Forget percentages - what about real votes?

As this blog concentrates on polls, we're always dealing with percentages. Sure, the parties that receive the highest percentage of votes cast wins, but it is those real votes that decide elections. And, they are probably the best barometer of a party's political support over the years.

Case in point. The Conservatives had 37.7% support in the 2008 election, an increase from their 36.3% result in 2006. That would seem to indicate that the Tories had more support in 2008 than they did in 2006.

But in reality, the Conservatives lost about 165,000 votes between 2006 and 2008, a reduction of 3.1%. In fact, all of the parties except the Greens lost actual, flesh and blood support between the 2006 and 2008 elections.

This chart shows the amount of actual votes each party received over the last three elections. As you can see, both the Conservatives and New Democrats saw gains between 2004 and 2006 but losses in 2008. The Liberals and Bloc Québécois lost votes in each election, while the Greens were the only party to show steady growth in the face of ever lower turnout.From 2004 to 2006, the Conservatives found 1.4 million new supporters. Although we can't know exactly how voters shifted from party to party, it appears that about 1/3 of them came from the Liberals, who lost about 500,000 votes. The New Democrats gained about 460,000 new voters, and the Greens about 80,000. The Bloc lost about 130,000 voters.

Those who gained also brought new voters to the fold, as the number of voters grew by 1.2 million between 2004 and 2006. Perhaps the thought of replacing the Liberal government brought people out of their homes on voting day.

However, about 1 million voters who voted in 2006 stayed home in 2008. This caused losses of 165,000 voters for the Conservatives, 845,000 voters for the Liberals, 75,000 for the NDP, and 175,000 for the Bloc. The Greens gained 275,000 new voters. The loss of support for the traditional parties is not completely due to the drop in turnout. Many of those voters actually went to the Greens.

The following chart shows how the growth or decline in support of each party compares to how their support should have changed due to the growth of the electorate.

For example, the Conservatives had 4 million voters in 2004. Based on the growth in the size of the electorate, the Conservatives should have had 4.1 million votes in 2006 if their growth was proportional to the growth in the electorate. Instead, they had 5.4 million votes. Based on the growth in the electorate from 2006 to 2008, the Conservatives should have had 5.5 million votes in 2008. Instead, they had 5.2 million. This demonstrates how the party's growth between 2004 and 2006 was due to voters changing their allegiance, rather than mere population increase. But their fall in 2008 was due to voters leaving the party.For the Liberals, it is easy to see that their drop in support has been far greater than what we could expect. They dropped from 2004 and 2006, and instead of keeping support and going from 4.5 million votes in 2006 to 4.6 million in 2008, they fell to only 3.6 million.

The NDP has been generally stable, growing more or less at the same rate as the population. However, in 2008 they had 144,000 fewer votes than their 2006 result would have predicted.

This also shows how the Greens have consistently out-performed normal growth, going from 664,000 votes in 2006 to 938,000 in 2008 - rather than the 682,000 normal population increase would have given them.

Getting a good portion of the vote is, of course, important. But being able to get 5.2 million Canadians to vote for you, as the Conservatives did in 2008, requires a bit more work. And when we see the Liberal vote drop from 5.0 million in 2004 to 3.6 in 2008, we can see how difficult of a task they have in front of them.

Environics Poll: 6-pt CPC Lead - and the Effects of Prompting

Environics has a new poll, and it shows big change from their last poll at the end of February. Some of that can be chalked up to the time between polls - and some of it can be chalked up to a change in methodology. More on that later. But first...The Conservatives have gained five points and are now at 36%. The Liberals are steady at 30%, while the New Democrats are down one to 15%.

The Bloc Québécois is up one to 10% and the Greens are down six to 7%.

In Ontario, the Tories are up seven points and lead with 40%. The Liberals are up three and follow with 35%. The NDP is down two to 14%.

In Quebec, the Bloc is up four to 41%, while the Liberals are down four to 24%. The Conservatives are up seven to 19% and the NDP is steady at 12%. The Greens fall away to 1%.

