Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Electoral districts in Canada/Archive 2

Should a single table show a single election, or multiple elections? What info should be placed inside the table? Browse the examples below and design your own: Template talk:Election box.

Examples: single complex, single moderate, single simple 1, single simple 2, single hollow, multiple simple, single British, multiple moderate

Comments

• I prefer the single complex because it is understandable at first glance, and reveals more detailed information upon review and analysis. However, I do not like the ±% column. As only the Liberal and NDP have been around for more than three elections, and about half the electoral districts get abolished every 2 or 3 elections, I think this statistic would annoy and confuse more than it would help. --maclean25

• I also like simple complex and I think that that is actually a no brainer, it is far and away better than the others. I do like the ±% column, though we have some issues in recent years due to Reform -> Canadian Alliance and Canadian Alliance + Progressive Conservative -> Conservative in terms of comparing vote totals, for election results throughout most of the history of Canada it is very useful. - Jord 19:27, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

• I've already started using simple complex for some provincial pages under my watch. I can't see why anyone would object to it. (Also, I don't have a problem with the +/- column; the confusion of recent years is atypical of Canadian history as a whole.) CJCurrie 21:06, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Many electoral districts only exist for 3 or 4 elections, especially in high growth areas such as cities. The +/- column is not relevant for the first election because there is nothing to compare it to. Would you leave the column blank, or use an amended table for that election? Also, many small parties come and go, and the +/- may not be relevant to them either.--maclean25 17:45, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
    • It may not be relevant for all circumstances, but it provides a useful service where applicable. (And I believe it's possible to find the "adjusted" numbers for the more recent redistributions.) CJCurrie 23:06, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
    • FYI here is an example of what I have been doing with the +/- column in its first instance when doing New Brunswick districts: Albert (provincial electoral district) - Jord 00:06, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm not fond of the +/- column for various reasons, the primary one being that it isn't much of a valid statistical measure. It's used a lot by the media, but measuring a change of %, when the underlying values all change, is rather suspect to me. Mindmatrix 21:21, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I also do not support the +/- %. I do not think it is a valuable piece of information, as people interested in that can easily look back and compare the number of votes.Kelownian 00:52, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
• I like the simple complex, too, if there is the information to populate it. I don't think it makes sense to create a table with a bunch of empty columns, as I have been doing with the defunct Ontario electoral districts. I have switched to using "single simple 1" (actually, my own template, Template:Election votes only) for future additions (see Russell) on the basis that it is unlikely that anyone is going to come along and add in the % and % change info. If they do, it is easy enough for them to change the template. Ground Zero | t 16:51, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
  • A major issue with the "simple complex" for defunct ridings is that the campaign expenditures may not be available. The Elections Canada website only has expenditures up to 1997. Beyond that they are available only in print, if at all. Also, there are many finance numbers given. I chose to campaign expenditures because I believed that to have the most impact on that riding's race. Is there another, more relevant figure? --maclean25 17:45, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
    • No, I think you've picked the right one. From your comments, I plan to use Template:Election votes only for pre-1997 results, and "simple complex" for 1997 and after, unless the consensus swings another way. Ground Zero | t 18:36, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• I've been using single simple 1 for quite a few ridings. I have no objection to the extra columns, but since it takes only a few seconds to add them, I don't think there is any need to leave empty ones sitting around. In the long run I hope the extra information will be added to each riding, but for now my priority is getting the basic results down. I do also agree with Maclean that the percentage change is not all that useful in the Canadian context. My main problem with the single complex format is that each table has a different width. This is not a problem with only one or two boxes, but when you have a long list of elections it is quite unsightly. - SimonP 22:39, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
  • The width...does anyone know why the colour boxes do that? Besides that, the widths vary due to the name "Progressive Conservative". Can it be abbreviated? P.C. or Prog. Cons.? Would abbreviating one party be seen as, shall we say, "not treating all the parties the same"? I'm ok with abbreviating it. --maclean25 01:32, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
    • I've taken the liberty of increasing the column sizes to restore balance on a few of my pages. See Dwight Duncan (Ontario's new finance minister, for those out-of-province) for a practical example. CJCurrie 01:41, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
      • I've tweaked the main template, and all the tables should now have a consistent width. A side effect is that this aggravates the colour bar width problem. This can, however, be resolved by adding | style="width: 160px"| before the name of each party. I have done this on the Victoria page. - SimonP 02:14, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
        • Abbreviating the names does not help the reader who is unfamiliar with Canadian politics. "Progressive Conservative" helps the reader idenitify faster what party the candidate represents than "PC". Ditto for "New Democratic Party" instead of "NDP". In these tables, there is almost always -- if not always -- enough room to put either of those labels, so there really isn't any need to abbreviate. Ground Zero | t 03:37, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
          • I've reformated both the Victoria "simple complex" and Cambridge "single simple 1" examples, so that they both now have the same underlying structure. To add the three extra columns to a "single simple 1" table you only need to change a single digit: {{CanElec1}} to {{CanElec2}}. - SimonP 03:41, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

