Calgary Centre Federal By-election - Nov 26 (UPDATE - Crockatt wins for CPC)

[MarchHare]

Just voted at Sacred Heart School in Sunalta. Was in and out in under 90 seconds (no exaggeration). This was by far the fastest voting experience I've ever had in any election.

My wife and I were having an interesting discussion about game theory while walking to the polling station. We both wanted to see Crockett defeated, but we didn't have a strong preference between Locke and Turner. From a strategic sense, we were wondering if it made more sense for us to double our votes for one candidate or each vote for a different one since we're not sure which of the two will be Crockett's strongest challenger (Meades was obviously out of the running as he is polling poorly and his campaign has no momentum going into election day).

So, game theorists of CP, what should our optimal voting strategy have been?

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Just voted at Sacred Heart School in Sunalta. Was in and out in under 90 seconds (no exaggeration). This was by far the fastest voting experience I've ever had in any election.

Cool. I'm on my way there now. Still no idea who to vote for though.

[Slava]

The election has an interesting dynamic to it because of the shifting due to voter turnout. In other words your two votes can be more meaningful than they would be with 100% turnout and if one candidate had a better GOTV effort in a smaller sample size then your two votes can be extraordinarily meaningful in that collection. So what I mean is if the turnout is 22% across the riding, but one party manages to keep their turnout where it was at say 55% last time, they will likely crush the others. So that's one factor. Related to this is the idea that its not a zero sum game.

I'm not well versed in game theory, and certainly don't know all of the ins and outs, so maybe my contribution is pretty pathetic in hindsight!

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Just voted at Sacred Heart School in Sunalta. Was in and out in under 90 seconds (no exaggeration). This was by far the fastest voting experience I've ever had in any election.

My wife and I were having an interesting discussion about game theory while walking to the polling station. We both wanted to see Crockett defeated, but we didn't have a strong preference between Locke and Turner. From a strategic sense, we were wondering if it made more sense for us to double our votes for one candidate or each vote for a different one since we're not sure which of the two will be Crockett's strongest challenger (Meades was obviously out of the running as he is polling poorly and his campaign has no momentum going into election day).

So, game theorists of CP, what should our optimal voting strategy have been?

voting liberal

[c.t.ner]

For those curious here's the link to the live results from Elections Canada for Calgary Centre... you know in case you don't want to watch it on Sun News.

http://enr.elections.ca/ElectoralDis...e.aspx?ed=1245

[First Lady]

Found this might be of interest, since unlikely to get much on TV

http://enr.elections.ca/ElectoralDis...e.aspx?ed=1245

Dang CTN beat me to it.

[RatherDashing]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

My wife and I were having an interesting discussion about game theory while walking to the polling station. We both wanted to see Crockett defeated, but we didn't have a strong preference between Locke and Turner. From a strategic sense, we were wondering if it made more sense for us to double our votes for one candidate or each vote for a different one since we're not sure which of the two will be Crockett's strongest challenger (Meades was obviously out of the running as he is polling poorly and his campaign has no momentum going into election day).

So, game theorists of CP, what should our optimal voting strategy have been?

I think if you consider both candidates to have an equal shot at winning, then it doesn't change the odds of Crockatt losing either way.

Consider candidate A to be the right choice (the one who ends up with more votes), and candidate B to be the wrong choice. You and your wife don't know if Turner or Locke are candidate A.

So if you put your votes together, there is a 50% chance of having two votes count, and a 50% chance of having no votes count. If you hedge your bets and split the vote, then there is a 100% chance of 1 vote counting. Essentially 100% of 1 vote is equivalent to 50% of 2 votes, since it is considered to be random.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by RatherDashing

I think if you consider both candidates to have an equal shot at winning, then it doesn't change the odds of Crockatt losing either way.

Consider candidate A to be the right choice (the one who ends up with more votes), and candidate B to be the wrong choice. You and your wife don't know if Turner or Locke are candidate A.

So if you put your votes together, there is a 50% chance of having two votes count, and a 50% chance of having no votes count. If you hedge your bets and split the vote, then there is a 100% chance of 1 vote counting. Essentially 100% of 1 vote is equivalent to 50% of 2 votes, since it is considered to be random.

