Talk:2019 Alberta general election

Results Section

The tone of this does not read like an encyclopedia entry. It almost feels promotional, or editorialized news coverage. 68.149.248.216 (talk) 07:23, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

I get the editorialized news coverage description, but I don't think the section is particularly biased. There are obvious ways to spin the election more positively for any of the participants. --Llewdor (talk) 21:30, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

I had a similar issue with it when it was being created, though as Llewdor said, it isn't particularly biased. I'll do some editing tonight on one edit for easy reversal if the changes aren't to people's liking. If they are or we find the original in compliance, we'll remove the neutrality warning. Jebussez (talk) 22:45, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

In an attempt to clean up the promotional or editorialized nature in this section I removed all the stuff talking about records etc - which can be spun to make events seem more significant than they are. A summary of results is not the place to include breaking of arbitrary records like "most number of votes in a province outside of Ontario and Quebec". This is what lends to it's editorial nature. If someone wants to include this fluff, why not have a section near the end about this? I also removed references to editorials about projections of Alberta turning into a two party system, and fixed up the tense which was previously bouncing between past present and future - trying to keep everything in past tense, as the event has already occurred. I hope these changes meets everyone's approval. 68.149.248.216 (talk) 20:59, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Opinion Polls

At the moment, the article lists three Mainstreet Research polls in the 'opinion polls' section. This claims to be "a list of scientific opinion polls of published voter intentions." I dispute this. For example, the poll from November 2, 2015, was a poll about the budget, not about people's intentions to vote in the 30th Alberta general election. Am I mistaken here? I may very well be. --Yamla (talk) 23:22, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

It asks both questions, many polls ask multiple questions. Ribbet32 (talk) 13:47, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Ah! I see it does. The scribd bit at the bottom of the mainstreetresearch page wasn't loading for me. Now that it is, I see the numbers are indeed properly cited. Thanks! --Yamla (talk) 13:54, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

The 2019-March-26 EKOS Poll was commissioned by Unifor (an interest group). While EKOS is a credible pollster, polls released by interest groups are often subject to increased scrutiny (this poll has not been included in the CBC's poll tracker, for example). The main reason for this is that interest groups tend to choose which polls get released and which don't, in effect searching for favourable outliers (note - EKOS's similar poll for Unifor in January was not released). So, should we be including this EKOS/Unifor poll? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Llewdor (talk • contribs) 20:57, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

I would say include it. Unlike the CBC's Poll Tracker, the purpose of this page isn't to try to forecast the election result, but simply to list the polls that are made publicly available. At the end of the day, if EKOS's numbers are way off from the actual election result, it will simply look bad on them, but there's otherwise no harm in listing their poll here. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 21:11, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Polls Table

The new polls table uses a date format which doesn't sort. The federal elections polls lists use the last date of polling instead of a range; I suggest this list should as well. --Llewdor (talk) 17:51, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Fixed it. --Llewdor (talk) 16:10, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Opinion Poll Graph Colouring

I cannot distinguish between some of the colours, is there anyway we can change them? Admittedly I'm colour blind, but normally it's not an issue. Just the blue for the PC's and Alberta party look identical to me. ( SailingOn (talk) 04:44, 18 February 2018 (UTC))

Page move

Honestly, with less then a week left in 2018, there's actually opposition to changing this article to 2019 Alberta general election? GoodDay (talk) 05:59, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

I think it is legally possible to have the election held in 2020, though I'm not sure. The back-and-forth moving should be stopped ASAP, though. Impru20^talk 09:56, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Since there is a *fixed date*, I think it's fine moving the article, even if it's theoretically possible the election could happen in 2020. Since almost every other province has fixed date elections now, do we not already have a policy on this? -- Earl Andrew - talk 14:34, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

It would be very legal for the election to be held in 2020. One may look at Alberta's "fixed election law":

38.1(1) Nothing in this section affects the powers of the Lieutenant Governor, including the power to dissolve the Legislature, in Her Majesty’s name, when the Lieutenant Governor sees fit.

(2) Subject to subsection (1), a general election shall be held within the 3-month period beginning on March 1, 2012 and ending on May 31, 2012, and afterwards, general elections shall be held within the 3-month period beginning on March 1 and ending on May 31 in the 4th calendar year following polling day in the most recent general election.

Combined with the supreme law, the Constitution of Canada:

4.(1) No House of Commons and no legislative assembly shall continue for longer than five years from the date fixed for the return of the writs at a general election of its members.

(2) In time of real or apprehended war, invasion or insurrection, a House of Commons may be continued by Parliament and a legislative assembly may be continued by the legislature beyond five years if such continuation is not opposed by the votes of more than one-third of the members of the House of Commons or the legislative assembly, as the case may be.

