from an AA party document reinforces my conviction that this doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. The AA got 77,500 votes in the election. To say that if they got 84,000 more in exactly the right ridings from exactly the sources they would have won a majority is unrealistic to the point of being misleading. In any case, given the enormous differences in the number of voters in Alberta's ridings--something that no wikipedian knows better than you! (great work on Alberta ridings, btw)--percentages would be less misleading. And here the prognosis would be pretty glum: Red Dear North was the third closest: but it was 43% PC, 30% Lib, 19% AA. Yes, if 1100 (13%) PC voters voted AA, they'd win. But only if no PC voters shifted over to the Liberals or vice versa. But all this fun with numbers is stuff for party strategists, not for wikipedia, no? Bucketsofg 15:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks for the compliment, I only put it in because I thought it balanced things out a bit at the time, but that was awhile ago, but I agree with you. --Cloveious 22:26, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks for the clarification, Cloveious. Hearing that this comes from an AA party document reinforces my conviction that this doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. The AA got 77,500 votes in the election. To say that if they got 84,000 more in exactly the right ridings from exactly the sources they would have won a majority is unrealistic to the point of being misleading. In any case, given the enormous differences in the number of voters in Alberta's ridings--something that no wikipedian knows better than you! (great work on Alberta ridings, btw)--percentages would be less misleading. And here the prognosis would be pretty glum: Red Dear North was the third closest: but it was 43% PC, 30% Lib, 19% AA. Yes, if 1100 (13%) PC voters voted AA, they'd win. But only if no PC voters shifted over to the Liberals or vice versa. But all this fun with numbers is stuff for party strategists, not for wikipedia, no? Bucketsofg 15:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
The Party strategists have it wrong anyways -- I've heard from private sources that AA polling indicates a good chunk of their votes come from people who wanted "anybody but Klein" and were previously going Liberal or even some 'dippers. So its good that the party #s aren't in wikipedia, since its unverifiably inaccurate.. :)
