Metro column: It’s over to you, Calgary
Finally, the Calgary Municipal election here. On Monday you and I will go to the polls to select who we want to work on our behalf for the next three years.
This final week of the campaign has provided all kinds of drama, too. Naheed Nenshi collected endorsements from former mayoral candidates Kent Hehr and Wayne Stewart. Barb Higgins started the week off in similar style by welcoming Bob Hawkesworth’s support, but her week ended on a sour note after aggressive interviews on Citytv and X92.9 had the former broadcaster showing her frustration and a temper.
Ric McIver is rumoured to be looking for an endorsement from a current low-polling candidate of his own — very possibly Craig Burrows.
The drama doesn’t end there. Early this week, three different major polls showed Higgins, McIver and Nenshi as the only candidates who have a chance, and it might be a toss-up as to who will win. Then, late this week, we saw a potential “top 3” televised debate stopped dead, rumoured to have been quashed by one of the three refusing the offer.
In all, it’s been a crazy campaign that started earlier than ever before. And it will be a nail-biter right to the bitter end.
The only thing missing now is your vote. On Monday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. it’s over to you.
And no excuses this time! Have to work? By law, your employer has to give you three consecutive hours to vote within that time.
Out of town, or you’re incapacitated? Visit calgary.ca/election today and request a mail-in or “special” ballot.
Don’t know where to vote? You should have gotten a brochure in your mailbox telling you where your polling place is, but if you didn’t, visit that same website and type in your address.
It will tell you.
Don’t know who to vote for? Visit CalgaryPolitics.com or the websites of any Calgary media outlet — including Metro Calgary — and I guarantee you’ll find all the info you’ll need.
If you still think you might not vote, I’ll make you a deal you won’t see in any other newspaper: email me at HelpMeVote@djkelly.ca, tell me what neighbourhood you live in and what your No. 1 concern is, and this weekend I’ll do my best to give you information about the candidates in your area. I may not be able to respond to everyone, but I’ll try my best. How’s that for a deal?
We have it pretty easy here in Calgary. All we ask of Calgarians is to pay their taxes, and mark their ballot with an ‘X’ every three years. We all do the first one, and that’s the hard part.
Now’s the time to do the easy part. Vote on Monday.
Original: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/663368–it-s-over-to-you-calgary
Metro column: ‘Striking 180’ for city voters
“Throw all the bums out!” Remember one year ago when that was all we heard from our friends, neighbours and media?
Well, Ric McIver is still polling in first place for mayor. True, Naheed Nenshi and Barb Higgins are not that far behind, but the results of a recent poll of who we might vote for alderman shows a much wider gap between the incumbents and their challengers.
According to the O’Connell Enterprises poll, in every single ward where the incumbent is running again, they are leading. And not just a small lead — in most cases it’s gigantic.
For a city that just nine months ago was swept up in palpable anti-council sentiment, this is a striking 180.
Take Ward 1 as an example. In 2007, Jennifer Banks came surprisingly close to defeating Dale Hodges, an incumbent who, even three years ago, was believed to be well past his prime.
If Calgarians really believed it was time for a sweeping change, you might think council’s longest serving member would be first on the hit list. Of residents who say they have chosen their candidate, Hodges currently has 80 per cent support. That’s crazy high considering this was supposed to be the year of the angry voter.
It doesn’t end there. Ald. Lowe has 72 per cent of decided voters, Ald. Stevenson has 67 per cent, Ald. Jones 88 per cent, Ald. Farrell 52 per cent, Ald. Mar, 74 per cent; Ald. Chabot, 88 per cent; Ald. Pincott, 55 per cent; and Ald. Colley-Urquhart, 81 per cent.
Only Linda Fox-Mellway in Ward 14 has less support than all of her competitors put together, at 37 per cent. Even so, she’s currently leading the race, according to the poll.
Have we really changed our minds this much in just one short year? In wards where there is no incumbent, every race is much closer, with not a single candidate even coming close to having majority support.
The biggest story, though, could be the number of undecided voters. In every ward the number of voters who haven’t made up their mind vastly outnumber those that have. “Undecided” describes 34-64 per cent of voters in each area.
So the big question is, who will the “undecided” vote for? Will they go with the incumbent they know, or will they tap into the rapidly disappearing ‘fresh start sentiment’ and pick a newcomer?
All it will take is one snowfall to remind us of how we felt last winter. One dumping of snow and we could have a whole new council.
If next week is sunny, I suspect we’ll have the same council we’ve had for the past three years.
Original: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/657223–striking-180-for-city-voters
City of Calgary Election iPhone App Review
I’ve been having a bit of “back and forth” via email with the City of Calgary’s Deputy City Clerk and Returning Officer for the past couple months.
On July 29 I originally asked her about the possibility of creating a “where to vote” widget, similar to what the City has (or at that point, would have) on their website. My idea was that if the Javascript behind the widget on the City’s site was made public, any candidate or third party such as CalgaryDemocracy.ca or CalgaryPolitics.com could include it on their website. The concept of course being that the easier it is to find out what ward you live in and where you can vote, the more likely we would be to have a higher turnout.
It took a few weeks, but I was eventually shut down and told this would not be happening for a variety of reasons. (Because of a confidentiality statement at the bottom of every City of Calgary originating email, I can’t share the exact obstacles given. Not that I agree with them anyway. But I digress.)
Needless to say I was super excited when I got an email last week from Ms. Clifford telling me that the City had developed an election iPhone app which would be include the widget I requested. As the app was still awaiting approval from the Apple App Store, she asked that I not say anything about the app until it was available.
And today is that day! So here’s your link. If you have an iPhone go download it.