• I like the "Single British" one, as it has the swing which I like quite a bit. I've used it on a number of Canadian pages, including my own riding of Haldimand-Norfolk, and Labrador. The disadvantage is that it takes more time to make. But it does provide more information, and makes a single table consistant across multiple countries.-Volrath50 00:22, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
  • The 'Majority' figure may be particularly relevant to this first-past-the-post system of ours. The 'Swing' is a nice little summary of the race but I envisioned the Members of Parliament list accomplishing the same thing. Also, I never understood what the swing value meant. 0.5% what? Also the "Turnout" number appears to actually give the # of valid votes. A real turnout number would include rejected ballots. When designing the "single complex" I included a space for rejected ballots at the suggestion of another editor. After editing a hundred-odd federal districts I found that the value was pretty much constant varying between 0.2%-0.5%. Philosophically, I believe it is important, as well as relevant to the context of the article, to recognize those who would purposefully reject their ballots. But I'm a pragmatic man at heart so I'm willing to sacrifice it if it created a superior table. --maclean25 08:12, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Swing is something that is not usually used in the Canadian context; the "swing" refers to the average of the change between the votes of the incumbent and winning party, or in the case of a re-elected incument, the incumbent and the second place party. This is not a very useful measure in many ridings throughout the country where a third party has a strong presence. On the other point, the British table could easily be converted to include spoiled ballots, the problem is though that we don't know that figure for a lot of the older elections in Canada. In some cases it wasn't even recorded in the old days. - Jord 18:29, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

• Two comments: (i) I've included spoiled ballots in the turnout %'s that I've determined, and I thought everyone was doing this, (ii) I don't see why different countries can't have different designs -- it makes the nation of origin more easily identifiable to people reading this pages, after all. CJCurrie 20:44, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

• • In response to your (ii), I would say why reinvent the wheel? It is quite possible to use the election box template to create quite different tables. For instance our larger band of colour vs. that used by the Brits gives it a different feel from the get go, one does not need to include swing, etc - Jord 20:54, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Actually, the single complex election box above is a modified version of the British boxes. As you can see from the template talk page (before I knew how to use tidles) I just copied & pasted and added a column for expenditures. This was before the British general election when they upgraded their election boxes. --maclean25 08:13, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Chronological order

