As I write this I am anxiously awaiting the first results of the British general election.
As a political junkie, I like to follow elections around the world, not just here in Canada. The ones that interest me the most, though, are from countries that are big into democracy and who really get into their elections. Places like the United States, France and, of course, Britain.
Part of the reason I like following the British elections is because their coverage is extensive and lasts for hours. The coverage from the BBC is obviously not to be missed, with David Dimbleby presiding over at the anchor desk for what is the umpteenth time.
But the thing that always strikes me about election night coverage in the UK is how different it is from over here on this side of the world.
They start off at 10 p.m. local time with results of their “exit poll,” which nobody in the UK takes seriously because quite often it turns to be flat out wrong.
Then there is the wait for the first results to come in. Then, when the results are known, out comes the “swingometer” to predict how the national swing is going, and how many seats one party or another is going to pick up.
It’s very exciting and they really get into it. But they do things in a very unique way on election night in Britain compared to our continent.
Here in North America, on election night you have rolling reports of poll-by-poll results as they come in, and the networks then calculate the numbers and figure out who is winning. When it becomes clear who the winner is, the news organizations make their projections.
Meanwhile, the candidates are back at their committee rooms or victory celebrations, watching the results come in. When a winner is known, the losers will either telephone the winner or personally go over to the winner’s office to congratulate them. And everyone will go to their various campaign victory parties to publicly accept victory or concede defeat.
That is not how election night transpires in the UK! Over there, what they do is take all their polling boxes in a constituency to some central location to count all the ballots. Then they lock the doors and nobody knows how the count is going until they come out and announce it.
When they do make their “declaration” of the results, as they call it over there, they do this on a big stage with all the candidates standing up there waiting to hear the results, wearing their various party ribbons.
And it really is a gong show. Yes, you have the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, and other party candidates standing up there, wearing their blue and red and yellow ribbons. But you’d also have these fringe nuts from the likes of the “Monster Raving Looney Party” and other silly and bizarre groups, all of whom ran in the election just to get laughs!
These people would stand there in their silly costumes, looking like they’d all been rejected for membership in Monty Python.
Anyway, after keeping everyone in suspense all night, they then announce the full result and declare that so-and-so has been “duly elected” for the constituency, and then the candidate goes to the podium to give his or her speech in front of everyone.
It’s a great setup if you win, but it’s pretty humiliating if you are a losing candidate. I remember the 1992 election and seeing the pained look on the face of MP Chris Patten who was standing there as they announced the result in Bath. He had been chairman of what turned out to be the winning Conservative campaign, and yet he went down to defeat.
Anyway, it all turned out well for Patten in the end. He was appointed governor of Hong Kong and got to preside over its big handover to China. But enough of that...
Bottom line is, in British elections, when they show the results for the parties at the bottom of the screen, it’s always for seats that the parties have actually won. American elections actually do sort of the same thing: they run tallies of party standings or electoral votes based on projections on who has actually been projected to have won, not simply leading.
But here in Canada, they do election night completely differently from other countries. They include both “elected” and “leading” in their running tallies, which is deceptive because leads can and do swing back and forth in various ridings.
The other thing is that Canadian news organizations don’t wait until a party hits that magic number of seats needed for a majority. Instead, they will project a “majority government” before half the seats are even in, taking away most of the suspense of the evening.
A few times, these quick decisions have come back to bite the TV networks. I remember the Saskatchewan election of 1999 when the networks were quick to declare an NDP majority government on the basis of these early results, only to say at the end of the night, “Oops, sorry! They only got a minority.”
This makes election night kind of frustrating to watch in Canada most of the time. In fact, back in the old days they would black out the election night coverage on TV in Western Canada until 8 p.m., when the polls would close.
Remember that? While people in Saskatchewan would be stuck watching situation comedies or something stupid on TV, waiting for 8 p.m., they would be counting the votes out East and the networks would be declaring who would form the government! So, by the time Saskatchewan joined the election night coverage, it was always all over at 8 p.m.
“We want to welcome everyone in Saskatchewan to our coverage, but we called a majority for Pierre Trudeau about 20 minutes ago.” Thanks a lot, eh?
Since then, elections in Canada have been changed so that polls close across most of Canada at around the same time, so that the West won’t feel slighted when eastern Canada chooses a government.
Anyway, that is my rant about election night coverage in Canada and other parts of the world. Now, if you will please excuse me, it’s time for me to tune in the BBC.