Of course I got Ms. Clifford’s email about the release of the app AFTER having already read about it on Twitter, so my “scoop” wasn’t to be. So instead I’m going to offer the first review of the app.
The app is developed by Purple Forge who have created several other election-related applications for candidates and even the Ontario PC Party. Right now their website front page is loaded with the various apps they’ve created for elections. With the municipal elections in Canada and the mid-terms in the US they are obviously very busy in this arena. They are probably best known to Calgarians however for creating the Calgary Stampede app that was released this year.
The application itself is full of information. Tabs include: Information for Electors (Voters), Who are the Candidates, Election FAQ, Election and City of Calgary Videos (YouTube), First Time Voters, Advance Voting Information, Physically Incapacitated Voters, Request a Mail-In (Special) Ballot, Voter ID Requirements, City of Calgary Ward Maps, Local Authorities Election Act, Election News, and Contact the Elections Office. Basically it includes everything that is on the City of Calgary’s website (calgary.ca/election) but in a format that is much easier to navigate.
By far and away the two best features of the app however are the Where to Vote widget and the Election Buzz tabs.
The Where to Vote option asks you for your address and then tells you what ward you live in and the address and name of the polling place for you on October 18. It even comes with a Google Map showing you exactly where that location is. The only thing that could make this feature better is having the ability to open the Google Map in the iPhone’s native Maps app (powered by Google anyway) so that the user can get exact directions from where they are to the polling place via car, on foot, or – best of all – by transit.
The Election Buzz tab is nothing more than an aggregation of the #yycvote Twitter hashtag, which, because CalgaryPolitics.com was the site that decided on that hashtag and I’m an active user of it, I can obviously get behind. I like this feature because it makes the “buzz” available to citizens who are not Twitter users and have no reason to go search for something called “#yycvote” on a website they don’t use.
The majority of the other features, such as the Voter ID requirements, are text based and do exactly what they need to do: give voters the info in one handy place. However some of these features could certainly be greatly improved.
For example the Request a Mail-In (Special) Ballot does not have a form that a user could simply fill in and click “submit” like the Where to Vote option. Instead it only gives you the phone number and mailing address of where you need to contact to request a special ballot. Similarly the list of candidates feature is nothing more than a link to a PDF file. A more robust option would include details on the candidates or at the very least contact details or a link to their websites. I know this is not something the City of Calgary does currently, but it’s time they caught up with the 21st Century and helped make it easier for voters to get information on candidates, not just to process of voting. This is the perfect location to start accepting that responsibility. I mean, heck, they include some of the websites in the PDF already. While we’re at it, it would be good if the candidates came up when you used the Where to Vote feature too.
Likewise it would be nice if the Ward Map feature was more interactive than just a PDF map that is very difficult to read on the small iPhone screen.
It would also be nice if the video section worked. Currently it goes to a “This video has been removed by the user” screen. Basically it’s useless right now.
I also like the feature which allows you to connect to your Twitter or Facebook accounts and then share any page of the app with your friends. This is more of what we should be seeing from the City: the ability to use citizens to help spread the message about the election.
In all, the app is very well done and I would give it a 7 out of 10. Or in iTunes store speak, 3.5 out of 5. For only the second City of Calgary app I think we’re seeing some very good work happening.
Of course I wish we would have had it months ago, but I’m picky like that.
Cross posted to CalgaryPolitics.com
Metro column: Campaign missing the mark
An election is the ultimate exercise in personal branding.
If you try to be something you are not, people will figure it out pretty quickly and you’ll see your vote totals affected accordingly.
Most of the candidates in this election have this down to a science. Ric McIver for nine years has been the common sense-style conservative. He pledges to cut spending and ensure we are only paying taxes for necessary items. He doesn’t stray from this mould very often.
Barb Higgins is a friendly face who Calgarians have invited into their living rooms nightly for years as a respected newscaster. On the campaign trail, Higgins is friendly and always happy to have a conversation. In the style of a television journalist with only a minute and a half for a story, her manner is very frank and she cuts to the chase.
Naheed Nenshi is the professor, the guy with the ideas. He knows what he’s talking about and how those things apply to Calgarians. He talks about city hall as only an outsider with intense understanding of the inner workings can.
As any first-year marketing student knows, candidates can’t play against their brand. It’s called “going with your strengths.”
This is why the behaviour of the Bob Hawkesworth campaign has been so bizarre this past week.
Even more than Ald. Gord Lowe or Ald. Dale Hodges, Hawkesworth has been city council’s statesman. You may not always agree with him, but he’s always willing to explain his position and why his view is important. In the meantime, he’d pick apart opponents’ positions with sound logic in a stern, matter-of-fact tone. He’ll put his thoughts up against anyone’s and let the best argument win.
He’s our Uncle Bob.
However, this past week his campaign has gone in a direction I doubt anyone saw coming.
They began attacking all three candidates ahead of him in the polls using clipped videos, anti-candidate websites and attempting to boil down complex issues to “you’re either with me, or you’re against me.”
The new direction is so striking that it turned off many election followers. I can only imagine it is turning off some of his long-time fans, too.
The contrast is not the Bob we all have grown to know and respect: A man always willing to listen and explain why he disagrees with you. Now people who disagree get shouted down by his campaign team.
But Hawkesworth himself still isn’t behaving this way. In each forum he’s been a feisty man of grace, steadily setting himself apart from the others by taking principled stands on issues that often don’t prove popular.
One can only hope his campaign finds the right balance soon. Otherwise the election might not be the only thing Uncle Bob loses.
Original: http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/local/article/650585–campaign-missing-the-mark
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