NPA sends out cryptic message

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Submitted by Irwin Loy on November 15, 2008 - 7:11pm.

The Non-Partisan Association began its last 24 hours of campaigning before polls close at 8 p.m. Saturday with this cryptic message to supporters:

“Recent polls show that the COPE/Vision alliance could take over city council, park board and school board if we do not go to every possible effort to mobilize our vote tomorrow,” reads an e-mail sent out yesterday.

It’s one indication the NPA knows it’s trailing going into today’s vote, going up against a Vision Vancouver team that has twice as many volunteers and thousands more registered members.

“There’s no doubt we think it’s a very tight election,” said Mike Meneer, who works on the Peter Ladner campaign.

“We wouldn’t send out an e-mail like that unless we felt we needed every single one of our NPA voters to turn out.”

One positive sign the NPA camp is taking as voting draws to a close: Turnout doesn’t look to be especially high this year. At 6 p.m., city election officials were guessing that turnout numbers looked comparable to 2005, when the NPA retook city hall.

The theory is that average turnouts favour the centre-right NPA, which has a reliable base of support from which to draw. About 132,000 cast ballots in 2005.

High turnouts, the theory goes, favour the civic left. In 2002, closer to 140,000 ballots were cast when Larry Campbell and his then-COPE party swept to power for the first time.

Of course, the Vision camp says it’s buoyed by high turnouts at polling stations in key areas. While the NPA traditionally counts on areas like Point Grey and the wealthy southwest quadrant of the city, Vision is relying on boosting turnout in areas whose residents haven’t traditionally voted in high numbers.

“The voting has been very heavy in the locations we’re counting on,” said Vision spokesperson Ian Baillie.

“I’m told it’s heavy in the West End. I’m also told Trout Lake is doing very well. Places that we would want to see a heavy turnout we are seeing a very heavy turnout.”

In 2005 for example, the seven West End polls south of Robson and west of Bute all went to then-Vision candidate Jim Green. All had below average voter turnouts.

Observers may read more into the voting day schedules of Ladner and Vision’s Gregor Robertson. Robertson has done little in the way of public “main streeting” today. Ladner, on the other hand, has spent his day shaking hands in Yaletown and Kitsilano.

Results are expected as the polls close at 8 p.m.