Monday, February 27, 2012

False equivalency

No, Canadian media, embarrassing a minister isn't just the same as trying to suppress voter turnout. Montreal Simon gets it:
while Vikileaks may have embarrassed Toews, it was not illegal, and should not be mentioned in the same breath as this criminal attempt to steal an election.
I looked at the vote gap in all of the ridings that the Liberals and the NDP are now investigating, plus the fine summary at Sixth Estate.
Many of these ridings had margins of thousands of vote, sometimes more than 10,000, so a suppression of voter turnout would likely not have made a difference in the final result.
But how about these six seats?
The Conservative candidate squeaked in, defeating the incumbent party in every case.
- Elmwood Tascona (MB): Lawrence Toet (Con) defeated incumbent Jim Maloway (NDP) by 300 votes out of 33,000 cast.
- Etobicoke Centre (ON): Ted Opitz (Con) defeated incumbent Borys Wrzesnewskyj (Lib) by 26 votes out of 52,000 cast
- Mississauga East-Cooksville (ON): Wladyslaw Lizon, (Con) defeated Peter Fonseca (Lib) by 600 votes out of 47,000 cast. Fonseca was not the incumbent, but the seat had been held by the Liberals since the riding was created in 2004.
- Nipissing Timiskaming (ON): Jay Aspen (Con) defeated incumbent Anthony Rota (Lib) by 18 votes out of 42,000 cast.
- Willowdale (ON): Chungsen Leung (Con) defeated incumbent Martha Hall Findlay (Lib) by 940 votes out of 54,000 cast.
- Winnipeg South Centre (MB): Joyce Bateman (Con) defeated incumbent Anita Neville (Lib) by 800 votes out of 40,000 cast.
And I'm wondering about some of the other close seats now, too.

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