You've got to take into consideration all the fearmongering about "vote splitting" and helping the Liberals get the majority. I'm sure a lot of people with PPC sings on their yard decided last minute to go with CPC for that.
It's certainly possible, but all of the PPC supporters I came across online were motivated and resolute, though I suppose it's a self-selected bubble.
Viva's riding in Montreal also routinely gets 50%+ Liberal support, so any non-Liberal votes could safely vote their conscience because splitting the vote wasn't a consideration.
I was a little worried about Viva's expectations when he mentioned a few times on air during the election that he expected the PPC to win 10-12 seats, which was a red flag for me.
Anyone who understands the vagaries of the First Past the Post system and the deeply entrenched regional voting patterns would understand that winning a single seat with even 10-12% support as the high water mark in polls (as opposed to 5% on election night) is a very tall order.
The Greens only eventually broke through for a few seats after decades of trying due to the cult of Elizabeth May and the idiosyncrasies of some far-left Vancouver Island ridings.
That was a wholly idiotic expectation by Viva. His supporters should let him know it wasn't a sensible expectation and encourage him to run again in the future.
I like Viva. His content is an interesting mix of outrage, doomerism but unrelenting positivity.
I don't watch his content all the time, though I did watch more during his election run.
I think like a lot of YouTubers though, it's easy to get lost in your own bubble of like-minded supporters and yes men. His streams and YT comments are full of people giving words of encouragement and showering him with superchat money to have their name flash up on the screen and get acknowledged.
Like Twitch culture, it's a weird microcosm and not really reflective of real life.
A lot of PPC supporters and candidates got caught up in fairy tales. I know a guy who was convinced PPC would get 20% of the popular vote
I spoke to my riding's PPC candidate. I asked him what his expectations were (is he aiming for 1% of the vote? No vote goals, just get his name and the PPC name out there?) and whether he would be trying hard in the campaign to become a presence (because in my riding, even the Conservatives have stopped trying. At the time the Conservatives didn't even have a candidate and he could have struck while the iron was hot.) He simultaneously expected he would WIN (despite our riding not having elected even a conservative in 40 years) and also decided he would not have cardboard signs, but rather allow people to PRINT HIS SIGNS ON PAPER AT HOME to put in their windows. He said he wouldn't go door to door(!) but would hold events in public places for people to meet him. I mean, the dude had never been in politics before, but wow.
In first past the post, if you don't have 51% of the vote in one riding, it doesn't matter if you have 40% of the vote in EVERY riding, you get no seats, no representation. If those 800k votes were highly concentrated, there might have been a risk of a seat or two being taken. But spread out? All it signals is a protest vote.
Maybe the people in charge should go onto the PPC's website, and look at their campaign promises. Because Macleans certainly hasn't done that. If PPC's getting votes, maybe their campaign promises are things people want.
The only silver lining is that the higher vote totals nationally will make it easier to analyze future ridings to target where there's even a remote chance of winning (though admittedly, there's likely not many).
The little bit of poking around that I did unfortunately showed that some of the ridings in Sask and AB where the PPC was in double digits, the CPC candidate often won with 60%+ of the vote
Not only that, but the CPC doesn't own voters, even though they and their supporters really seem to think so. They made decisions that made them unworthy of the vote for many prior CPC voters, just like the other parties did for those who would have previously voted for them. Fundamental freedoms are not a trivial thing.
Over on freecanada.win, there was a PPC scrutineer that made a very detailed post yesterday about their experience watching poll workers count votes on Monday and how at least the in-person portions of the paper ballotting for the federal election are pretty airtight in terms of preventing election fraud.
Essentially, the PPC scrutineer was present for the ballot counting, got to watch the counts in real time, kept their own tallies, could examine ballots personally and even got to vote on whether irregular ballot markings got to count or not.
Of course, it's just a random guy on the Internet, but they gave a pretty detailed account that it would be almost impossible to mess with the ballot counting themselves .
I've been a scrutineer for CPC and UCP. Canadian elections are far more difficult to fraud. Its also quite simple as you only vote on one thing unlike the USA.
After the last few years, I honestly trust no election results. There's been way too much fuckery in nearly every election we've seen since Trump's win and Brexit.
From 1.6% of votes in 2019 to 5.1% in 2021. My hope was for PPC to double its votes, but it tripled instead. I am content with the results. Hopefully Libs and Cons worry themselves to death.
While the United States has received the bulk of media attention for the rise in far-right ideology and violence in their country, the disturbing fact is, that Canada produces more far-right online content per web user than any other country---- If true, I have severely underestimated my compatriots. Nice. $1.5 a year from the libs and publishing articles smearing the opposition. That's some nice corruption there.
I watched Viva Frei's post-election livestream yesterday, a pro-free speech YouTuber who ran for the PPC in Montreal.
He was pretty demoralized after he only got 3% of the vote and was talking like he wasn't going to run again.
Too bad. He's a good man.
