1. use the "Browse Regions" page,
2. select "2009? General Election" from the drop-down list,
3. and then click on "Region Details" (or click here).

It can take a second to load all the nomination details for the entire election. You can drill down to a region, province or local region of interest by making selections in those drop-downs. If not all local regions appear, they may not have relevant nominations recorded yet.

1. use the "Browse Parties" page,
2. select "2009? General Election" from the drop-down list,
3. and then click on "Party Details" (or click here)
4. now, select the Party of interest from the drop-down list, and drill down further by region, province or local region if needed.

For example, let's look at the record of nominations by the Green Party in BC. Last Saturday's Globe ran a lengthy and interesting feature on "The battle for B.C.". A sidebar gave nomination counts for the 4 parties as follows:

Candidates nominated for next election:
Conservatives: 29
NDP: 28
Liberals: 27
Greens: 30
SOURCE: ELECTIONS CANADA, RESEARCH: RICK CASH

I can source 28 NDP and 27 Liberal nominations, and have sourced 33 Conservative nominations; but between Elections Canada, the Green Party web-site, and the two Wikipedia sources, I can only find 9 Green nominations. To see my B.C. totals click here; to see the B.C. nomination details and my sources for the data, see here.

Clearly this is all a moving target at the moment. I'm hoping that by providing my sources as URLs, I can help clear things up (and maybe spur someone, anyone, to keep some of the public data sources up-to-date).

Labels: 40th General Election Nominations, Bloc Québécois, Conservatives, Greens, Liberals, NDP

The Elections Canada Nominations Database is currently not the most complete source of nominations data (UPDATE: perhaps this is why). Adding data from the party web-sites where available, and judiciously from Wikipedia pages (there are also some errors to be found there), we get a much different set of numbers.

However, there are no Liberal nominations now listed in the by-party listing at Wikipedia (UPDATE: ... and only one Conservative nomination). On the other hand the riding by region grid seems to list probable candidates rather than nominated candidates, given that every Liberal incumbent is listed as re-nominated, and even David Emerson is listed as nominated for the Conservatives, whereas several recent interviews suggest he has not yet decided whether to run again.

So Wikipedia is not an authoritative source at present either.

There are two things I can do to improve the reliability of nominations data: (i) document the source of the nomination information, and (ii) contact the parties themselves.

Stay tuned for further updates and analysis of these data, and for a much improved presentation of the nomination data and charts in the site itself.

Notes on the data:

* 2 Green candidates in Algoma-Manitoulin (Greg Evans, who later lost to Lorraine Rekmans) are listed at Elections Canada; only Rekmans is included here

* The NDP candidate listed in Wikipedia for Lanark – Frontenac – Lennox and Addingtonhas since withdrawn (Arif Jinha)

* Wikipedia lists the wrong riding for Green Laurier Busque (Richmond, BC instead of Richmond-Arthabaska, QC)

* Wikipedia lists Denis Paradis (Lib) in both Brome-Missiquoi (correct) and Brossard-La Prairie (wrong)

* Wikipedia lists Fabrice Rivault as Lib candidate in Laurier-Sainte Marie, but Sébastien Caron is listed with Elections Canada

Other adjustments to my earlier reported totals include the following:

* they had previously included Carol Skelton, who is no longer running again in Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, SK

* same goes for Myron Thompson in Wild Rose, AB

* have also deleted Mark Warner in Toronto Centre, and Brent Barr in Guelph (nominated Conservative candidates fired by their central campaign in late October) ... UPDATE: and, ok, I think it's pretty clear now that Bill Casey will not be the Conservative candidate in Cumberland-Colchester, so I switched his status to Independent; on the other hand, the Libs will apparently not re-nominate in West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast--Sea-to-Sky Country until an investigation into the Blair Wilson situation is completed, hence while he's sitting as an Independent now, he is still nominated as a Liberal

* have also deleted Pierre-Luc Bellerose, former Liberal candidate in the riding of Joliette who quit after the Outremont by-election

* the other Liberal candidates who resigned -- Paul Leduc, former mayor of the Montreal suburb of Brossard, and Gilles Landry, Liberal candidate in the riding of Portneuf-Jacques-Cartier -- were not included in previous totals

Labels: 40th General Election Nominations, Bloc Québécois, Conservatives, Greens, Liberals, NDP