In British Columbia, the Conservatives lead with 39%, up two. The Liberals follow with 25% (up six) and the NDP is at 24% (up three).

In Atlantic Canada, the Liberals lead with 46% (up 10). The Conservatives lead in Alberta with 57% (also up 10) and in the Prairies with 47% (down six).

The Conservatives win 69 seats in the West, 54 in Ontario, 8 in Quebec, and 6 in Atlantic Canada for a total of 137.

The Liberals win 16 seats in the West and North, 42 in Ontario, 15 in Quebec, and 23 in Atlantic Canada for a total of 96.

The Bloc wins 51 seats in Quebec.

The NDP wins 10 seats in the West and North, 10 in Ontario, 1 in Quebec, and 3 in Atlantic Canada for a total of 24.

Obviously, bad news for the NDP but a significant gain for the Liberals and a relatively status quo situation for the Conservatives.

Now, about the methodology. When Environics last conducted a national poll in February, they prompted the party names when surveying voting intentions. In other words, they asked the survey-takers "If a federal election were held today, would you vote for the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, etc." The party names would be listed and rotated each time a new person was asked.

This time, Environics did not prompt. They simply asked respondents for whom they would vote, without listing party names.

The first method gives people their options, and it makes it easier to say for whom they would vote. The second method requires respondents to be more informed and have an actual idea for whom they want to vote. There is an argument for both sides as to which is more accurate, as the voting ballot itself also "prompts".

So, let's compare these two polls. They should give us an indication of how prompting changes a poll, because instead of comparing two different pollsters, we're comparing one pollster who should use the same methods to find their respondents. Thus, the only variable in this comparison is whether respondents were prompted or not.

First, let's look at the undecideds. In that February prompted poll, undecideds were 11% of the population - a rather low number. In this unprompted poll, undecideds are 27%. Now, perhaps the last three months has made it harder for people to decide. Or, prompting makes otherwise undecideds more decisive.

But what about how it affects each party? Well, we can compare that, too. Obviously, we can't compare the results of that February poll to this May poll without any filter. The change in political climate would have a greater role in any voting intention changes than mere methodology.

So, what I have done is estimate the kind of changes the Environics poll should've shown, assuming they had been consistent with their methodology. This estimate was calculated by taking the EKOS, Angus-Reid, and Harris-Decima polls of late February and comparing them to the EKOS, Angus-Reid, and Harris-Decima polls of late May. We're comparing polls taken at the same time as the two Environics polls, using the change between the average of the three February polls and the three May polls as our guide for estimating how much the Environics poll should have changed.

Between February and May, Conservative average growth was 2.7 points (32.3% to 35.0%), or 8.4%. The Liberals have dropped 3.4 points, or 11.3%. The NDP has hardly changed (17.3% to 17.0%), as has the Bloc (8.3% to 8.7%). The Greens also haven't changed (10.3% to 10.3%).

In other words, if prompting plays no role in polling, then we should see the Conservatives up a little, the Liberals down a little, and the NDP, Bloc, and Greens virtually unchanged. Instead, we see the Conservatives higher than they should be, the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc stable, and the Greens way down.

For the Conservatives, they should have gone from 31% in February to 34% in May. Instead, they are at 36%. The Liberals should have gone from 30% to 27%, but instead they are still at 30%.

And, significantly, the Greens should have remained at 13%. Instead, they've dropped to 7% - almost half of their support in February.

What this shows is that prompting gives a boost to the Green Party more than any other, in conjunction with a lower undecided result. The Liberals and Conservatives don't get more support, but they do get a higher proportion of decided support. This indicates that, in a prompted poll, many undecideds choose the Greens as their "parking spot".

The question remains: which is accurate? History argues that Green results in prompted polls are inflated, and inaccurate. On voting day, the Greens have always gotten fewer votes than the pollsters thought they would.

But the Greens have defied history before.

However, until we finally see a Green electoral result matching their polling results, we will have to side with the historical record.