Mat Savelli, who operated the site, said the swaps, combined with another 20 at another site he was monitoring, would have accounted for about 23 per cent of Duncan's 463 validated vote margin of victory. "I won't pretend to take credit for it, but it definitely made a difference," said the 28-year-old Canadian who is attending school at Oxford University in England. "If you can say vote swapping delivered a quarter of those votes and maybe strategic voting delivered a quarter to a half, it made a difference, but there's no way to measure it."
This goes with Michael Geist's claim that his anti Bill C-61 FaceBook Site was the real culprit in Jaffer's defeat.
In any case, a whole lotta of activism for not much of a result.
2 comments:
Ha! Victory has a thousand fathers ...
But don't dismiss the result; she's an environmental lawyer with wide esperience.
From a profile in yesterday's Edmonton Journal --
"Given her expertise in climate change, environmental law and the Alberta oilsands, Duncan could emerge as a prominent voice as Canada thrashes out a plan for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. That may put her at odds with her provincial government, but Duncan sees it as a chance for Alberta to regain its reputation for environmental excellence."
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/sundayreader/story.html?id=5d6d1581-8ea6-4ab4-9d2c-bd92d4ccfe7c
A 'whole lot of activism' that started a few weeks before the election and is totally shiny new to the vast majority of voters is not going to impact hugely the first time out of the gate. But it warms and idles for the next time. Anyone who thinks it must succeed by the thousands right now also eats microwavable oatmeal.
At the same time, in a 'first past the post' voting system, when tight races pop up, getting out EVERY vote counts. As Rahim learned to his sorrow. So I'd say the activism did its job stealing action from the teeth of far more 'sophisticated' voter apathy.
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