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The archive of by-election coverage

November 8th, 2017 · 1 Comment

Catching up on posting some older stories here. First up: the stories before and after the Oct. 14 by-election, which provided a story with endless interpretation possibilities (Vision dead; no, progressive vote on the rise; no, NPA on the rise; no, people-power politics on the rise; coalitions the politics of the future; yada yada).

First up was the story that focused a bit on how many people working the campaigns were reporting a complete lack of interest or knowledge on the part of voters. That worry turned out to be justified. Just under 11 per cent of people voted. I talked to many knowledgeable, politically engaged people afterwards who completely forgot to vote on the Saturday, saying it had just slipped their minds because there was so little coverage and/or because they never received any kind of reminder from the city in the mail.

Then there was afterwards, with the endlessly fascinating results, as the NPA’s Hector Bremner won the council seat but progressive parties took most of the seats on school board. That set off a frenzy of speculation (two examples here and here) that Vision was dead, a trope that was repeated a couple of weeks later when Vision Councillor Andrea Reimer announced she wouldn’t be running again — an announcement that I understand some tried to get her to delay making because of the damage it would do coming so close after the by-election loss.

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