Elections Canada has just announced the results of the last outstanding judicial recount, Brampton West, ON where Liberal Andrew Kania in fact increased his lead slightly from 223 to 231 votes over Conservative Kyle Seeback. Kania thus takes over the most populous seat in the country from retiring Liberal M.P. Colleen Beaumier. Voter turnout was barely over 50%.

This means I'll be resuming my series of "Gains and Losses" posts. Next up, the Liberals ...

Labels: 40th General Election, Recounts

[UPDATE: The agony is officially over in Vancouver South, BC. Incument Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh held on by 20 votes. Only Brampton West, ON is outstanding now, and is expected to be completed by week's end. FINAL UPDATE: Brampton West is wrapped up now as well.]

I once saw a wonderful video from the private collection of a real political junkie, in which Stephen Lewis gives the "Election Day pitch" to a training meeting for volunteers who would be getting out the vote for his cousin in the 1984 federal election. He recounted every humourous Lewis family anecdote about pulling the vote, and told stories about legendary close contests, including his own as Ontario provincial leader when, as he said jokingly, he "had to sit through a blessed recount, one of the most humiliating, degrading experiences in the world, where you sit captive ... while they count out those ballots one by one, and your adversaries gloat in your face". Lewis' speech had his audience in stitches, and raring to go.

But he probably also captured the agony that some candidates are going through right now, given that the Vancouver South, BC judicial recount is *still* not finished, although they are 80% done, and expect to be wrapped by Tuesday at noon BC-time. Incumbent Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh's lead stood at 21 votes (down 1) at the end of today's sitting.

[UPDATE: Kady's sources have the final result before anyone else. News reports found here and here. Mr. Dosanjh won by a final margin of just 20 votes.]

And, although it hasn't been followed as closely, the Brampton West, ON recount was scheduled to start today (Monday) and run 3-4 days, according to the Brampton Guardian.

This means that we'll probably be waiting until after the US Election to have the final results of the 40th General Election in Canada. Let's hope they're a bit faster wrapping things up south of the border this time.

Labels: 40th General Election, Recounts

The latest judicial recount, whose results were announced late this afternoon, has changed the rankings of the Closest Contests in the recent general election. The new "Closest Contest" (and most narrow upset, for that matter) in the 2008 General Election is now (drum roll):

• Kitchener – Waterloo, ON, where Conservative candidate Peter Braid was confirmed to have defeated Liberal incumbent Andrew Telegdi by just 17 votes.
• Anecdotally the next narrowest is Vancouver South, BC, where incumbent Liberal M.P. Ujjal Dosanjh was reported earlier this week to be ahead of Conservative candidate Wai Young by just 22 votes after a partial recount (down from 33 in the validated results), although the presiding judge agreed to reexamine the count today, and no final result has been officially announced as yet. [UPDATE: ... because they hadn't finished yet, according to the Vancouver Sun Saturday morning. They'll go back at it on Monday.]

For the record, 17 votes represents a margin of less than 0.0% of the valid ballots cast (17/60534 = 0.02808339115207982290943932335547% of the vote, to be precise).

It also represents less than 1 vote per poll (in fact, 17/265 = 0.064150943396226415094339622641509 votes per poll if you want it to that many decimal places).

Voter turnout in Kitchener – Waterloo also declined from 70.4% in 2006 to 64.5% in 2008.

If anyone needed any additional evidence to prove just how much difference a single vote can make ... in, let's be honest, a riding that not one national pundit had seriously suggested was in play ... let this one be a lesson to us all.

Labels: 40th General Election, Close Margins, Recounts

Before continuing with the series of "Gains and Losses" posts, it would probably be a good idea to review the state of the election results in each of the ridings, and where we're at with the various recounts. I'll update this post as developments unfold.

[For example, see below for the latest on Vancouver South and now also Esquimalt – Juan de Fuca. And, just in ... Kitchener – Waterloo. Brampton West is now finished, in fact, so this will be the final update.]

Results have now proceeded from the "Preliminary" stage to the "Validated" stage in all 308 ridings, and there have been a further 6 judicial recounts announced and/or completed (see this Elections Canada page for the latest results, and an explanation of the circumstances under which an Automatic recount is considered, versus one that is requested by an elector):

• Egmont, PE: announced here, and results reported here
• Brossard – La Prairie, QC: announced here, and results reported here
• Brampton West, ON: announced here, and [VERY LAST UPDATE:] results reported here
• Kitchener – Waterloo, ON (Automatic judicial recount): announced here; results reported here
• Esquimalt – Juan de Fuca, BC: announced here, and [UPDATE:] results reported here
  
• Vancouver South, BC (Automatic judicial recount): announced here, and [FINAL Van South UPDATE:] results reported here. Early results were available anecdotally through news stories [UPDATE: and Kady's investigations ... it now appears that the partial results, as yet unreported on the Elections Canada site, may become the subject of a legal intervention by the Conservative candidate, who is said to be seeking an order that all the ballots be judicially recounted. Stay tuned. FURTHER UPDATE: The saga continues ... as the judge reconsiders his original methodology.

Because all the queries in the Pundits' Guide database are dynamically generated, as soon as I receive and enter the latest results, all the queries ... including the Party Scorecard on the main page ... are instantly updated.

Labels: 40th General Election, Recounts