I am going to review some voting data from the 2011 municipal election with regard to the mayor's race.
Forty-nine per cent of registered voters live in South Delta and 51 per cent in North Delta. Overall, 23,457 votes were cast from a population of 69,328 eligible voters for a turnout of 34 per cent.
The turnout by community was Ladner (36 per cent), Tsawwassen (43) and North Delta (28). Thus, the total vote in South Delta was 32 per cent greater than that in North Delta; so a consistent South Delta favourite should have won.
However, three of the four candidates for mayor were from Tsawwassen and one was from North Delta, yet the North Delta incumbent won handily.
In my view, the reason was not a split vote, but uncorrelated politics. Tsawwassen had a local referendum on the Southlands, to which North Delta and most of Ladner were indifferent. Relatively apathetic and apolitical North Delta supports Mayor Lois Jackson due to her long service and incumbency. Ladner had nobody in the contest, so its vote was close to the overall average.
Jackson took 43 per cent of the total vote, followed by Krista Engelland (26), Heather King (23) and John Meech (seven). If the vote had been random, each candidate would have received 25 per cent. Thus it appears Jackson's campaign was effective; Meech's was negative; and King's and Engelland's were not effective.
In North Delta polls, Jackson took 58 per cent of the vote, followed by King (19), Engelland (16) and Meech (six). However in Tsawwassen polls, Jackson took 23 per cent, King received 25 per cent, Engelland 42 per cent and Meech eight per cent.
In Ladner, Jackson took 41 per cent, followed by King (26), Engelland (25) and Meech (seven).
Since Engelland essentially ran on an anti-Southlands platform, and Meech on a pro-Southlands platform, while Jackson was purposefully vague and equivocal on this issue but was perceived as prodevelopment, the Tsawwassen vote can be interpreted as a one-issue one in which the anti-Southlands side prevailed.
In Ladner, Engelland's proportion of the votes cast declined eastward, indicating her appeal was limited to the zone of interest in Tsawwassen politics. Jackson would have still won even if every one of the 1,590 votes she received in Tsawwassen had gone to another candidate. Tsawwassen residents should bear in mind Jackson did not need their votes to be elected.
King received 28 per cent of the vote in Ladner, 25 per cent in Tsawwassen and 19 per cent in North Delta. Her appeal was thus fairly uniform across the three parts of Delta and close to the expected value for random voting.
Interestingly as a Tsawwassen resident, King did not receive relatively greater support in Tsawwassen. This was likely attributable to either her management of the ill-fated Tsawwassen Area Plan process and/or the perception that her campaign was financed by the development community.
The other Tsawwassen candidate, Meech, who had a strong pro-development platform, did not resonate with the voters anywhere. However, in fairness, he was not well known and was politically inexperienced.
In 2008, Jackson took 52 per cent of the vote against four other candidates; in 2011, she took 43 per cent against three other candidates. This is a decline, but she appears to be safe as long as she remains popular in North Delta.