However if you believe that a 50/50 vote split between Turner and Locke gives Crocket the win than voting for one Candidate gives you a chance of winning whereas splitting your vote guarentees the loss. Now expressed over a large number of people it still will balance out to a 50/50 split and crocket still wins so you are scewed. But at least both voting for one candidate would leave a chance if everyone behaved that way. For example if Crocket has 33% of the vote locked up and NDP gets 2% then all Turner or Locke need to do is have a better than 1% difference in their vote total. If every pair of voters entering agreed to split their vote to try to unseat Crocket than Crocket wins. If you allowed random variation of to equally liked canditates than Crocket loses. So I think the best options are either to not discuss it and vote randomly or vote for the same candidate.

[Kjesse]

I haven't followed this race a whole lot, but I'll be watching the results this evening.

I am not surprised that the 1CalgaryCenter site endorsed the Green candidate, as I had the impression from the start there was more of an agenda than just trying to unite the anti-conservative vote. What I am surprised about is how bold they are about doing so in the face of their own internal statistics which suggest Locke would be the safer candidate to get behind, unless you use statistics that seem tailor-made to promote the Green candidate.

Can anyone tell me if that site posted how they would evaluate the statistics BEFORE they made their "selection". It seems to me it was decided only after they reviewed their own polling data, and then skewed to make sure the Green candidate would win.

If they actually published their methodology before they decided, I'll stand corrected.

I feel dirty saying this but I'm actually hoping the Liberal candidate wins this race. The Green candidate is a charming, well spoken and smart guy, but I'm not on side with a lot of the platform.

[edslunch]

Anyone know where to see results?

[Mazrim]

Is Shaw Cable not doing an election show?

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by edslunch

Anyone know where to see results?

Six posts further up or *shudders* SunTV

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by edslunch

Anyone know where to see results?

Just a few posts up:

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpos...&postcount=527

[c.t.ner]

Originally Posted by Delgar

Can anyone tell me if that site posted how they would evaluate the statistics BEFORE they made their "selection". It seems to me it was decided only after they reviewed their own polling data, and then skewed to make sure the Green candidate would win.

I worked on the project and posted about it before. No skewing was done with the data. Here's some links about the process before the vote:

http://www.1calgarycentre.com/1calga...tion-vote-run/

Here's the highlights of the results:

http://www.1calgarycentre.com/1calga...ll-highlights/

Since it's been talked about for a few pages, I don't want to derail the thread again. If you want more details DM and I'll answer your questions.

[RatherDashing]

Originally Posted by GGG

However if you believe that a 50/50 vote split between Turner and Locke gives Crocket the win than voting for one Candidate gives you a chance of winning whereas splitting your vote guarentees the loss. Now expressed over a large number of people it still will balance out to a 50/50 split and crocket still wins so you are scewed. But at least both voting for one candidate would leave a chance if everyone behaved that way. For example if Crocket has 33% of the vote locked up and NDP gets 2% then all Turner or Locke need to do is have a better than 1% difference in their vote total. If every pair of voters entering agreed to split their vote to try to unseat Crocket than Crocket wins. If you allowed random variation of to equally liked canditates than Crocket loses. So I think the best options are either to not discuss it and vote randomly or vote for the same candidate.

I agree, but only if you know that every couple going in is going to either split their vote or vote together. Given the scenario that MarchHare is in, he has no knowledge of what the other voters are doing. If him and his wife split their votes, they are still helping out each candidate a little bit.

[mariners_fever]

Originally Posted by Slava

Yes, and that reason is the 2/3 rule, which with the redrawn boundaries he won't have the privilege of next time around...

What's the 2/3 rule again?

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Just voted at Sacred Heart School in Sunalta. Was in and out in under 90 seconds (no exaggeration). This was by far the fastest voting experience I've ever had in any election.

When I went to the same location (around 12:45pm) the entire gym was empty except for me and about 15 bored staff sitting at their little tables (some were reading novels, others were eating lunch, some were just bored out of their skull). I have a feeling whoever got their base out to vote most efficiently will be the one who wins. In the end, I probably voted for at least 5-6 people.

Had a bit of a tough time deciding who to mark on my ballot, even as I was looking at it. I could've had a good reason to vote for either Locke or Turner, so the deciding factor was me voting for Turner because my friends did a really nice job with his branding campaign. Plus I'm kind of a sucker for the underdog.

[frinkprof]

Locke ahead of Crockatt by 10 votes with 20 out of 263 polls reporting.

[frinkprof]

Locke ahead by 34 votes with 23 polls reporting.

[Ducay]

35/32/24%
Lib/Con/Grn w/ 23 reporting

Imagine if Green wasn't splitting the left's vote.....