• On a separate point, should the historical results be listed in a chronological or reverse-chronological order? I've generally used the former, though some people seem to favour the latter. CJCurrie 23:50, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Good point. The reverse-chronological order may be more intuitive. The last election is probably the most relevant to the current situation, and probably of most interest to users. Many users don't know enough, or don't bother, to scroll down. As such, I vote for placing the most recent election first. --maclean25 01:32, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
    • I understand this logic, but the chronological approach seems better from an historical standpoint (IMO). CJCurrie 01:42, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I prefer the reverse chronological ordering too, for the same reasons cited by Maclean. Mindmatrix 21:21, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I also strongly prefer reverse chronological, as it puts the most relevant first, and is already standard on the British pages. -Volrath50 00:33, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm torn I think both arguments have a lot of merit. - Jord 00:11, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
• For current ridings, readers will probably be most interested in the most recent results, so that would argue for reverse-chronological order. For defunct ridings, chronological order probably makes more sense, but it doesn't make much sense to have different ordering for different typs of ridings. I am posting the results for defunct ridings that I have been working on in chrono order because that's how the data appear on the Parliamentary website. Reversing the order would slow my work down considerably, and I'd rather spend my time trying to get as much of this info in as possible, and worrying about the order later. To the point, I don't really care one way or t'other, and won't be offended if someone starts re-ordering the articles for which I've created tables. Ground Zero | t 14:09, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't think the chronological order matters all that much, although I have a slight preference for reverse chronological as per Mindmatrix. However, I would like to suggest we use sub-headings for each election so they appear in the table of contents and it makes the page easier to navigate. e.g.:

==Election results==

===2004 General election===

===2002 By-election===

===2000 General election===

etc. — Luigizanasi 05:02, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

• • • I'm not sure if this is a good idea. For those ridings with 15 or 20 elections, the TOC will be far too large. We already have quite a few sections to begin with. - SimonP 05:21, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
      • I like the subheadings. It allows us to edit each individual election better, if we want to make a write-up about the race. This is what I have done for Ottawa South. -- Earl Andrew - talk 05:38, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Also, if there are 15-20 elections with a table for each one, the page would be almost un-navigable in any case. Maybe we could group elections into, say, 20-year periods for elections before 1992. Luigizanasi 05:42, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
      • This is what I did for Little Bow (electoral district) the results go back to 1913. and have three elections per sub-heading. --Cloveious 06:15, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
    • How about if we put in a sub-heading if there is a write -up about the election (e.g., the Ottawa-area ones that Earl hes done), but not if there is no write-up, as is the case with most ridigns? Ground Zero | t 10:53, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
      • I think that is quite a reasonable idea. - SimonP 14:22, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Agreed. Also, moving forward, it is likely that you are going to have write ups on future elections in many ridings as wikipedia grows and especially in the case of by-elections. See Saint John Harbour for an example of a heading for a by-election with previous results lumped together under one section - Jord 15:42, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
• I stronly support reverse chronological order for all records. Let me just add my thoughts on the titles for the tables. Instead of having "Canadian Federal Election, 2006: Kelowna-Lake Country", I think it would be more efficient for users to have the titles "2006 Canadian Federal Election: Kelowna-Lake Country". I do not think each election result table needs to have a heading linked from the top of the page, as it is too much clutter.--Kelownian 01:15, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
• I don't see the need to put the riding name in each election table. It is at the top of the page in as the article's name, so this is just, as you say, clutter. Also, there is no need to capitalize "Canadian federal election". This is not the standard that has been used in Wikipedia. All of the federal election articles use "Cfe" as their titles, not "CFE". Ground Zero | t 15:38, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Based on the consensus here, I've re-ordered all of the current ridings into reverse chronological order. Defunct ridings remain, I think, exclusively in chronological order. Ground Zero | t 15:48, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Multiple moderate

As the inventer of the now named multiple moderate, I have to say well it has some dissadvantages ie: being a lot more confusing to edit, and it might not look so great in lower resolutions ie: 800x600. I have found it easily handles the table of contents problem, and you can add pretty much all the main data you need to, especially in lengthy riding history articles, as well as keeping the page length down.

