Candidate election campaign return data has now been entered and/or updated for the 2006 By-elections, the 2007 By-elections, and the 2008 By-elections.

Moreover I also found the time to add in the information required to link to every candidate's original return details at the Elections Canada website (except for 1997 General Election candidates, since that election's data is nearly impossible to link to directly; sorry).

If you're new to the Pundits' Guide, here's how to find candidate financial data:

• Find your riding of interest, either by
• drilling down through the "Browse Regions" page, or
  
• doing a Quick Search from the left-hand column on any part of the riding name, or by
  
• doing a Quick Search for a candidate of interest on any part of the candidate's name, and then clicking on the relevant riding from the candidate index page.


• From the riding profile page (e.g., let's look at Vancouver Quadra, BC), click on the "Financial Metrics" tab

• If you want to bookmark the page with that tab's data showing, click on the link called "Permalink" at the top-right hand corner of the page (in our example, you'd wind up here)
• Don't forget that candidate financial data displayed in italics at the Pundits' Guide is still in the "as submitted" stage (in our example below, Green Party candidate Dan Grice's return still has not been reviewed by Elections Canada, and so appears in italics)
  
• Now, notice the small Elections Canada icon next to each candidate's name. If you hover your mouse pointer over the icon, it says "Link to Candidate Financial Return at Elections Canada"

• If you click on that icon, it opens the candidate's return details from the Elections Canada website in a new window.
• Unfortunately Elections Canada does not label that page with the candidate's name, but TRUST ME. Select a part of the return you're interested in (e.g., "Part 2a - Statement of Contributions Received"), and click on it. Now, you're away to the races. You can even select a different part of the return from the drop-down list they provide.

Nearly all of the by-election returns are in "as reviewed" state for the 2006 and 2007 by-elections, but there are quite a few still in the "as submitted" stage for the 2008 by-elections candidates, as you can see from the table below.

# of Candidate Returns either Nil, or Not Submitted to, or Not Yet Reviewed by, Elections Canada; by Party and Electoral Event

Party	Party Name	2006 By	2007 By	2008 By
Oth	Canadian Action Party			1
Oth	neorhino.ca			1
Ind	Indep/No Affil	1
Lib	Liberal Party of Canada	1		2
NDP	New Democratic Party		1	2
Cons	Conservative Party of Canada			1
Grn	Green Party of Canada		1	3

Labels: 2_How to Search the Database, Election Expenses, Election Finance, March 17 2008 By-elections, Nov 27 2006 By-elections, Sept 17 2007 By-elections

Data is now up for the Candidate and Party Election Campaign Returns from the three Québec ridings in the 2007 By-elections, namely:

• Outremont, QC
• Roberval – Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
• Saint-Hyacinthe – Bagot, QC

You can also find a good summary on the "Browse Parties" page for that electoral event here.

Rebate information is not yet available for parties or candidates however, and not all candidates' returns have been finally reviewed by Elections Canada. Remember, when the Candidate Finance data at the Pundits' Guide is not "as reviewed by Elections Canada", but only "as submitted to Elections Canada", it appears in italics on the "Financial Metrics" tab of the riding profile page.

A couple of notes:

• Only Conservative Party candidates spent > 75% of the candidate spending limits in each of the 3 ridings, and in total its candidates spent some 95% of the limit.
• The Bloc spent >75% in 2 of the 3 ridings (total spending of 86% of the candidate limits), while the Liberals and NDP clearly concentrated on Outremont.

In addition to the $254,876 that could be spent by candidates across the 3 ridings, a registered party fielding 3 candidates in that set of by-elections could itself spend an additional $171,997 in support of those campaigns. The amounts spent are reported in Part 3a of the Registered Parties annual returns (you can find the details here, at the Elections Canada site, for the 2007 By-Elections; select the party you're interested in from their drop-down list once you get there).

• Again, the Conservative Party spent 92% of its party by-election spending limit. However, interestingly it split the spending mainly between Roberval – Lac-Saint-Jean and Saint-Hyacinthe – Bagot, the two seats where they wound up being more competitive.
• The Liberal Party spent just under half (46%) of its party by-election spending limit; and all but $3800 or so of that was put into Outremont.
• The NDP spent 12% of its by-election spending limit, split equally between the three ridings.
• Neither the Bloc nor the Green Party reporting reported any party-level spending on the three by-election campaigns.

Labels: Election Expenses, Sept 17 2007 By-elections

This afternoon, I'm introducing a scorecard to keep track of the parties' performance on by-election night Monday.

