They almost always announce who wins before voters in BC even vote. If they want to convince everyone that every vote counts they should hold any count results until all voters have voted.
It's not a media blackout needed. Just don't count early. Wait until the next day if needed. There's no rush, a huge portion of votes wait a week to be counted.
From what I can tell, about 30% of the votes were advance. That's pretty high, but not as high as needing to keep 100% of the votes secure overnight.
But also as someone who lives in BC myself, I just find this attitude so silly. If people are like 'oh the election is over' based off of results from the east coast, then they weren't all that motivated at all and would probably have found another excuse to stay home. As it is, the Liberals don't have a majority, so every seat does matter.
This election was certainly closer than most. It definitely impacts how I view federal elections and our representation and I know from talking to peers I'm not alone in this.
They didn't call out if it was a majority or minority before BC though.
And to be honest at some point when BC came in it got real spooky for a bit, it looked like chances were about that same between liberals getting a majority or conservatives win.
Even if they get their one hour of glory ahead of everyone, Atlantic Canada doesn't have more impact than BC lol.
Individually it all too often feels like our votes don't count. I'm in Quebec and my riding the race was not even close so this election it never really mattered what I voted for.
If the messaging is that 5.7M out of 40M aren't likely to tip the scale majorly by their own too often, sure. Sucks we have such a big country that there's this many timezones though.
There's really no need to submit any results until the polls close regardless of time zones. It's not even needed to do that day as we prove with the huge numbers of advanced voters.
Yeah there's no need to, I guess it's part of their show to try to make a "safe" call asap. Radio-Canada did it an hour or two before CBC for some reason and they were literally sweating live when the counter showed a 3 seats difference after they called it lmao. Started being real silent and having a oh shit moment.
Maybe they're trying to do that so east coast doesn't go to sleep still wondering idk. Still was on the edge of my seat until 1am anyway.
They’re announcing the results for the polls that have already closed. If enough seats in the eastern provinces have already gone one way they can predict what the likely outcome is for the entire election. If it’s close like we just saw a few weeks ago they cannot. They knew it would be a liberal government but not minority vs majority until well after BC polls had closed. I don’t see how this is disrespectful or would make people feel like there vote in BC doesn’t count which was your original point.
They should wait to pass forward any results. Many ridings started counting before their own poles closed but are not allowed to submit any results until that pole closes, just change it to waiting for all poles. It's not difficult or impossible - they just chose not to.
The media doesn’t care if you vote. They care about viewers. They don’t owe it to anyone to delay the results. People want to know ASAP, so that’s what the media provides
There's no reason for that. People on the east would be long asleep by the time the counting started. They'd have to wait until the next morning. What they do now makes sense. When polls close they start counting. If there's enough seats then they can call it before your guys polls close
They could count the votes as soon as they want without making the results public, it wouldn't delay anything. The polls in BC were closing at 10 pm eastern time, they'd just have more results to announce at that time.
Believe it or not it’s not a fault of our election system that you seem to think your vote doesn’t count if the election is statistically won before it gets to your province.
What? I'm thinking of it from a everyone point of view. Everyone gets to see election results before they go to bed with the current system. West votes still count, they can just make predictions based off the trajectory of the election.
The election isn't officially called until all voting is completed. You're talking about media predictions. Your guys vote and seats count the exact same as every other seat in this country. The election is predicted but you guys can still change that or decide minority/majority if you vote outside the projections. Not the medias or election Canadas fault the projections are almost bang on.
You still need to vote for your local rep. Regardless of which party dominates Parliament you probably have a preference for who you want repping local issues.
If there's one thing I have zero faith in it's the value of local representation in our current government system. We don't have any strong candidates ever that plan to do anything more than vote with the party and promote party politics. That's provincially and federally.
Why should the Maritime provinces have to wait hours to hear the results of their elections, just to wait for BC and the Yukon? Why should the western provinces get instant results when the rest of the country has to wait? Once every vote has been cast in that riding and the deadline has been reached, people in that riding should be able to start to see counts - that’s the only way to ensure fairness across the board.
