Canadian Federal Election Research Articles

Partisanship, Voting Behavior, and Election Outcomes in Canada

Perhaps the most salient feature of Canadian federal elections in the recent past has been the similarity of their outcomes. In the period since the end of World War II, the Liberal party has dominated the electoral arena, winning seven of ten general elections. This party has formed the government of Canada continuously since 1963, its share of the popular vote varying on average by only 4.8 percent over the last five elections. At present, however, the basis of that Liberal dominance is imperfectly understood since relatively few studies have been made of the psychological basis of electoral choice in Canada or of the relationships between individual voting behavior and election outcomes.' To enhance understanding of these phenomena, this study will examine the nature of partisanship in the Canadian electorate and the interplay between voters' partisan attachments and the stimuli provided by short-term forces generated during particular election campaigns. The pattern of electoral outcomes in Canada, together with the strength and salience of certain social cleavages (e.g., region, religion, ethnicity) might lead one to assume that voters' partisan predispositions are highly stable-reflecting, and in turn reinforcing, the enduring political significance of these cleavages. Yet, research in Canada and other political settings suggests that a note of caution may be in order, as interpretations of voting behavior in Western democracies have undergone substantial revision since the advent of the earliest American studies. The American Voter (1960), and some of its predecessors,2

The Law and Order Issue in the British General Election and the Canadian Federal Election of 1979: Crime, Populism and the State

The Law and Order Issue in the British General Election and the Canadian Federal Election of 1979: Crime, Populism and the State

The Multicandidate Calculus of Voting: Application to Canadian Federal Elections

This paper first operationalizes and tests the probability components in the expected utility-based multicandidate calculus of voting, using survey data drawn from the 1968 and 1972 Canadian federal elections. 'With the choice context taken as first versus second choice voting, it is seen that the probability terms measuring the impact of the individual's vote on election outcomes are substantially related to the actual voting decision. Second, several hypotheses based on the notion that the accuracy of probability calculations will vary from citizen to citizen are offered and tested. Finally, the implications of the present results for the current debate on the appropriateness of the expected utility model for voter decision making (which has been centered exclusively on the two candidate calculus of voting) are briefly considered.

The Effects of Chain Ownership on Editorial Coverage: The Case of the 1974 Canadian Federal Election

In the literature dealing with the role of the press in Canadian politics one dimension which has attracted the attention of a number of commentators is the effect that chain ownership of large metropolitan dailies may have on influencing the amount, type, and interpretation of news disseminated to the public. The issue of the effects of chain ownership has been examined empirically in the United States, and studies confirm the hypothesis that chains do indeed influence the editorial positions of member newspapers. This note examines through content analysis the effects of chain ownership on editorial treatment of issues, political institutions, and political leaders in the context of the 1974 election.

The Measurement of Party Competition

Most measures of party competition were designed for the United States or other two-party systems. The measure proposed here is intended for multiparty as well as two-party systems. It is a formalization of the notion of uncertainty: election outcomes are competitive to the degree we are uncertain who will win. By ascertaining through survey research the degree of party loyalty over time, one can calculate the chances of alternative outcomes in hypothetical replications of any given election. Since the chance that a losing party might have won is one measure of the importance of that party, this approach to party competition also provides a precise indicator of the number of parties in the system (i.e., whether it is two-party, three party, etc.). The method is applied here to data on Canadian federal elections in 1965 and 1968.

The Measurement of Party Competition

Most measures of party competition were designed for the United States or other two-party systems. The measure proposed here is intended for multiparty as well as two-party systems. It is a formalization of the notion of uncertainty: election outcomes are competitive to the degree we are uncertain who will win. By ascertaining through survey research the degree of party loyalty over time, one can calculate the chances of alternative outcomes in hypothetical replications of any given election. Since the chance that a losing party might have won is one measure of the importance of that party, this approach to party competition also provides a precise indicator of the number of parties in the system (i.e., whether it is two-party, three party, etc.). The method is applied here to data on Canadian federal elections in 1965 and 1968.

Voters vote beautiful: The effect of physical appearance on a national election.

