With final provincial election voting day fast approaching on Saturday, many votes have been cast with many yet to come.
Sea to Sky Corridor candidates vying to be our next member of the legislative assembly (MLA) have been door knocking, attending all candidates meetings and doing their best to get out the vote.
The final results will be known by the end of Oct. 19, but there are plenty of polls taking voters' temperature.
Former U.S. politician Sarah Palin famously dismissed political polls saying, "Polls? Nah... they're for strippers and cross country skiers."
However, polls are a tradition as strong as all-candidates meetings for wannabe politicians and late night election day pizza for journalists.
The Squamish Chief polled 513 readers and asked the question: Who will you vote for to be MLA in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky?
The poll ran from 9/29/2024 to 17/10/2024. Of the 513 votes, we can determine that 199 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:
(Results are based on an online study of adult Squamish Chief readers that are located in Squamish. The margin of error - which measures sample variability - is +/- 4.27%, 19 times out of 20.)
Meanwhile, as of Oct. 16, the site 338Canada calls the outcome for our West Vancouver-Sea to Sky riding a "toss up." It predicts that the Conservative Party of BC will win the popular vote with 38%; the sites sets the odds of the Conservatives winning this riding at 58%; the BC Green Party is predicted to get 36% of the popular vote, with odds of winning at 42%; the New Democratic Party of British Columbia is forecast to pull 26% of the vote and has about a 1% chance of winning the riding.
The popular site creates a statistical model of electoral projections based on opinion polls, electoral history, and demographic data.
Provincially, it predicts the New Democratic Party of British Columbia will win with 45% of the popular vote, and 49 seats in Parliament (47 is needed for a majority); the Conservative Party of BC is predicted to garner 43% and 42 seats, while the BC Green Party is predicted to get 10% and two seats.
The Squamish Chief uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
