Talk:2009 Nova Scotia general election

60th versus 61st general election or 38th
The next general election in Nova Scotia will be the 60th, not the 61st!! The confusion is caused by the mis-labelling since 1829 of the general assemblies. The error was initially made in the statute book in 1829 but not the journals. The journals copied the error in 1860. Further perpetuated errors and incomplete corrections were made in 1862, 1864, 1865, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1877, 1900 and 1901 with the result that the assembly is at present overstated by one in both the statute books and the journals. For recognition of this, see Shirley B. Elliott's "The Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia 1758-1983". (Ms Elliott was the Legislative Librarian.) Hebbgd (talk) 17:28, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * That seems right. I never thought of that when I made the page. If there is no objection, I will move the article to 60th general election. It does not make a huge difference, as when the election is called, the article will be renamed "Nova Scotia general election, 2009" Sethpt (talk) 23:30, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, I have looked a little more and do not want to move this article quite yet. Right now, the 2006 election is referred to as the 60th election on its page, and 60th Nova Scotia general election redirects there. We do not want contradictory information. So we need to find out what it is officially referred to as before we rename. Is it like the legislatures and the mistake just ignored or have the elections been labelled correctly? Sethpt (talk) 21:09, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The mistake has been ignored by the Assembly.Hebbgd (talk) 22:10, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If elections NS and the House of Assembly consider it the 61st, then I think we should to, even if it is a mistake. Sethpt (talk) 01:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

We need to use the number that's used by the official sources, whether it's wrong or not. Does the government of Nova Scotia officially designate it as #60 or #61? Whichever they use, we have to use the same regardless of whether it's the correct number in strictly phase order or not, because it would violate WP:NOR, as well as causing needless confusion, to number them differently than other sources do. And if they don't ordinate the elections at all, but instead refer to them only by year, then we should also avoid ordinating them either way — I tried looking at Elections Nova Scotia's website, but all the 2006 election links I could find were being designated as "2006 election" or some variation thereof, not by an ordinal, so is it possible that they're simply not numbered that way at all? Bearcat (talk) 17:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I seen to have some recollection of reading 61st somewhere, but I cannot seem to find it. Maybe my memory is going. I am ok with leaving them unnumbered and just naming them by year if we cannot find any official numbering.Sethpt (talk) 20:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Your all wrong because Elections Nova Scotia considers it the 38th general election --68.145.103.198 (talk) 22:32, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Numbering elections from Confederation only, one guesses. Hmmmmm. Bearcat (talk) 16:25, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's the 61st counting from the first election in the Colony of Nova Scotia... but that ignores the Colony of Cape Breton... 70.29.210.174 (talk) 11:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Bold in riding tables?
There are two notes, one says bold = party leader/cabinet, the other says it denotes winners. Which is it? B.S. Lawrence (talk) 16:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The winner in each individual riding is supposed to be denoted by a color bar next to their name, not by being bolded. Bearcat (talk) 18:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Shifts in control
I have some concern about the tables under the "shifts in control" section.

The table starts out with a column of links to the 2006 provincial election immediately next to the names of the Conservative candidates who ran yesterday whether they were the actual incumbents from 2006 or not, then a column of the number 2009 next to the names of the NDP candidates who won yesterday, and then a column of who the incumbent representatives who were actually elected in 2006. So the year means two completely different things depending on which party's column it's in — if it's under the NDP column, then it means "this is the person who ran for the NDP and won in the year that's next to their name", but if it's under the PC column it means "the party used to hold this riding but this is the person who ran for the PCs and lost in 2009, not necessarily the person who ran and won in the year that's next to their name". And for Cumberland North, this format also commits the cardinal wikisin of assuming that the reader has the background knowledge of the Ernie Fage scandal that's necessary to understand how a riding whose incumbent is marked as independent can be a PC-to-NDP shift.

I'm also not at all certain that "shift in control" is really a phrase that would be generally recognized in Canadian English for the concept of a riding being won by a different party than the one that held it before the election — it really strikes me as somebody importing a term from another country's elections articles rather than using a term that would actually ring true in a Canadian context. But I'm willing to consider that other people might have a different take on that.

So, in a nutshell, I find it very misleading and not correctly designed to do what it's intended to do — but I'd like to solicit other opinions on how we can improve it, or whether it's even really necessary at all. Bearcat (talk) 18:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Campaign
An election article shouldn't be just a table of the results, but should also include content about the campaign itself, covering the issues and controversies that actually arose during the campaign.

I've started a section under the heading ==Campaign==, but it needs to be expanded significantly by people who know far more than I do about the day-to-day thrust of the campaign itself. Bearcat (talk) 20:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Voter Turnout?
Do we have any information on the percentage of eligible electors who voted? 142.68.216.50 (talk) 18:34, 13 June 2009 (UTC)