1257 replies to this topic

[John M.]

I'm glad I don't live in Victoria. If the choice was between Lisa Helps and Dean Fortin, well...

[rjag]

It could be worse it could be between gudgeon & isitt!!!

[spanky123]

If this is the group I think it is then the poll isn't for or against Fortin, it is to determine the issues to get a councilor elected. The group wants to take a run at council on the belief that even if Fortin is re-elected they can still control the agenda.

 

Not a bad strategy if 2-3 councilors decide to run for Mayor and vacate their seats. Might be harder to run against a full slate of incumbents.

Edited by spanky123, 01 February 2014 - 08:56 AM.

[Holden West]

^Spending money on an expensive poll just for a council seat? Or are they backing a slate of candidates? Something big is afoot.

There will be one guaranteed vacancy with Helps giving up her seat. If she fails in her mayoral bid she's out of City Hall--a big gamble.

 

I can't see anyone else stepping down so any newbies will have to topple an incumbent. Gudgeon is the most vulnerable. 

[Mike K.]

Perhaps Helps is actually fine with losing her seat. Being a councillor is glamorous for the first month, afterwards there's lots of trudging through mud.

[spanky123]

^^ The group I know about is putting forward a slate of 5-6 councilors for election. If they are successful then it won't matter who the Mayor is.

[AmalgamationYes]

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/B32YZP7  

Which issue will be a top issue in upcoming municipal election 

[Mike K.]

Is this group affiliated with the folks who were behind Open Victoria in 2011?

[Holden West]

Is this group affiliated with the folks who were behind Open Victoria in 2011?

 

I hope not. I can't take another season of The Not Ready For Prime Time Players.

[Mike K.]

To be fair OV had experienced people working in the background. Their problems were starting the campaign way too late and focusing too much on the mayoral candidate.

To overcome Dean will take serious money, and unless you're being bankrolled by unions it's difficult to amass big donations.

Speaking of which, why do we still allow unions to financially support political campaigns?

[spanky123]

^ The problem isn't funding as much as it is strategy and timing as you suggest. It isn't easy finding credible, naïve people!

[Bernard]

I was just polled. I wasn't sure if it's pro-Dean or anti-Dean. 

 

They asked yes or no questions regarding:

 

• Is the City on te right track or going in the wrong direction?
• What's the most important issue?
• Is Fortin doing a good job or a poor job?
• Is council doing a good job or poor job?

 

Next came "scale of 1-10" questions on the importance of:

 

• infrastructure
• improving services
• reducing homelessness
• streamlining the building development process
• implementing the CRD's sewage plan
• taking steps to reducing crime
• getting spending under control
• improving transit and reducing traffic
• improving communications at City Hall
• reducing administration costs by doing more outsourcing
• reducing red tape and waste

 

Next came some interesting questions on how you would rate potential candidates with the following attributes:

• a professional lawyer or accountant
• a track record of community service
• a person operates local business
• an environmental activist
• a social activist 
• a member of the Chamber of Commerce
• someone experienced in politics
• someone connected to a provincial or federal political party you support

 

Next came a curious scenario. Given two hypothetical candidates, which would you prefer?

1. a social activist who would increase spending to care for vulnerable people
2. small business person who would limit spending 

 

Then a question about whether you were an immigrant or if your parents were born in Canada and if you were a member of labour union.

 

It's hard to read between the lines to find out if it's for a potential right-wing/business candidate or not. It really seemed to focus on the whole business/union axis so I doubt it was for Lisa Helps or a sitting councillor.

Can you tell me is if it was a live phone poll or computer phone call?

 

How did they make sure you lived in Victoria?  Did they make sure you did vote in the past and plan to vote in 2014?

 

They should have said who they were, as what the company was, do you remember?

 

I am interested in knowing the details.  Polling is very hard to do well for provincial or federal politics but it is even harder to do well with municipal politics.    Because of the low voter turnout most of the responses the pollster will get are from people that will not vote which means it is a poll of the non-voters as opposed to the voters.

 

The next problem is that it is really hard to know who the voting population is in a local a local election.  For the poll to be at all accurate your demographics have to reasonably reflect the demographics of the voters.    Since it is very hard to reach people under the age fo 50 on a landline, phone polls reflect the views of older people and not the general public.  

 

Finally, trying to keep a poll restricted to the City of Victoria is very, very hard to do because of how people's addresses an phone numbers are in the various databases used for polling.   They are quite inaccurate when trying to get people based on local government boundaries especially in this region.   In the case of Victoria these databases tend to have significant leakage of people in Oak Bay, Esquimalt and Saanich within the Victoria lists.   There are also Victoria addresses that are in the database for Saanich, as an example my old place on Harriet is in Victoria but in the databases comes up as Saanich.  You also get problems because people often keep their land lines numbers now when they move.

 

Sample size matter as well.  For the poll to tell you much of anything you need a sample of 1,000 to 1,500 respondents with opinions.   Smaller samples are not nearly precise enough to tell you much useful if your goal is to plan something about an election.   

 

Finally, a single poll on anything is a waste of time because there is no way to see the trends.  You need at least three polls to get any idea of a trend but to see any meaningful trends you need at least five polls.

 

To understand the political landscape from polling in a City of Victoria you need five consecutive polls of at least 1,000 respondents - once you have a response from a number you should not be calling it again in surveys in the immediate future.   This means you will have to have asked the opinion of at least 5,000 out of the 63,000 voters.    Since many homes do not have landlines and most landlines represent 2 voters, there are likely only about 15,000 to 20,000 land lines to call.   Given an industry average of 95% to 98% refusal for IVR calling about 75% for live phone calls,  there is little chance you can actually run enough polls to get viable data.

 

If you look at internet opt in panels, there are unlikely to be more than 500 to 2000 panelists for the largest internet panels for any one company that live within the City of Victoria.  They would have ask all their panelists to answer any local poll.

[Holden West]

Duh, I didn't ask who was doing the poll. They probably said so at the beginning but Mrs. West answered the phone. They didn't confirm residency or address. It was a person, not a robo-poll. 

 

I agree, it's tough getting accurate polling data at the municipal level. I'm still at a loss as to who commissioned it.

[Mike K.]

How did they know you were a legit voter in the City of Victoria? I mean this was a random poll, no?

[North Shore]

Speaking of which, why do we still allow unions to financially support political campaigns?

For the same reasons that we allow businesses to support campaigns?  Something about freedom of association?

[spanky123]

How did they know you were a legit voter in the City of Victoria? I mean this was a random poll, no?

 

Anyone can buy lists of telephone numbers by postal code.

[Bingo]

Anyone can buy lists of telephone numbers by postal code.

 

That isn't accurate. I've had the same phone number for 20 years and have lived in three different municipalities during that period.

[Mike K.]

For the same reasons that we allow businesses to support campaigns? Something about freedom of association?

Private business employees are not forced to pay a monthly stipend that will then be used to back political hopefuls.

[rjag]

Both Business and Unions should be banned from making any political contribution whether in cash or in kind. Only registered voters should be allowed up to a max amount of say $250

[Mike K.]

I'd be totally fine with that.

 

What I don't like are multi-thousand dollar contributions from unions to back specific candidates or to play partisan politics. That's not cool.