Sunday, January 2, 2011

How Ontario Universities vote: Eastern Ontario edition

As an experiment, I thought I would take a look at how university campuses vote, and how they compare to the general election results of the ridings they are in. I've combined the on-campus results from the 2007 provincial, and 2008 federal elections, and compared them. This time around, Carleton, U of O, and Queens.

Combining results from 2007 provincial and 2008 federal election

Sources: http://earth.smurfmatic.net/canada2008/polls/ for federal and http://kodonnell.ca/canpoli/ for provincial, in addition to Punditsguide.ca and Elections Canada and Elections Ontario

Note: The numbers will not always be perfect, for example, some polls (such as in Ottawa-Vanier) blend residences in with non student housing on campuses such as U of O, so total accuracy cannot be used, but general trends can still be noticed. Additionally, some schools appear not to have had polling stations on campus for the 07 election (or at least that I could find), so only the data from 2008 will be used for those.

Carleton University-Ottawa Centre

Totals

NDP-571
LIB-413
CON-242
GRN-169

Total Votes: 1395

NDP-41
LIB-30
CON-17
GRN-12

Compared with actual riding results (averaged between the two elections)

NDP-36 (+5)
LIB-31 (-1)
CON-22 (-5)
GRN-11 (+1)

University of Ottawa-Ottawa-Vanier
Note: According to both O’Donnell’s website, and Elections Ontario, no polling station was at U of O in 2007, so this will only feature the federal results. Also note that it appears that U of O res polls are blended in with some of the housing areas nearby, so not every voter in this list would actually be an on-campus student.

Polls: 401

LIB-501
NDP-371
CON-225
GRN-142

Total votes: 1239

LIB-40
NDP-30
CON-18
GRN-11

Actual results from 2008:

LIB-46(-6)
CON-27 (-9)
NDP-17(+13)
GRN-9 (+2)

Queen’s University-Kingston and the Islands
Notes: Can only find federal data, might be mixed in with non-student housing

Totals:


LIB-311
CON-221
GRN-165
NDP-125

822

LIB-38
CON-27
GRN-20
NDP-15

Actual 2008 results

LIB-39 (-1)
CON-33 (-6)
NDP-18 (-3)
GRN-11 (+9)

1 comment:

Tomm said...

Very interesting. Student's tend to be more socialist than the average citizen (I know I was).

Linda Duncan (NDP) is an Edmonton MP. Her riding includes the UofA.

Queen's results are interesting.

I know Ignatieff has been trying to engage University students. I wonder if it has made a difference in numbers of student members at the places he has spoke.