And secondary sources: "We don't have fixed election dates, and can't"
And Wikipedia policy (WP:CRYSTALBALL): "Dates are not definite until the event actually takes place". Ribbet32 (talk) 03:05, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, thank you for the constitutional background; but a government is not going to go against a fixed date election, so for practicality's sake, the election will be held in 2019, and I don't see why we have to be extreme pedants about it. Yes, Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, but no one is moving the page on the 2020 United States presidential election. You never know, Trump might try to ban it! -- Earl Andrew - talk 04:14, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

It's not just constitutional background, it's what the "Fixed election law" says, and historical precedent (the statute has been disregarded before). Also, the US Constitution is pretty clear on the fact that presidents serve four years, hence the 2020 presidential election. Our parliamentary system is different, and nothing is constitutionally scheduled aside from the requirement the vote takes place sometime within five years, excepting the unlikely event of war or insurrection. Ribbet32 (talk) 16:59, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

I would exclude any "if there is a war/disaster/end of the world"-based argument as outrightly CRYSTALBALL-ish, as assuming one such extraordinary event would happen that would delay the election further than ordinarily established would be as speculative or more as assuming a 2019 election will definitely take place. However, the legal argument is strong enough on its own: the Election Act is basically advisory on the point of fixed elections. It favours elections every four years, but it doesn't bar elections from being held every five years. So, while it is not likely that a 2020 election will happen, it is not 100% legally guaranteed that an election will be held in 2019 either. Impru20^talk 17:35, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm going to bring all this to WP:CANADA for a wider viewership. GoodDay (talk) 06:55, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Agree whole-heartedly with the comments made by @EarlAndrew:

Also, thanks to Good-day for moving its discussion. A Red Cherry (talk) 21:55, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Typo in NDP support in press release of 19 March Mainstreet poll

For the record, it should be noted that the vote intention number (37.8%) given in the press release portion of the 19 March Mainstreet poll appears to be a typo. In the figures and tables of the supplied detailed report, the number is 37.1%. It can be deduced that 37.8% is the error and not the other way around because: (a) 37.1% added to all the other "decided and leaning" numbers comes to precisely 100.0%, whereas with 37.8% the total comes to 100.7%; and (b) the statement in the press release that 37.8% represents +9.3% compared to the previous Mainstreet poll (27.8%) doesn't add up, whereas 27.8% + 9.3% does = 37.1%. Cheers, Undermedia (talk) 13:33, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Dave Berta's Blog

Looks like there are many (very many!) references in this article to Dave Berta's blog. This blog is self-published and seems to fail WP:UGC. Is there a reason these references should remain? -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:34, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

David Cournoyer (with whom I am casually acquainted) is widely considered an expert on Alberta politics—here's a clip of him appearing as an expert panelist on the subject on a local TV station, for example; see here for a wide variety of other reliable sources that cite him as an expert. That being the case, I think he fits within WP:SPS as "an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." Besides that, the nature of the information that his blog is being used to source—in virtually all cases, simply what persons have announced their candidacies in the election, and/or been nominated by the registered political parties—is non-contentious information without a lot of dangerous shades of grey. Steve Smith (talk) 21:01, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree that Cournoyer's blog is probably a valid source. But - I've replaced the candidates list with one that draws on the official Elections Alberta data, making the individual blog citations unnecessary. Madg2011 (talk) 01:48, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Post-election infobox

I see the infobox is going through some flux in terms of which parties to include post-election, so thought better we have a discussion about it.

Only two parties won seats. Before dissolution, there were 5 parties represented. As I understand, consensus for this sort of thing is that, as well as obviously including the parties that won seats, we include stats in the infobox for parties that won seats at the last election even if they ended up losing all their seats. However, we do not need to represent parties that only appeared between elections. That being the case, seems we should include the UCP, the NDP, the Alberta Party and the Liberals, but not the Freedom Conservatives? 88.215.17.228 (talk) 08:44, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I think our rule on this is if a party get 5% of the vote, they're included in the infobox. -- Earl Andrew - talk 15:23, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Maybe I'm wrong but the whole 5% thing started out with the United States election infoboxes and wasn't meant to apply to infoboxes for elsewhere, at least originally? It's certainly not applied with British election infoboxes, for example. Maybe there has been a discussion about it, I dunno. 88.215.17.228 (talk) 15:45, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