I just wonder, will I still be able to use the multiple moderate table even if single complex becomes the decided standard? Would the Alberta provincial pages be converted? --Cloveious 05:58, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

• I hope you're ok with the name. I just meant that it had multiple elections in one box and a moderate amount of data (more than the simples, less than the complex). I have no objections to provincial pages being different. I've been to www.electionsalberta.ab.ca so I know how difficult Alberta pages will be. That being said, I like the idea of having tables side-by-side. The new election table will use a template to make it easy to edit. However, creating the template is difficult. It takes a lot of experimentation. --maclean25 06:36, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Im all-right with the name infact :) I never actually considered using templates to make results tables to use, let alone thought of a name for it. I was just more concerned about what standards will be required and enforced. But also I was mixing it up a bit by debating my tables good and bad points --Cloveious 23:41, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
    • As one of the 40% of web users who uses 800x600, I do find the width somewhat annoying. - SimonP 00:03, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Election expenses

Starting yet another sub-tangent ...

I'd like to ask for feedback from other contributors on the best method to determine the figures used for election expenses.

At the federal level, the figures currently in usage are those taken from "Total election expenses subject to limit" (entry 4). This is probably a fair approach, although more comprehensive totals could possibly be taken from "Total expenses, transfers and other cash outflows" (entry 5c) - depending on whether this information is deemed most appropriate for comparisons.

In Ontario, at the provincial level, there is an added difficulty. The candidate return forms contain separate entries for "Total campaign period expenses" (which covers (i) expenses subject to limitation, and (ii) excluded expenses) for and "Total Candidate's Campaign Expenses Subject to Limitation" (which covers (i) the candidate's expenses subject to limitation, and (ii) "from CR-3" -- which is to say, from the constituency association's expense report).

The discrepancies between these two entries are often considerable. Consider Tony Clement's returns from the 1999 election, for instance:

• Total campaign period expenses: $10,344.33
• Total Candidate's Campaign Expenses Subject to Limitation: $71,283.13 (over $65,000 of which was from CR-3).[1]

Is there a consensus that the latter figure should be used, in accordance with federal-level entries? CJCurrie 00:36, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Similarly, the Elections Manitoba site provides different sums for "Election expenses" and "Total Expenses and Transfers" (transfers in this case refers to transfers *to* a political party). (Go to this page and click on any "final" report to see what I mean). Which of these figures is more appropriate? CJCurrie 00:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I found a couple books in the library that show expenditures from the 1998 and 1993 elections. Actually, I'm not sure if it is expenditures or not, it says "Campaign financing total $ value". I incorporated the numbers in the Ottawa South article, so take a look and tell me if they look wrong. -- Earl Andrew - talk 00:44, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

• They seem fine from an intuitive standpoint, though this probably doesn't count for much. I recommend that we specify which figures we're using, in any case. CJCurrie 00:58, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

• • The book is not very specific, although I could probably read the introduction m0re thoroughly. It is quite a useful tool, as it talks about the candidates, the riding and has redistributed results. -- Earl Andrew - talk 01:05, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

• Thank you for taking the initiative on going to the library and finding resources. We will have to deal with the provincial election expenses on a province-by-province basis since each one will have its own reporting criteria and accounting practises. From the Ottawa South example, the expenses were a little higher than I expected ($116,684 on a safe seat?) but are believable. To CJCurrie's comment above, I did not use "Total expenses, transfers and other cash outflows" (5c) because I did not consider the transfers to be relevant to the electoral district's race. Whereas "Total election expenses subject to limit" (entry 4) only dealt with what was spent in that riding in that election. We may have to create a subpage called Campaign financing in federal election 200x to explain what is meant by "Expenses" with a link in every election box to that main page.--maclean25 02:06, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

That probably won't be necessary, but a short clarifying note wherever the figures are used probably wouldn't hurt. In any event, I've decided on the following strategy for the provincial pages:

(i) Ontario: Total Candidate's Campaign Expenses Subject to Limitation is most appropriate. It approximates the federal approach, and it covers transfers *to* the individual candidate from the constituency association.