Judges ratings of physical appearance were obtained for 79 candidates who had competed for 21 parliamentary seats during the 1972 Canadian federal election, A comparison was made between the number of votes obtained by attractive and unattractive candidates. As predicted, the results indicate that attractive candidates averaged more votes than unattractive ones (322 ex 11%, p < 0. 001). An unexpected finding was that the politically unpopular parties were represented by physically unattractive candidates. Only a single member of the political fringe groups obtained an appearance score which was above the median for the entire group (p = 0.0001). Several possible causes of the relation between party affiliation and appearance were discussed. The origins of the idea that physically attractive people enjoy more benefits than the less beautiful are perhaps more deeply embedded in folk psychology than in empirical research. The results of several recent studies, however, support this general proposition ( Dion, 1972; Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972; Efran, 1974. These limited findings suggest that attractive people are better liked, arc believed to possess more desirable personalities, and are judged less severely if they commit socially unacceptable acts than are their unattractive counterparts. Nevertheless, there is something unappealing about the idea that appearance may actually be an important determinant of social behaviour and this notion is often regarded as self-evident, unbelievable, and ridiculous, all at the same time. Aronson (1969, p. 160) has noted that social psychologists have preferred to that beauty is only skin deep and have avoided investigation of its social impact for fear they might leam otherwise. Politics represents an area of public life in which the effects of appearance may lead to very important social consequences and in which the idea of special privilege for the pretty is particularly repellent. Aside from speculation and anecdotes, there is no evidence that looks are actually a political asset. This supposition is, however, a common one and has had fleeting acceptance among newsmen and political observers; it seems as if they too suspect that appearance is important but are reluctant to believe that anything that seems so trivial could really be of major and general * Requests for reprints should be sent to: Michael G. Efran, University of Toronto, Scarborough College, 126S Military Trail, West Hill, Ontario, Canada. The authors would like to express their appreciation to R. Rigelhof and the Scarborough College graphics unit for their assistance in preparing the photographic materials used. CANAD. J. BEHAV. SCI./REV. CANAD. Scr. COMP., G(4), 1974 VOTERS VOTE BEAUTIFUL 3 5 3 significance. Commenting on the all-important Kennedy-Nixon television debates during the 1960 presidential election, Time (5 September 1969, p. 24) asked rhetorically Was Nixon sabotaged by TV makeup artists? Time also noted poll results which suggested that the majority of those who had watched the debates on television believed that Kennedy had emerged as the winner whereas those who had listened to the debates on the radio reached the opposite conclusion. Sorensen (1965, p. 199) made a similar point, noting that Nixon's verbal debate sounded weak and what was worse, Nixon looked weak . . . his gray suit and heavily powdered jowls looked flabby and pallid beside Kennedy's dark suit and healthy tan . . . Nixon looked drawn and tired. While Sorensen was prepared to comment on the enormous importance of the television debates and on the probable effect of appearance on those debates, he did not actually go on to identify Kennedy's looks as one of the decisive factors in Kennedy's favour that helped to provide him with the final narrow margin of victory. Nevertheless, a candidate's appearance is one of his most salient attributes and it has often been noted that voters frequently act capriciously enough to permit this variable to have an influence on their decisions. The incredibly low level of awareness of issues which typifies many voters (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960) would also favour the operation of this variable. From a psychological perspective it matters little whether attractive candidates benefit from a what is beautiful is good stereotype (Dion et al., 1972), or win votes because an evaluative process such as that described by Byrne and his colleagues (Byrne, 1971; Byrne, London, & Reeves, 1968) continues to have influence even at the polls. In cither case the prediction is still that attractive candidates will, on the average, fare better than unattractive ones. The purpose of the study reported here was to discover if the appearance of candidates in a major election actually does influence the outcome of the election. Despite the uncomfortable implications of the hypothesis, it was predicted that attractive candidates would obtain a greater proportion of the vote than unattractive candidates.

