Vitruvius's Experimental Election Predictor
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By Marcus Vitruvius, The Sagacious Iconoclast
Redaction 3.2.1, 2008-12-07
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"I think this is quite the most fascinating thing I’ve
come across for a long time." -- Andrew Coyne
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Current Election Tracking Trends
Here are the current Ve election tracking trends. As at 2008-12-07, the Conservative Party of Canada is polling at ΣVe/n = 14.85, which historically translates into 207 seats. The COMPAS poll, with Ve = 22.0, would give the Conservatives the largest majority in the history of the data I have since 1962. Clearly, the Right Honourable Steven Harper, Prime Minister, and the Conservative Party of Canada, have not lost the confidence of the Canadian electorate, ergo there is no reason to replace him as Prime Minister, or as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, at this time.
Introduction to Ve
For the last five years I've been experimenting with a Canadian Federal election results predictor, known as "Vitruvius's Experimental Election Predictor", which is defined as follows:
where C is the percentage of voters who poll for the Conservative Party (of the day, which since 1962 has included the Progressive Conservatives, the Reform Party, the Canadian Alliance, and the Conservative Party), and L is the percentage of voters who poll for the Liberal Party, as measured by various pollsters, or as counted on election day.
So, for example, if we take the 2008-09-19 polling results from Nanos Research, we have C = 39 and L = 28, giving Ve = 7.37. Or, if we take the 2005-04-12 polling results from Environics, we have C = 30 and L = 36, giving Ve = -3.96.
The idea behind Ve is straightforward. If there were only two parties, C and L, then the ( C + L ) ÷ 100 term is equal to one, and Ve simplifies to: ( C - L ). That's a pretty obvious measure of who's going to win (there are no minority governments if there are only two parties), as long as Ve isn't too close to zero (in which case per-riding splits become dominant).
With more than two parties, the certainty of Ve decreases, so the ( C + L ) ÷ 100 term reduces the value of Ve toward zero, according to the percentage of votes not going to C or L, in which case the "close to zero" argument in the previous paragraph kicks in.
The real value in reducing the per-party poll results into a single Ve value is that then allows us to plot the Ve values, against time, for multiple pollsters, and still have the graph come out simple enough to parse. It's the gross trends that Ve exposes best, and those are best studied across multiple pollsters.
The interesting thing about Ve in Canadian federal elections is that if we look at the actual election results since 1962 (as shown in the graphs and tables later in this essay), then, at least historically speaking, if Ve is greater than 8 we have a Conservative majority, if it's between 8 and 0 we have a Conservative minority, if it's between 0 and -4 it's indeterminate (one Conservative minority, one Liberal minority), if it's between -4 and -8 we have a Liberal minority, and if it's less than -8 we have a Liberal majority.
Five Year Ve Polling History
The following graph shows the value of Ve, according to ten different pollsters, over the last five years. The Ve breakpoints of 8, 0, -4, and -8, as described above, are shown in dark and light blue, and light and dark red horizontal lines. Significant temporal events are shown as gray vertical lines.
As we can see from that graph, the Liberals were in strong minority territory, under Mr. Martin, coming into the 2004 election. Mr. Harper, leading Her Majesty's new Conservative Party of Canada official opposition, surged briefly prior to the election, but the Liberals won a final minority of 136 seats with a final election result of Ve = -4.7.
During AdScam, the Conservatives surged to minority territory, but the furor died down back to a Liberal minority. The Conservatives surged again in the run-up to the 2006 election, and this time it held, with the Conservatives winning a minority of 124 seats with a final election result of Ve = 4.1.
During the 2008 election, the Conservatives surged to majority territory. However, in the election, the final result was Ve = 7.3, resulting in the Conservatives winning a minority of 143 seats.
The 2004 Election
The following graph shows the run-up to the 2004 election. That was Mr. Harper's first election as leader of the new Conservative Party of Canada, and though advances were made during the campaign into weak minority territory, by the time of the election the trend was declining and the Liberals won a final minority of 136 seats, with a final election result of Ve = -4.7, a couple points below the closing polling values.
The 2006 Election
The following graph shows the run-up to the 2006 election. In this case Mr. Harper's Conservatives progressed steadily against Mr. Martin's Liberals over the course of the campaign, and captured a minority of 124 seats with a final election result of Ve = 4.1, again a couple points below the closing poll values.
The 2008 Election
The following graph shows the run-up to the 2008 election. In this case Mr. Harper's Conservatives moved into majority territory against Mr. Dions's Liberals over the course of the campaign. In the final election results, the Conservatives captured a minority of 143 seats with Ve = 7.3, this time a few points above the closing poll values.
History of Ve since 1962
The following table shows the actual final values of Ve, according to Elections Canada results, for all the elections since 1962. As in the above graphs, dark and light blue and red are used to show Conservative and Liberal majorities and minorities. One of the interesting things this table shows is that since the Progressive Conservatives melted down in 1993 and the Reform Party garnered 52 seats, the number of seats held by the "new right" has monotonically increased in every election.
The following table shows the same data as the previous table, but this time sorted by the value of Ve, so high values of Ve and Conservative majorities appear near the top, and low values of Ve and Liberal majorities appear near the bottom. It is from the examination of this table that I arrived at the Ve breakpoints of 8, 0, -4, and -8, as described above.
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