(ii) Manitoba: Staying with individual expenses is most appropriate. In this case, the transfers are *from* candidates to parties -- and, beyond which, the figures include non-election expenses.

If anyone objects to this (or if I've made an error of interpretation somewhere), please let me know. CJCurrie 02:28, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Discussion moved from main page

• For one thing, a breakdown of electoral results per major communities and identifiable rural regions within it - I'm about to launch into Coast Chilcotin, a defunct riding in BC, and will try to break things down by the various towns in the largely-wilderness region, and because the non-town electoral/poll districts (generally) correspond to identifiable areas it's possible to do such a breakdown; possibly not so relevant in provinces where the geography isn't quite so dominant in defining local identities.Skookum1 05:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
• A table should show each election and the breakdowns just described. In Coast Chilcotin's case I may followup with how various towns voted once they were plumped into other ridings (Cariboo, West Vancouver, North Island from what I can recall; not sure where Ocean Falls winds up; probably Skeena I think.Skookum1 05:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  • What about urban ridings? Most of them have easily identifiable neighbourhoods with their own voting patterns too, but Elections Canada only lists them by polling division, and polling division maps and descriptions are expensive/impossible to find. Kirjtc2 02:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • In any event, here's a possible format for these breakdowns, using Tobique-Mactaquac as an example. I've only done 3 communities, but it does give a basic idea. Kirjtc2 22:12, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I was thinking of doing this myself. Looks good, JP :-D. I was also thinking about getting a polling map from Elections Canada for my riding. Either that or wait until the provincial election (Elections Ontario tells you where each polling station is) to match polling numbers from the provincial riding to the federal riding. I think the maps are under $10, I asked once, but never got around to purchasing them. -- Earl Andrew - talk 02:11, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Or you just might want to wait until the federal election is called tomorrow. I remember last year Elections Canada had a search engine on its website based on addresses and postal codes - it gave the polling division and station location. If we can somehow run every postal code in the country through, we might have something. :) I remember last year I was able to get a good idea about where the Fredericton polling divisions were that way. The maps are under $10, but for 308 ridings (and I think insets cost even more) it really adds up. Kirjtc2 03:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
        • That's a lot of work pumping in all those postal codes! First, one would need to aquire a map of all the streets and their postal codes. Some streets have more than one. -- Earl Andrew - talk 04:47, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
          • It was intended as a joke...you'd need even less of a life than me to do something like that. :) But anyway, if we're just going to merge all this info together, we only need basic ideas of where each poll is. For my Fredericton example I only did about 5-10% of the city's streets. Kirjtc2 15:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Alphabetical order, or order by number of votes?

For the results of an election in a rding article, the standard thus far has been to order the candidates by the number of votes they received, e.g.,

{{CanElec1|2006}}
|-
|
|Serious Party
|Chaudhury
|align=right|356
|-
|
|Boring Party
|Abernathy
|align=right|234
|-
|
|Silly Party
|Boisvert
|align=right|198
|-
{{end}}

User:Super cyclist has changed the ordering in the Newfoundland and Labrador riding articles and Cardigan (electoral district) to an alphabetical order, placing the winner's name in bold, and the incumbent's name in italics, e.g.,

{{CanElec1|2006}}
|-
|
|Boring Party
|Abernathy
|align=right|234
|-
|
|Silly Party
|Boisvert
|align=right|198
|-
|
|Serious Party
|'''''Chaudhury'''''
|align=right|356
|-
{{end}}