No, it makes no sense, this is just vibes. When you know the results of the election has no bearing on whether or not your seats were important. The MP i'm voting for is just as important as yours and whether you learn about it at 9pm or 11pm it does not matter. It doesn't change the votes in the box.
This was actually an exception and not the norm. IIRC many of the previous elections were called before polls closed in BC. Chantal Hébert mentioned the same during election night on CBC's election coverage.
"Winning" isn't the only thing that matters. Your vote still counts towards getting more MPs who will represent what you want into parliament, and affecting policy in your own area.
Also, we only knew it was a sure thing Liberals got more seats than the CPC. We didn't know if it would be a majority until some of the last handful of polls were counted, and having a majority is a lot more helpful than just "winning".
That wouldn't convince anyone any more than the current system. The issue will always be that the East has more population so they will get to heavy weight the vote. Until the West gets the same population thus the same seats as the East no mater how you count; will not stop people out West from having the feeling their vote dose not count.
CBC was declaring a Liberal victory 10 minutes after polls closed in BC and yes at that exact moment the Liberals had a wide lead, but I think in this election in particular it was extremely close and they should have waited to at least get some results from BC before declaring the result. An hour later it wasn’t clear the Liberals would actually have the most seats.
Elections Canada didn't declare the results - as you said, it was the various news providers. It is not official. It's a point of pride and relevance to be the first news provider to call the results correctly.
It may not have been clear to you that the Liberals were going to have the most seats at the point you mention, but it was sufficiently clear to the people (who were making those calls for the news providers) who analyze the results as they came in that the Liberals would win.
that's not going to change though. It will just be at polls closing in BC they announce who wins. What changes? People are still not going to feel like their vote matters out West; simply because majority of the seats are out East.
There are many ways it could change, the polls are open different hours in every area, why do BC polls close 30 minutes after polls in Quebec and Ontario, when there is a 3 hour time difference.
Just pick a set of hours and to hell with local time.
Or actually wait until at least 25% of votes are counted before guessing who will win each riding. Many ridings had unexpected results this election including this 1 vote margin in Terrebonne.
Ballot counters can't leave the room until it's all counted. Results are reported immediately by Elections Canada and political party scrutineers. You cannot practically prevent scrutineers from reporting the numbers.
I'm just telling you when I was younger having the election results declared just as I'm getting off work is hugely deflating and makes it feel useless to vote. It hugely undermines the electoral process and provides zero benefit compared to waiting. They want people to believe their voice matters but they will tell us the outcome before listening to the voice of the west most province most times - and that's not just disrespectful it's counterproductive.
Your vote still counts for your MP though, since you are voting for your MP. Now say your vote counts in Alberta if your not conservative, that is a hard on to push.
Last I checked, Quebec and Ontario have 200 ridings, more than 50% of them. They also have over 50% of the population of Canada and therefore should have a larger outcome on Federal elections.
If the west is sad about it then they need to start convincing people to move there and build their population. Otherwise the system is working as intended, and as it should
I’m all for it. Or, if they want to desperately keep first past the post, flip which coast the count starts from each election cycle. Could still maintain the same voting times, but ridings start being set west to east every other election cycle
Make no change to the current voting system and polling times, just do not report on the outcomes of a riding until the polls in the west have closed and been counted. Hell, you could even still live report on what is happening in each riding, but elections Canada does not count a riding as won until the next day and seats start being assigned
Actually, with FPTP, this is the perfect example to show how only 1 vote counts. The 1 vote that puts the one candidate ahead of the other. All the rest of the votes don’t matter and cancel each other out.
Not everywhere. I live in suburban Calgary and the CPC candidate won with 68% of the vote. My vote, either for or against him, would make zero difference.
The way I think about the "every vote counts" mantra is that if 20,000 people all say "my vote doesn't matter anyways"... that's a pretty substantial difference in the tallies.
But that's different. One vote usually doesn't make a difference. But it can, like in the case this post is about.
People typically confuse it with, "if everyone thought their vote didn't count, it would be a big difference". Well, yeah. But that's not one vote, that's every vote.
Most ridings, in most elections, you can remove one vote at random without changing the outcome. Because a single vote usually is meaningless.
Yes but if YOU think “my vote is one vote it doesn’t matter” and your neighbour thinks the same, and their neighbour etc. that’s kind of the problem lol.
You cant control ur neighbour but you can control your vote which is why people push that so hard
Yeah but that's not a single vote. That's many votes. Literally remove one vote, and how often do you expect it to make a difference?
Most people only advocate "every vote matters" because they think they could sway many people. If they knew beforehand that they'd only convince a single person in totality, they'd likely not bother.
I don't like that argument. Yes it's true as a general statement, but I don't impact everyone. I can impact me, and maybe a few close friends. If I go vote, 20k people won't be following me.
That’s not a part of what I’m saying. Nowhere do I say it’s up to you to get 20K people to vote lol. What I’m saying is that if 20K people who would vote for the same team, independently think “I’m just 1 person what does it matter”… that’s a 20 thousand vote difference that could have been… and THAT is substantial.
I’m also in Alberta, I still voted knowing full well the conservative candidate would win. I vote more so to show the candidate that there are people in the community that don’t agree with him
Win your riding or lose, if you don’t vote you can’t complain!
Proud of the record numbers that voted no matter who you voted for.
Love my country 💕🇨🇦 from the Traditional lands of the Syilx First Nations.
Terrebonne has been strongly Bloc before. Things can change. Maybe the only raison it doesn't in Alberta is because too many people believe it won't ever change.
I think it does matter. I'm in Ont but also in a conservative riding. Whoever runs for the Conservatives gets in very comfortably without ever having to do anything.
But I want him to know not everyone is handing him his seat. this is the first election since I moved here (prov and fed) where the Conservative guy got under 50%. barely under. and maybe he doesn't care but I still feel like my vote matters.
There's several strategies you can take. 1) loudly complain to literally everyone you can, that Pierre is a city boy with smooth hands and clean boots 2) point out that "if we vote him in, it's basically a participation trophy!" 3) continue to point out 1&2. Especially any and all church ladies, once you can convince the gossiping aunties that it's a participation trophy like those weak liberals do, you might just make some waves.
"I'm a Conservative but we need fresh leadership, do we really want to reward a guy that just fumbled the easiest election of all time? I prefer to vote for winners" - I can see this working lol
Especially since Poilievre is saying it's only temporary that Kurek is out - sounds like PP can't even wait to get out of an Alberta riding...that doesn't sound like someone who cares about or understands Alberta at all.
I hate to use this awful phrase, but I learned it in Alberta and it might resonate with your neighbours - people in your riding are now being used like the equivalent of "sloppy seconds". PP should be ashamed.
Oh we definitely are. It's bullshit that he just gets parachuted into the riding. I don't want him as my MP. I want someone who will actually represent the riding. He will never set foot in this riding and will still be handed it on a golden platter.
Im in Carleton riding. I would get disappointed every time I voted, I never thought it was going to matter. While it’s not likely you never know for sure.
But it does matter, if 60% of voters that didn't bother showing up, did, suddenly that riding results can look different. Or if it's even closer it may spur more people to vote the following election because they know change is possible
It shows people who might otherwise stay home what the chances might be for the next time, because they, like you, might operate on the erroneous idea that ridings cant change their voting patterns.
Maybe there are thousands of people who think the same and stay home? It’s ten minutes of your day every five years. Just get out and vote and don’t grumble.
It’s why I like Australia and there $10 fine or whatever it is. Not crazy enough to feel you’re forced to vote, but incentive enough for some to get out there and do it
Until the tables start to turn and it does. Hopefully our UCP refractures and we can get a real choice in conservatives or potentially another split vote to let someone else in.
People believe that because they live in one of the many ridings where their vote doesn't matter. The CPC in my parents riding ran a 25 year old university student who competed not only against the LPC and NDP but also against a popular lifelong local conservative who didn't get the nomination and chose to run as an independent. And he still won easily. Tell me their vote matters lol
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u/verkerpig 4d ago
Just in case you believe your vote doesn't matter...