So…get any Election 2011 results via Twitter before 7pm PT?

So…did ya? I bet no.

Other than the CBC displaying a graphic of Atlantic results for five minutes at 6pm Pacific Time, no other real Federal Election results were transmitted by traditional or social media. I have not seen the graphic so I cannot confirm if the results were for the entire region, were for 100% of polls or if the results were actual results or merely projections.

So for a few minutes a traditional news source listed results for no more than 10% of the entire country with 30 minutes voting remaining in Central and Mountain time zones and one hour left in BC voting.

Suffice to say Elections Canada’s “staggered voting hours” stemmed the social media tide of results being reported – as I predicted last week.

The idea that social media could affect the election merely by reporting results of voting, was absurd. Real change occurs in changing the mind set of people.

Websites such as TweetTheResults.ca promised to assist with the early Tweeting of results. Instead, hours before most of the polls closed, the website said they were shutting down until all the polls were closed so as to avoid fines. Really? I am guessing it was due to the fact NO RESULTS WERE ACTUALLY AVAILABLE and their efforts to prove their social media awesomeness were for not.

For a laugh (and/or punishment) look through the history of the Twitter hashtag #tweettheresults for the “results” which were posted before 7pm Pacific Time. Many of the numbers do not add up correctly; most are opinion presented as fact; differing results depending on the political slant of the poster and hundreds of posts asking who has results because the poster has yet to see any.

Were real results Tweeted out? Maybe. But the amount of digging one would have to do in the trash of social media noise to determine what was real and what was opinion was a waste of time.

Let’s review some results and see if Tweeting out these figures from Eastern Canada would have told a story beyond what we already knew in the weeks leading up to the Election. Also, would a strong mobilization on social media help organize a “strategic vote” (meaning vote in a way you may not traditionally vote in order to topple the sitting government)?

Federal Election Seat Results by Province 2011 vs 2008

From the above, one can see that other than Quebec and Ontario there were no major shifts of Party voting from the 2008 election to 2011. Since Quebec is the only Province with the Bloc (who were all but wiped out in the voting) knowing this ahead of time would not have mattered to BC. Also Quebec and Ontario voting ended at 6:30pm Pacific Time therefore results from the East would have had zero impact and their voting patterns.

Similarly, results from Quebec and Ontario made no difference in British Columbia due to Party make up but also because the real tabulated results were NOT known during the 30 minutes remaining in BC voting.

So by Party, here is how seats changed from the last election to yesterday:

Federal Election Seat Results by Party 2011 vs 2008

The proof that early reporting of results on social media – even if it had happened would not have mattered – is this table showing the change in seats from 2008 to 2011 by closing time of voting stations:

Seat Changes by Province 2011 vs 2008 by Poll Closing

Again, the real sweeping change took place in Quebec with the demise of the Bloc and rise of the NDP and in Ontario which saw the Conservatives earn 22 additional seats. Those 22 seats represent almost all of the increase in Tory seats from 2008 to 2011 and carried them to their first majority Government in 23 years.

What’s great is I can wrap up this piece in the same way I did my earlier article:

In conclusion – sharing the known voting results via social media had zero effect on motivating voters in BC because there was simply no time nor desire to change one’s vote due to the outcome in another part of the country.

That said, Elections Canada will need to review this procedure. My guess is electronic voting will occur for the next election. This electronic voting should wrap up two hours before local polling station voting wraps up. This would prevent the possible mass automated last minute strategic voting which could prove problematic to this whole process (more on that in a later post).

So for you social media ninjas, gurus, Jedis, slackavists and parent basement dwellers: the best way to effect change with social media is to use it before and during campaigns to educate, motivate and activate voters. Try it out in the months before the next election. With municipal election for British Columbia coming up in November you have a chance to make a real difference. Will you?