I do not agree with this change because I think it showing the ranking by number of votes provides more interesting information than the alphabetical order. This is why news media and other soureces normally present the information ranked by number of votes. Also, there are hundreds of articiles and thousands of tables that would have to be changed to apply this approach across the existing Wikipedia articles on Canadian electoral districts. Comments? Ground Zero | t 13:37, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I thought there was, at the least, implicit agreement to use ordering by vote count. I've updated a few riding articles with 2006 election results using this format, and anyone else modifying riding articles has also used this format (from the articles I've seen). We seem to have a clear consensus on this; if not, then the dissenters need to speak up. Specifically, I'd like to know why they chose to list according to candidate surname, rather than, say, party name. Mindmatrix 16:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Hands down it should be by vote count, that makes it far easier to follow. - Jord 17:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I understand where the system proposed by SuperCyclist is coming from. In this first-past-the-post system there are no second or third place candidates. There is a pool of candidates and one is the winner and everyone else gets absolutely nothing. So, in terms of final results, beyond the first place candidate the order doesn't really matter. However, the ordering by number of votes is more common and more intuitive. It is also more useful for drawing comparisons of level of support from previous years and other districts. As such, I support the ordering by number of votes. --maclean25 17:20, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

The reason I had started ordering the candidates by last name, as opposed to by number of votes, was to have all candidates listed in a non-biased manner, so that parties like the CPC-ML or the Marijuana Party would not be a 'side-note' in the election coverage, stuck at the bottom because of the low number of votes they receive. These parties function, for the most part, to bring issues to the fore during an election. Animal Alliance Party brings animal-rights issues to the debates, the First National Peoples party brings aboriginal issues to the fore, etc. I understand that the 1st-2nd-3rd ranking is the most common in the media, and perhaps easier to read. I feel that ranking them by name decreases main-party favouritism, which may be a NPOV issue. User:Super cyclist

I think we should stick with the standard because it is most useful for the reader. I don't see the bias in listing the parties that win the most votes first -- these are relatively small tables. I don't think that in the national results table in Canadian federal election, 2006, for example, that it makes sense to list the Animal Alliance ahead of the Conservative Party, which is what this approach would suggest. And doesn't putting the winning candidate's name in bold give him/her undue emphasis? Ground Zero | t 02:21, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

To extend Ground Zero's argument, it should be noted that Wikipedia has many goals, of which NPOV is one. Another is usability, which would be a significant factor in this case. Most people expect such tables to be ordered by vote count (as you say), so they should be designed that way. For most ridings, there are six or fewer candidates, so NPOV isn't a major problem - all the candidates are visible in one screen. I understand your argument, but in my opinion, this isn't a significant issue. Mindmatrix 20:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

The Canadian Parliamentary Guide and the parl.gc.ca site both list election results in order of votes received (though, in the interest of balance, it should be noted that Elections Canada does not). I've always used the "by order of votes" method, and I've never really considered doing it any other way. While I can understand the opposing argument, "by order" has both precedent and convenience on its side. CJCurrie 02:54, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Lets just order by votes with the top number first, I think it is easier to read this way, and I think its what the majority of people are looking for when they see election results.

1921 Block Vote Results
Affiliation		Candidate	Votes	%	Elected
	Labour	Alex Ross	7,294	9.64%	#1
	Independent	Robert C. Edwards	6,400	8.46%	#2
	Labour	Fred White	6,190	8.18%	#3
	Liberal	Robert Marshall	5,246	6.93%	#4
	Independent	Robert Pearson	5,141	6.79%	#5
	Liberal	George Webster	4,391	5.80%
	Liberal	Clinton J. Ford	4,230	5.59%
	Labour	Robert Parkyn	4,082	5.39%
	Conservative	Michael Costello	3,808	5.03%
	Conservative	C.F. Adams	3,332	4.40%
	Liberal	F. Langford	3,282	4.34%
	Conservative	Thomas Blow	3,090	4.08%
	Liberal	F.S. Selwood	2,969	3.92%
	Independent	H.B. Adshead	2,878	3.80%
	Independent Labour	F.C. Potts	2,864	3.78%
	Conservative	E.H. Crandell	2,663	3.52%
	Independent Labour	A. Gale	2,386	3.15%
	Conservative	S. Bacon Hollocks	2,282	3.02%
	Labour Socialist	Frank Williams	1,745	2.31%
	Independent	Alex Davidson	1,423	1.87%