For Canadian elections there's generally precedent for at the very least including parties if they've won a seat or if they've won over 5% of the vote (see Ontario 2007, New Brunswick 2010, 2014, and 2018, PEI 2015, and British Columbia 2001, 2005, and 2009, to name a few), so at the very least the Alberta Party should be included (particularly, in my opinion, considering they made a significant popular vote gain). There's also precedent for including parties that had seats prior to dissolution even if they've won less than 5% of the vote and 0 seats (see 2012 Alberta), even if they were formed after the previous election (see 2012 Quebec) though this can be argued seeing as, for instance, Strength in Democracy wasn't included in the 2015 federal infobox. In any event, there's clear precedent for including the Alberta Party, and there's a fair argument for including the Liberals and FCP. Tholden28 (talk) 18:02, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Very much disagree with the notion there's a "fair argument" for the Liberals or FCP being included; nowhere else do we include parties with such a low percentage of the vote and no seats, regardless of whether they held seats previous. Trillium Party in Ontario 2018, the previously mentioned Strength and Democracy, and so on.Jebussez (talk) 19:43, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I gave you two examples, Alberta 2012 and Quebec 2012. Personally I'm not arguing we include either, but I'm just saying it's been done before. Tholden28 (talk) 02:09, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I think we're pretty clear so far that the Alberta Party should be included. If and when other editors argue otherwise, we can revisit, but until such time the AP stays in the infobox. I would still make the case for the Liberals being included - 1) there is precedent for including parties that won seats at the last election, even if they got zero seats. The examples Jeb cites are parties that were formed between elections. 2) The Alberta Liberals are not a blip. They've been represented in the Legislative Assembly since 1986, and therefore have been in all the election infoboxes since. We kinda need to make note of what happened. 88.215.17.228 (talk) 10:28, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't mind including the Liberals, but I would stop short at the FCP, since they didn't even finish 5th in the popular vote. On a different note, the UCP swing should be added to the infobox as a swing from the combined WRP+PC vote in 2015 much how the Conservative swing is included in the infobox of the 2004 Canadian federal election. -- Earl Andrew - talk 14:00, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Agreed re: the FCP. If we were to include them, we'd have to include the Alberta Independence Party as well, as they did better in the popular vote than the FCP, and there's absolutely no justification for including the AIP. Leave it at Liberals is my view. And I'm neutral about the UCP swing argument - happy with whatever's decided. 88.215.17.228 (talk) 15:46, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

My one suggestion, that perhaps a better criteria for inclusions/exclusion would also be including the fact that FCP had a seat pre-election. They lost that seat. So having a MLA sitting and then loosing one is significantly more important that AIP being more popular vote % than FCP. I would suggest any party that lost seats (assuming they ran incumbents) Is an important enough change to include on this top list. - Todd Semko 19-Aprik-19 9:43mst

Reporting of overall results

I'm fairly inexperienced at editing Wikipedia but I have a few minor questions/comments about the reporting of the overall results in the infobox and overall results table.

1) I think it would make sense to be consistent about how we are reporting the change in support for the UCP between 2015 and 2019. I don't know if we should report the +2.79pp or leave it as N/A but I think we should be consistent. Earl Andrew made an argument for using the +2.79pp based on the 2004 Canadian federal election page and 88.215.17.228 was neutral (see above). Jebussez made the same argument in their comment when they added the +2.81pp on April 21 (corrected by me today to +2.79pp).

Currently the "Last election" section in the infobox says "Pre-creation", and the +2.79pp since 2015 is in the infobox but was removed yesterday from the overall results table. What do people think about reporting the +2.79pp everywhere if we're doing it in one place? Also, as in 2004 Canadian federal election, if we're reporting the +2.79pp should we also change the "Last election" section in the infobox to say "30 seats, 52.02%" instead of "Pre-creation"? (Or 31 seats if we include the disclaimed seat). And then in the results table should we put N/A beside the change in popular vote for the PCs and Wildrose, instead of -27.78 and -24.22?

2) Convention on previous Alberta general election pages seems to be to reporting all percentages and pps to 2 decimal places (54.80%). I notice that it is currently only reported to 1 in the infobox (e.g., 54.8%). Personally I don't think the 2nd decimal place is needed but I think it would be nice to be consistent in the infobox - either 1 or 2 decimal places for everything. Thoughts?

3) Would it be okay if I added another graphic and table that were on the 2015 Alberta election page? I was thinking of the graphic showing the seat totals and the arrow for where a majority is, and the table showing % of votes and % of seats. For the latter, would it make sense to include the same parties as are in the infobox? (For now, UCP/NDP/Alberta Party)

Thanks -- Arstoien (talk) 21:45, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi, we should absolutely emulate what we did for the 2004 federal election, and we should be using 2 decimal places, as that's what we normally do with election results. And go ahead and be bold by adding any relevant graphics you think should be on the page. -- Earl Andrew - talk 22:23, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

I will be chipping away at updating the results for all the 2019 Alberta general election results by riding templates. I have currently only done Red_Deer-North so far. Please let me know if you have any feedback. --VA6DAH (talk) 04:12, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

POV dispute

I'm not sure if I understand this POV tag here. What is the reason for this dispute? Jarble (talk) 17:11, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

See here. Steve Smith (talk) 23:15, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

results by region has errors

Conservative won in 18 districts in Central region, not 19. Conservatives won in 12 districts in South region not 11. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.150.194.17 (talk) 01:01, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Further, Central region has only 19 districts, not 20; South region has 13 districts not 12. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.150.194.17 (talk) 01:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC)