Dear Readers:
On May 17, less than one week from today, British Columbia voters will mark their ballots to elect 79 MLAs and determine the shape of the next Legislative Assembly and the provincial government.
For the past seven weeks, our in-house pundit and prognosticator Will McMartin has penned a daily Battleground BC feature with analysis and commentary on the province’s 38th general election. Using a unique thirteen-region model of B.C.’s 79 electoral districts, McMartin has examined historic voting patterns, census data, poll results and local reportage, so to justify his decisions to place ridings into the categories of ‘likely’ Liberal, ‘solid’ Liberal, ‘likely’ NDP, ‘solid’ NDP, or ‘up-for-grabs.’
If you haven’t discovered this feature yet, you’ll find the button to click in the upper right hand column of our Election Central blog.
By noon Sunday, May 15, McMartin will have made his final estimate as to the outcome of the vote on May 17. No ridings will remain in the ‘up-for-grabs’ column of the Battleground BC table; all will have been assigned to one or the other of the province’s major political parties. From this he will estimate the total number of seats each party will win.
No pundit is infallible. Put simply, they often are wrong!
If, after reviewing McMartin’s estimates here, you believe that he is wrong, we invite you to participate in our ‘Beat the Pundit’ contest! From noon on May 15, until noon on May 17, Tyee readers are invited to submit their estimates as to the final results of British Columbia’s 2005 provincial general election.
Send your guess as to how many seats each party will win to: [email protected]. On the subject line write: McMartin’s Wrong!
Please include your mailing address so we can send you a book if you win.
Do your analysis, send in your entry, and for the first 50 of you whose estimates are closer to the actual outcome than McMartin’s (let’s assume he has a really bad day), the Tyee will send you a copy of Liberalized: The Tyee Report on British Columbia Under Gordon Campbell’s Liberals.
How often do you get bribed to vote twice in an election? Give it a try! ![[Tyee]](/design-article.thetyee.ca/ui/img/yellowblob.png){kind=small}
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