Post-dicting Electoral Cleavages in Canadian Federal Elections, 1949–68: Material for a Footnote

The first systematic correlation of socio-demographic factors and party preference in Canadian federal elections was made by Escott Reid in 1933. No expansion or even replication followed until the mid-1950s when John Meisel, using data obtained by sample survey of individuals, continued the enquiry begun by Reid on the basis of aggregate statistics. Since then – especially after 1960 – many data have been collected and some studies made on the links between party preference and factors such as religion, language, region, social class, and age. But these studies, even for the variables that have received most attention – religion, region, and class, for example – give us findings which remain scattered over time and space, like building materials on different construction sites. We need an overall view of the relationship between socio-demographic factors and party preference – if only to facilitate the interpretation of more refined but narrowly focussed studies; and we need such a view to extend over more than one or two elections.

Social Class and Voting: A Study of the 1968 Canadian Federal Election in Ontario

Social Class and Voting: A Study of the 1968 Canadian Federal Election in Ontario

The Impact of the Local Candidate in Canadian Federal Elections

The impact of the local candidate in Canadian federal elections has received scant theoretical or empirical attention. Voting in Canada is usually accounted for in terms of party identification, party leader attraction, ethnicity, and religious affiliation. Possible local candidate influence on electoral outcomes is rarely considered systematically. An observer of British elections placed the average influence of the local candidate at about 10 per cent of the total vote. Morris Davis, in a study of a Halifax two-member constituency, states that the local candidate is responsible for at least 6 per cent of the vote

Religion and Voting: A Study of the 1968 Canadian Federal Election in Ontario

On a cherchC A ddceler le genre de liaisons qui existaient entre certaines dimensions de la ferveur religieuse et les prdfdrences dans le vote a l'aide de donndes recueillies sur questionnaire dam la Province de l'Ontario au moment de 1'Clection fCdCrale canadienne de 1968. Les dimensions de la ferveur religieuse sont les suivantes: engagement social dans la communautd religieuse, orthodoxie doctrinale, I'intensitC de la pratique religieuse, les attitudes vis‐his les autres groupes religieux et la question des Ccoles dpardes, et l'affiliation religieuse des candidats. Les mesures de l'engagement social sont trks dtroitement reliees A celles des preferences dans le vote tandis que la religion des interrogks ne produit aucun resultat tangible. La liaison entre la religion et le vote est de meme nature et intensite tant au niveau provincial que federal.Propositions on the association of a number of dimensions of religiosity with voting preferences were tested by survey data collected in Ontario at the time of the 1968 Canadian federal election. The religiosity variables include: social involvement in the religious community, doctrinal orthodoxy, devotionalism, attitudes to other religious groups and to the separate schools issue, and the religion of the candidates. Measures of social involvement had the strongest association with voting preferences while the religion of the candidate had no significant effect. The association between religion and voting was of the same kind and strength at the provincial level as at the federal.

A Study of One Constituency in the Canadian Federal Election of 1957

This article attempts to describe the process of election as it occurred in one Canadian constituency in the federal general election of June 10, 1957. Since it would be foolish to generalize on the basis of one example, no effort is made to draw conclusions. The article is expository and intended only to illumine one of the unexamined corners of Canadian political science after the fashion of Larzarsfeld’s work on the 1948 American election and the valuable constituency studies contained in Butler’s book on the British election of 1951.Constituency X is a large residential electoral district, part of which lies within Metropolitan Toronto. Brought into being by the Redistribution Act of 1952, the riding grew quickly because of the flight to the suburbs and the rapid growth of Toronto. Between 1951 and 1956 the population more than doubled, from 72,117 to 167.310. The huge size of the constituency and its swift increase presented a challenge in organization that is worth noting in itself.The task rested in the hands of a woman who had served as returning officer in the previous election also. For the 1957 election she began in October, 1956, to make preparations for taking the vote and by the following April she was giving all her working hours to the job. For the three months immediately preceding the election she had a full-time assistant and two part-time workers helping her. The extent of the operations involved can be gathered from the statistics. Enumerating the riding required the appointment of 636 enumerators and the assignment to them of 318 election kits containing about a dozen items each. In addition to supervising the drawing up, posting, and revision of the lists of electors, who totalled 104,000, the returning officer was also responsible for splitting the constituency into 318 polling divisions, for establishing 427 polling stations, and for appointing a deputy returning officer and an election clerk in each. On voting day, with a staff of four people, she tabulated the 74,995 votes cast and was among the first to report results.