Maxime Bernier is going to need all the help he can get.
You've got to take into consideration all the fearmongering about "vote splitting" and helping the Liberals get the majority. I'm sure a lot of people with PPC sings on their yard decided last minute to go with CPC for that.
It's certainly possible, but all of the PPC supporters I came across online were motivated and resolute, though I suppose it's a self-selected bubble.
Viva's riding in Montreal also routinely gets 50%+ Liberal support, so any non-Liberal votes could safely vote their conscience because splitting the vote wasn't a consideration.
I was a little worried about Viva's expectations when he mentioned a few times on air during the election that he expected the PPC to win 10-12 seats, which was a red flag for me.
Anyone who understands the vagaries of the First Past the Post system and the deeply entrenched regional voting patterns would understand that winning a single seat with even 10-12% support as the high water mark in polls (as opposed to 5% on election night) is a very tall order.
The Greens only eventually broke through for a few seats after decades of trying due to the cult of Elizabeth May and the idiosyncrasies of some far-left Vancouver Island ridings.
That was a wholly idiotic expectation by Viva. His supporters should let him know it wasn't a sensible expectation and encourage him to run again in the future.
I like Viva. His content is an interesting mix of outrage, doomerism but unrelenting positivity.
I don't watch his content all the time, though I did watch more during his election run.
I think like a lot of YouTubers though, it's easy to get lost in your own bubble of like-minded supporters and yes men. His streams and YT comments are full of people giving words of encouragement and showering him with superchat money to have their name flash up on the screen and get acknowledged.
Like Twitch culture, it's a weird microcosm and not really reflective of real life.
I spoke to my riding's PPC candidate. I asked him what his expectations were (is he aiming for 1% of the vote? No vote goals, just get his name and the PPC name out there?) and whether he would be trying hard in the campaign to become a presence (because in my riding, even the Conservatives have stopped trying. At the time the Conservatives didn't even have a candidate and he could have struck while the iron was hot.) He simultaneously expected he would WIN (despite our riding not having elected even a conservative in 40 years) and also decided he would not have cardboard signs, but rather allow people to PRINT HIS SIGNS ON PAPER AT HOME to put in their windows. He said he wouldn't go door to door(!) but would hold events in public places for people to meet him. I mean, the dude had never been in politics before, but wow.
The more they tighten their grip the more people will slip through their fingers
In first past the post, if you don't have 51% of the vote in one riding, it doesn't matter if you have 40% of the vote in EVERY riding, you get no seats, no representation. If those 800k votes were highly concentrated, there might have been a risk of a seat or two being taken. But spread out? All it signals is a protest vote.
Maybe the people in charge should go onto the PPC's website, and look at their campaign promises. Because Macleans certainly hasn't done that. If PPC's getting votes, maybe their campaign promises are things people want.
The only silver lining is that the higher vote totals nationally will make it easier to analyze future ridings to target where there's even a remote chance of winning (though admittedly, there's likely not many).
The little bit of poking around that I did unfortunately showed that some of the ridings in Sask and AB where the PPC was in double digits, the CPC candidate often won with 60%+ of the vote
Well, I know where two of 'em came from, but I live in a very Conservative riding.
Not only that, but the CPC doesn't own voters, even though they and their supporters really seem to think so. They made decisions that made them unworthy of the vote for many prior CPC voters, just like the other parties did for those who would have previously voted for them. Fundamental freedoms are not a trivial thing.
Over on freecanada.win, there was a PPC scrutineer that made a very detailed post yesterday about their experience watching poll workers count votes on Monday and how at least the in-person portions of the paper ballotting for the federal election are pretty airtight in terms of preventing election fraud.
Essentially, the PPC scrutineer was present for the ballot counting, got to watch the counts in real time, kept their own tallies, could examine ballots personally and even got to vote on whether irregular ballot markings got to count or not.
Of course, it's just a random guy on the Internet, but they gave a pretty detailed account that it would be almost impossible to mess with the ballot counting themselves .
I've been a scrutineer for CPC and UCP. Canadian elections are far more difficult to fraud. Its also quite simple as you only vote on one thing unlike the USA.
FCW PPC Scrutineer thread
FYI: Freecanada.win is an independent site outside the .win network even though it shares the same suffix.
After the last few years, I honestly trust no election results. There's been way too much fuckery in nearly every election we've seen since Trump's win and Brexit.
From 1.6% of votes in 2019 to 5.1% in 2021. My hope was for PPC to double its votes, but it tripled instead. I am content with the results. Hopefully Libs and Cons worry themselves to death.
While the United States has received the bulk of media attention for the rise in far-right ideology and violence in their country, the disturbing fact is, that Canada produces more far-right online content per web user than any other country---- If true, I have severely underestimated my compatriots. Nice. $1.5 a year from the libs and publishing articles smearing the opposition. That's some nice corruption there.
Fuck yeah they did
You can just feel the Pearl clutching in the article.