Of course, winning a seat is the primary objective of a political party in any first-past-the-post system. However, pundits would get very bored if that were the only criteria for ranking things.

Therefore, I've compiled a summary table that shows at a glance where gains and losses are made on four other metrics as well: 2nd place finishes, percent of the vote, raw vote, and the number of seats in which a candidate achieved a sufficient vote percentage to become eligible for a rebate of election expenses (one metric, believe me, that the parties look at *very* closely ... especially the ones for whom fund-raising and campaign finance is a major preoccupation).

The Party Scorecard table will appear at the top of the home page here (i.e., the blog's main address) throughout the by-elections result period, and will stay as "live" as I can keep it that night. Then I'll retire it to a blog-post for historical reference.

For an example of what you'll find there, here's what the Party Scorecard looked like for the past two sets of by-elections.

Party Scorecard - 2007 By-election(s)

2007 By-election(s)	Lib	NDP	Grn	BQ	Cons	Rest
Vote Pct	14.2% (-3.0%)	17.1% (+8.0%)	2.6% (-1.7%)	28.1% (-16.2%)	37.0% (+12.2%)	1.0% (+0.7%)
Seats	(-1)	1 (+1)		1 (-1)	1 (+1)
2nds	1 (+1)			1 (--)	1 (-1)
Rebate Eligib.	1 (--)	1 (--)		3 (--)	2 (-1)
Raw Vote	12104 (-10,076)	14587 (+2,729)	2197 (-3,374)	23891 (-33,311)	31480 (-474)	882 (+458)

A few things jump out of the 2007 By-election score-card: (i) the Conservatives although increasing their percentage of the vote, actually lost raw votes across the three ridings (Outremont, Roberval – Lac-Saint-Jean, and Saint-Hyacinthe – Bagot, all in Québec), and in fact dropped below the rebate threshold in Outremont, (ii) the NDP was the only party to increase both its raw vote and vote percentage, and (iii) the strong showing of the Green Party from the previous set of by-elections in 2006 (held in London North Centre, ON and Repentigny, QC) was not repeated in the 2007 group.

Party Scorecard - 2006 By-elections

2006 By-elections	Lib	NDP	Grn	BQ	Cons	Rest
Vote Pct	22.0% (-3.0%)	10.9% (-5.1%)	14.2% (+9.9%)	29.8% (-0.3%)	21.9% (-2.3%)	1.2% (+0.8%)
Seats	1 (--)			1 (--)
2nds			1 (+1)		1 (-1)
Rebate Eligib.	1 (--)	1 (--)	1 (+1)	1 (--)	2 (--)
Raw Vote	15225 (-13,731)	7552 (-11,056)	9845 (+4,803)	20635 (-14,323)	15149 (-12,943)	836 (+393)

This last point is important to underscore, because by-elections are so highly volatile ... they are ridings without incumbents, where parties are able to focus as much or as little attention on them as they like, and where the set of ridings in play is small and random and not usually representative of the political terrain as a whole.

[UPDATE: Blogger sucks at tables. I hope they fix that soon. :-(]

Labels: March 17 2008 By-elections, Nov 27 2006 By-elections, Party Scorecard, Sept 17 2007 By-elections

Preliminary results are now in for the 3 Québec by-elections, and upsets have occurred in Outremont and Roberval--Lac-St-Jean while the incumbent party has held on in Ste-Hyacinthe--Bagot.

Meantime, I'm making headway with the programming of my web-site; and some new functionality (most of it working, even) plus some new charting is available there now.

Hopefully I can publish a working version to this URL within a couple of weeks. Wish me luck.

Labels: Outremont, Roberval-Lac-St-Jean, Sept 17 2007 By-elections, Ste-Hyacinthe-Bagot

The parties have been on a push to recruit and nominate their candidates for a much-anticipated by-election in Outremont, the former riding of former-Liberal-turned-Bloc-founder-turned-reborn-Liberal Jean Lapierre.

Calls are also expected for the Québec ridings of Ste-Hyacinthe--Bagot and possibly Roberval--Lac-St-Jean, and could come soon for the BC riding of Vancouver Quadra and the Saskatchewan riding of Desnethé -- Missinippi -- Churchill River.

Meantime, I have been on a push to get my site ready to go public. Right now it's touch and go whether it will be ready before the PM is ready to call Willowdale and Toronto Centre. Wish me luck.

Labels: March 17 2008 By-elections, Outremont, Roberval-Lac-St-Jean, Sept 17 2007 By-elections, Ste-Hyacinthe-Bagot