I think it would look terrible and unorganized if say this table from the 1921 Alberta provincial election in Calgary was ordered name instead of votes. Besides I don't think this a POV issue, election results are a statement of fact, based on what the Population at large has already decided. --Cloveious 04:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe all the important points have already been made, but let me add my voice as another in favour of ordering by total votes. - SimonP 05:06, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Me too. Bearcat 05:59, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

To keep with other countries as a standard, we should keep it in order of votes cast. -- Earl Andrew - talk 19:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Since the consensus was solidly in favour of order of votes cast, and there has been no further discussion for over a week, I have restored that order to the articles that had been changed. Ground Zero | t 13:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Further work

I think that all federal riding article now have election results tables for general elections and by-elections for the period 1867-2006, although it is possible that some have been missed. There is still much work to be done to improve these for anyone who is interested:

1. The results are generally shown in the "CanElec1" format illustrated above. This means that they could be expanded to include % of popular vote, % change since previous election, and campaign expenditures (for recent elections).
2. The candidates' names are generally shown in the "LASTNAME, Firstname" format. I think that most people would agree that the "Firstname Lastname" format would be preferable.
3. Links could be added to candidates' names where articles exist. It is not a good idea to link all names without regard to whether or not articles exist because that leads to misdirection, either now or in the future, to article about other people who have the same name as the candidate. My favourite example is when someone linked the names of all of the minor candidates in a Toronto mayoral election. One of the links took the reader to the Kevin Richardson article. This sort of mislinking makes Wikipedia look bad.

Ground Zero | t 19:13, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I've added to the list of basic templates/tables above. Consolidation and standardisation is definitely needed, although details such as expenditures will likely be unavailable for many years. There is another series of templates from CanElec7 to CanElec12 which duplicates the other CanElec* templates, but with an edit link and riding title.

Some work is currently under way to fix the candidate name format to "Firstname Lastname" with mixed case, at least for the current ridings. Dl2000 03:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

At this point, the names in current ridings pages are generally fixed to "Firstname Lastname" format. Tables in defunct/historical ridings still need to be cleaned up. Cleaning up the table formats is still to be done, with some proposals in the next section. Dl2000 21:05, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

1. A provincial M template would be nice. Gloucester (provincial electoral district) was a bit of a pain to do, obviously. :) - Wmcduff (talk) 15:02, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

CanElec templates consolidation

Here is a review of the main current templates in use - it is proposed that CanElec3, CanElec5 and possibly CanElec6 be deprecated in favour of other templates:

• {{CanElec1}} - keep, but try to move to the more detailed {{CanElec2}} or {{CanElec4}} when feasible
• {{CanElec2}} - keep
• {{CanElec3}} - deprecate in favour of {{CanElec2}} - there are currently no ridings using this template, and we should standardise the percentage columns -
• {{CanElec4}} - keep (does not have Expenditures as {{CanElec2}} does, but expense info is likely unobtainable for older elections)
• {{CanElec5}} - deprecate in favour of {{CanElec4}} - again, set up consistent percentage columns - only 14 ridings use this
• {{CanElec6}} - would be inclined to deprecate, but need some consensus. Only 14 ridings use this template; it adds a Residence column, but had the effect of splitting 5-digit vote counts over 2 lines in Sault Ste. Marie (electoral district) - Residence may be better left for the candidate pages.
  • That's remedied by replacing the space with a comma or removing it altogether. -- Earl Andrew - talk 03:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
• {{CanElecM}} - keep (may wish to move to a template with percentage columns later, though)

Dl2000 21:05, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Can I suggest that editors also consider the higher-numbered templates, beginning with CanElec7? CJCurrie 03:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

{{CanElec5}} is still a useful template for the first election held in a riding, i.e., where there is no previous election against which results can be compared. Subsequent elections in the riding should use {{CanElec4}}. Ground Zero | t 02:56, 28 April 2011 (UTC)