Comments on: Civic Election Results for Metro Vancouver

By: Pete Quily

Pete Quily — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:31:38 +0000

wow, that’s a lot of twitter traffic Rebecca. It’s also interesting what the Gazetter has to say about the map, look at the population density of each color, if you were a political party, which color would you rather be?

I did a blog post comparing Gregor Robertson vs Peter Ladner in 25 social media and SEO metrics. Here’s some of the Twitter related findings for you and your readers

Gregor Robertson had 468% more twitter followers and double the number of search results for his name in Twitter as Peter Ladner, but Ladner cranked out 3 times more updates.

Gregor only responded to another twitter user 3 times, and 2 of them were to his online campaign manager. But Peter Lander not only never responded to anyone, he wasn’t following a single person.

http://adultaddstrengths.com/2008/11/18/social-media-and-seo-scorecard/

By: Jonathon

Jonathon — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:50:11 +0000

Interesting note about the BC Twitter traffic. That is very cool.

As for Robertson’s victory, it appears he’s been given a very hefty mandate for change. I hope he’ll be able to pull off some big changes re: social disorder issues. My take on it is at http://jnarvey.com/2008/11/16/cityview-vancouvers-new-mayors-first-priority-homelessness/

By: Hez

Hez — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:30:13 +0000

Darn! Why do I never find out the proper Twitter hashtags until it’s too late? I posted tweets under #VancouverElection (not a lot, mind you)… oh well. At least I made it out to vote (with barely half an hour to spare)!

By: James

James — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:41:26 +0000

NPA councillor Susan Anton squeaked in for one reason. With a last name starting with an “A” she is first in the list of councillor candidates on the ballot and as such gets a favourable number of easy votes.

If people really understood what a sycophant she is to the old-boy real estate developers who run UBC Properties Trust they would have tossed her out too.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 08:35:11 +0000

I’m sad Paul didn’t make the cut, I was out at surrey central helping him hand out pamphlets a couple weeks ago.

By: Miss604

Miss604 — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 07:32:26 +0000

@ Bree – I tried that site but it appears to be overloaded so I’m looking to other sources.

@ Jenny – I think the amount of votes he did get speaks volumes – he’s definitely on the right track and the City needs to acknowledge that.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 07:29:45 +0000

Keep trying, Paul!! I hope to see his name on the ballot next year.

By: Gregg

Gregg — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 07:01:19 +0000

It seems Abbotsford is not included in the CBC results, they stopped at Langley. I found the Abbotsford results here.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 06:31:01 +0000

Too bad Paul didn’t get in but I hope he keeps up his work and one day he will be elected.

By: Bree

Bree — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 06:24:12 +0000

CBC doesn’t have very good results. You’re better off looking at the http://www.civicinfo.bc.ca/ site (albeit, it is slow) and on Twitter. For Vancouver, the city’s official site has had the best coverage this election. CBC, CTV, Georgia Straight, Vancouver Sun and Global have had shamefully bad coverage for areas outside Vancouver proper. Of all the sources, Twitter and Shaw’s cable news channel had the most up-to-date information.

As a hyper-local blog for New Westminster, our focus has of course been on our city. I’m actually rather disappointed to say that we had the first online results for our municipality (taken from Shaw TV’s coverage, validated by later updates from the Royal City Record and eventually the official city website). Voter apathy is a catch-22. The mainstream media doesn’t give it the attention it deserves because they feel the interest is not there. I believe one big reason voters don’t exercise their franchise is because they don’t feel well-enough informed. And thus, the bloggers and Tweeters step in.