…and a mea culpa.
In a previous post I referred to a “14-seat” Conservative majority. In fact it is a 12-seat majority.
On election night, May 2, 2011, the Conservatives had reportedly won 168 seats. The number of seats required for a majority is 155. At that point, therefore, it was accurate to speak of a 14-seat majority. Two commentators, Matt Peters and Ryan Boldt, wrote an article noting that the total number of voters who handed the Conservatives their majority was 6201.
By the time that article appeared, the final tally had already reduced the number of Conservative seats to 167. A subsequent re-count (which I noted in an earlier post, but from which I stupidly failed to draw the proper conclusion) reduced that further, to 166, handing Montmagny-L’islet-Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup (Quebec) to the NDP.
Current CPC standings in the House are 165, but that is because Peter Goldring (Edmonton East) chose to sit as an Independent in December, 2011. He remains, however, formally aligned with the Conservatives.
So, how many voters decided that 12-seat majority? 5189.*
And of the twelve ridings involved, five have been implicated so far in the robocall/phone bank scandal, ridings with margins of Conservative victory as low as 18 votes. Stay tuned.
The number of ridings reportedly affected by vote suppression techniques, by the way, is now almost at the 50-mark.
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* From the former revised list of fourteen ridings, the two with the highest margins of victory—Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River (MOV: 789) and Don Valley East (MOV: 870)—should be dropped.
