Friday September 24, 2021 | NANAIMO, BC
by Mary P Brooke, Editor | Island Social Trends
On this sunny Friday morning, NDP team players are heading to Nanaimo, pending the final ballot count in the federal riding of Nanaimo-Ladysmith. That count is apparently scheduled to being at 1 pm, according to NDP organizers. Results might take until 6 or 7 pm this evening, is their guess.
The NDP candidate Lisa Marie Barron in Nanaimo-Ladysmith has suddenly become a bit of a party rock star, pitted against the well-known and two-time (2018 by-election, 2019) Green winner Paul Manly for this 2021 election. She has been sitting there in the lead for days, as the counting of mail-in ballots has been awaited by Elections Canada.
Today is the day:
As of 11:40 am this morning, the “percentage of special ballots counted” (that’s Elections Canada lingo) for that riding was still zero. Counting continues.
On election night Monday September 20. Lisa Marie Barron was in the lead with 17,299 votes, ahead of Tamara Kronis (Conservative) with 16,553, and with Green incumbent Paul Manly in third place (14,716 votes). Green incumbent Paul Manly still had room to be hopeful.
But the NDP ground-game (getting people out to vote) is known to be strong, and the NDP have been eagerly hopeful all week, with today ramping that up to a room-pacing pitch. Winning Nanaimo-Ladysmith would means having six of the seven federal seats on Vancouver Island once again.
Elections Canada vote profile:
FINAL COUNT (except for mail-in ballot count, still to come) at 6:30 am today September 24, 2021 (unchanged since yesterday, source: Elections Canada):
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentof Votes |
|---|---|---|---|
| NDP-New Democratic Party | Lisa Marie Barron | 18,051 | 29.1 % |
| Liberal | Michelle Corfield | 8,327 | 13.4 % |
| Conservative | Tamara Kronis | 17,050 | 27.5 % |
| Green Party | Paul Manly | 15,313 | 24.7 % |
| People’s Party – PPC | Stephen Welton | 3,204 | 5.2 % |
| Total number of valid votes: | 61,945 |
Voter turnout profile of Nanaimo-Ladysmith:
Polls Reporting: 264 of 265 (99.62 %) | Voter Turnout: 61,945 of 107,926 registered electors (57.4 %) — does not include electors who registered on election day. | Population: 122,710 | Number of electors on list: 107,926
Nationally, Elections Canada shows that 62.09% of eligible voters cast a ballot on September 20 (and in advance polls) — that’s 16,991,074 of 27,366,297 registered electors (before all mail-in ballot numbers are fully counted).
Voting day:
Nanaimo-Ladysmith NDP candidate Lisa Marie Barron spent voting day on Monday “pushing to the very end”.
Barron and her team were out around the community, following up on phone calls, and knocking on doors of voters to see if they’d voted yet or needed help getting to the polls before the 7 pm closing time.
Maintaining COVID protocols was a goal at voting stations by Elections Canada. For Barron, COVID-related safety was a top priority on her campaign.
Party impact:
Being up against a well-known Green incumbent (Paul Manly) in Nanaimo-Ladysmith was part of the challenge of this campaign. One of her key talking points on that was that the NDP offers constituents the opportunity to have an NDP Member of Parliament as part of a party with Official Party Status in the House of Commons. That ultimately gives constituents a stronger voice in parliament, says Barron.
Final election results:
Election results have not been fully know across the country all of this week, due to the large volume of mail-in ballots (a popular voter choice during the ongoing COVID pandemic).
Nationally, the final count of the 338 seats for the 44th parliament shifted a bit yesterday (as more mail-in ballots were counted), giving the Liberals one more seat and the Bloc dropping by one. Currently: Liberal 159, Conservative 119, B.Q. 33, NDP 25, Green 2.
===== RELATED:
Lisa Marie Barron poised to win back Nanaimo-Ladysmith for the NDP (Sept 23, 2021)
Lisa Marie Barron: up against Green incumbent (Sept 20, 2021)
Day 11: Orange Island wave (Aug 25, 2021)
