| 7seven | 10-16-2015 05:50 PM |
I voted for the Conservatives during advanced polling but if the Liberals win, I too hope its a majority rather than a minority so things get done and we're not stuck in political limbo/gridlock. In terms of some issues, the Liberals are more similar to the Conservatives than the NDP, like not scraping C-51, keeping some military personal overseas, business tax breaks, etc... so I'd be ok with a Liberal majority rather than any minority gov't.
Seems like one of the larger strategic voting organizations is coming under fire for endorsing/getting people to vote for a NDP candidate who is a friend of the executive director rather than the Liberal candidate who according to most polls is ahead Quote:
Leadnow accused of pro-NDP bias, conflict of interest
Organization defends its endorsement of Vancouver Granville candidate Mira Oreck
BY PETER O'NEIL, VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 16, 2015
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STORYPHOTOS ( 2 )
Vancouver Sun Ottawa columnist Peter O'Neil spent one of the final days of the campaign with Stockwell Day and James Moore as they tried to sway voters to support Harper.
Leadnow, the highest-profile organization raising money and recruiting volunteers to encourage “strategic voting” aimed at defeating Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has been accused of a pro-NDP bias and an apparent conflict of interest.
That charge came after Leadnow endorsed on Thursday the NDP’s Mira Oreck over Liberal Jody Wilson-Raybould in Vancouver Granville, even though most current polling data suggests they are either in a statistical tie or that the Liberal has a clear lead.
The executive-director of Leadnow is Lyndsay Poaps, a Vancouver resident who is the founder of Frontrunner, a candidate school for young women. Oreck is a volunteer with that organization and the two are friends, Poaps confirmed in an interview.
One Vancouver Granville resident, who voted NDP in the 2011 election and plans to vote strategically for the Liberals on Monday, said Leadnow may be confusing voters due to an NDP bias.
The organization’s canvassers, who went to her door in August when the NDP had a big lead in B.C., said she was told residents should vote strategically to oust Harper and that Oreck was the best choice, according to Bernadine Bolton.
Now that momentum has switched to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, she’s wondering if the endorsement of Oreck could confuse voters and split the anti-Harper vote.
“It makes me very concerned,” said Bolton, who wrote to the Elections Canada returning officer Thursday to register her concerns about fairness and the Poaps-Oreck connection.
“I just want things to be fair. This is a very important election for us. I want people to be informed, and there’s a lot of confusion out there.”
Bolton’s letter of complaint said Leadnow is purporting to be an “independent and non-partisan” organization trying to defeat Harper, yet is releasing information “that appears skewed in favour of the NDP candidate (who) may have strong ties to Leadnow.”
Another riding resident and a Liberal campaign volunteer, Dale Hunter, said in an email to The Sun: “None of this passes the sniff test.”
But Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Canada’s former chief electoral officer, said there’s no apparent violation as long as Leadnow, a registered third party in this campaign, stays within rules which, for instance, don’t allow per-riding spending in excess of $8,788.22.
Poaps, who said canvassers did not endorse candidates prior to the organization making an endorsement, rejected the notion her organization is showing favouritism.
She said that, based on their own recent poll showing Oreck and Wilson-Raybould are in a statistical tie, they left it to the 5,400 people who signed up with Leadnow to participate in strategic voting.
Roughly 2,000 responded to the email survey, with the overwhelming majority saying they believe Leadnow should endorse a candidate.
Of those who cast a vote, 61 per cent favoured Oreck and 39 per cent Wilson-Raybould.
The survey included the Liberal and NDP positions that Poaps said are important to her organization. That list noted that Trudeau has “ruled out working with the NDP and Greens” on a coalition or formal agreement to govern, whereas the NDP’s Mulcair has said he’s open to that idea.
It also said the Liberals have said they will “study” different electoral reform options, whereas the NDP has vowed to “pass proportional representation electoral reform.”
And in another controversial matter that has divided Canada’s centre-left, it said the Liberals say they will amend Harper’s anti-terrorism law, while Mulcair has promised to “repeal the C-51 spying bill.”
Poaps rejected any suggestion that her personal relationship might have impacted the process.
“The decision was not up to me. We put all the information to our community,” said Poaps, who noted that across Canada, Leadnow has so far endorsed 13 Liberals and 10 New Democrats.
Oreck said she isn’t getting unfair help.
“Leadnow has their own process; I think everyone’s clear on what it is,” she said.
“My assumption and understanding is that their pledge-signers voted, and this is the outcome.”
Pollsters Frank Graves of Ekos and Mario Canseco of Insights West questioned why a strategic voting organization would take sides when polling doesn’t yet show an obvious anti-Harper candidate.
“I think it makes half of the progressive voters in the riding very upset,” Canseco said.
“So much for ‘uniting’ in the hopes of defeating Harper.”
Wilson-Raybould didn’t engage directly in the debate, saying through a spokesman: “I am confident that the people of Vancouver Granville will make their own choice for real change, and that it will be Liberal.”
Interview requests placed with Conservative candidate Erinn Broshko didn’t get a response.
Leadnow issued a new Environics poll earlier this week for that riding showing the Liberals at 35 per cent, the NDP at 33 per cent, the Conservatives at 28 per cent and the Greens, under candidate Michael Barkusky, at four per cent. That poll of 505 respondents, done Oct. 9 through 11 and using automated voice technology, had an error margin of 4.4 percentage points, putting the Liberals and NDP at a statistical tie.
But another poll, sponsored by Friends of Canadian broadcasting and conducted by Mainstreet Research on Oct. 8, had the Liberals way ahead there. It used similar technology but with a larger sample size (665) and resulting lower error margin (3.7 percentage points).
That poll put 44 per cent of decided and leaning voters with the Liberals, 28 per cent with the NDP, 20 per cent with the Conservatives and nine per cent with the Greens.
Among the polling analysts and strategic voting sites that have released data or taken a position:
* Strategicvoting.ca concluded the race is too close to call, and that people should “vote your preference.”
* threehundredeight.com, which aggregates all polls while considering factors such as voting histories and incumbency, said those polls suggest 46.1 per cent are with the Liberals, 23.8 per cent with the NDP, 22 per cent for the Conservatives, and 8.1 per cent for the Greens.
* tooclosetocall.ca, which uses a more cautious formula to calculate polling trends, has the Liberals at 35 per cent in the riding, compared to 28 per cent for the NDP and 27 per cent for the Conservatives.
| Leadnow accused of pro-NDP bias, conflict of interest |
