Talk:2020 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election/Archive 4

Platform Section
Do we actually need this section? It is extremely long and of questionable encyclopedic value. Is anyone reading this wall of text? Unfortunately, platforms often obscure as much as they illuminate. They are political documents so their goal is not to communicate, it is to get people to vote for the candidate. If the section is to stay we need to pare it down a lot. Any buzzwords or WP:POV language needs to be removed. That said, previous leadership elections don't seem to have this section at all: 2017, 2004. And other current leadership races don't either: GPC, GPBC, PQ, QLP. It seems link some of the other articles provide this "platform" information under the candidates themselves under a sub-section called "policies". If we can keep it brief, perhaps that is the way to deal with this. As it is this section just seems to make the article far too long, and I expect no one is reading it, particularly since it is blank in some sections for many of the candidates.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 22:59, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I would really prefer it be junked. It's not common to other races, it offers very little encyclopedic information, and has been a frequent target for editors to burnish their preferred candidate. If something like this must be included, I would rather it be covered in prose form (as a section within "History" perhaps renamed to "Campaign"), and kept broad. The UK leadership election pages are the model, I think. — Kawnhr (talk) 23:48, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I also think we should just junk it. I have not been seeing any improvement in this section.  Also I am not sure it actually provides any utility to readers.  If it is not complete and a fair summary of all candidates positions it can cause WP:POV issues.  Better to just get rid of it unless someone has the time to do some serious work to condense it and ensure all candidates positions are included.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 23:59, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Would it make sense to just post the campaign's policy points by posting a website link in their bio or something? - CanadianCon2020 (talk) 01:19, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
 * There are already links to the candidates' websites in the Candidates section. I don't think we need separate links to the "platform" part of their websites.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 22:35, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

This section continues to exist despite a couple of us saying it should be scrapped. Have we changed our minds on that, or is it time to scrub this section. In my view, it is far to long, buzz wordy/meaningless, and too difficult to keep WP:NPOV to be of any encyclopedic value. I would prefer to provide a link to the candidates websites, and include a handful (not more than five) of their main policies in the candidates section under their name, and then remove this platform section entirely. The beauty of that approach is that we do not need to try to provide a policy for every candidate on every issue, particularly where they are not emphasizing that policy anyway.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 20:37, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree, it isn't doing much for the readers. It should go and be replaced with a short summary of each candidate's top five or so priorities. - Ahunt (talk) 21:25, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, I will remove it in a moment. Saving the table's content here so that others can re-add the top 4-5 policy points under each candidate's summary.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 22:54, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I strongly disagree with this decision. Not only is this table similar to those used on various election pages, but it is very substantive and provides readers with a clear comparison of the platforms. Handpicking a few policies to list for each candidate would be inherently biased and would not provide an accurate contrast. We should reinstate this table. Humberland (talk) 19:44, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I think humberland makes a good point but at this point it’s too late for the table to help people decide how they’re going to vote. At least at this point in the race, I don’t have strong feelings either way. CanadianCon2020 (talk) 02:52, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Probably worth keeping in mind that, as an encyclopedia, we are not really writing this to help people figure out how to vote in this election, but to create a historical record. - Ahunt (talk) 12:38, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The purpose of the platform section was never to help people decide who to vote for. The intent was always to provide readers with an understanding of the candidates and the leadership election broadly. Therefore the fact that the election is over is irrelevant. Humberland (talk) 14:21, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think was saying that the election being over, was a reason to remove the platform section.  The section was removed before the vote, not after.  Ahunt simply seems to be responding to  suggestion that it was valuable to help people decide how they’re going to vote.  Of course, our purpose is to provide a record of the election, not influence it.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 17:41, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, that was exactly my point! - Ahunt (talk) 19:01, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Given that the concern with the platform section is that it is long, we can reinstate it as a collapsable table. Humberland (talk) 14:23, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I do not think that is a solution. My understanding is that we have a policy that generally content is supposed to start uncollapsed.  I can't seem to find that policy at the moment, perhaps  or another experienced editor can remind me where to find that.  I have had it quoted to me before, but cannot seem to find it at the moment.  There seems to be exceptions like the endorsement section, so I am not sure how that all fits together.  More importantly though, collapsing the platforms would only address one of the complaints about the platform section (ie that it is long).  It would not address other concerns including that it is of questionable enclopedic value, is not truely neutral, does not contain policies for all of the candidates in each area, contains buzzwords, etc.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 17:41, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I think what you are referring to is at MOS:COLLAPSE. It pretty much rules out doing this for as number of reasons, detailed in that link. - Ahunt (talk) 19:04, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Map of results is wrong (NFLD)
Erin O'Toole won Newfoundland & Labrador, but the province is shaded with Mackay's colour indicating that Mackay won. Did someone assume that Mackay would sweep the Maritimes and not actually look at the numbers? O'Toole has 368 points compared to Mackay's 332 on the final ballot. The numbers I am looking at are straight from conservative.ca/leadership LivingDaylights89 (talk) 12:27, 24 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Fixed.Humberland (talk) 14:15, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Is there a map of the results by electoral district for the first round? The 2017 Conservative Party Leadership Race page has a map of the results by electoral district for the first round. Youhunt (talk) 13:21, 26 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I did make one, but like my final round map, I didn't use the ugly, arbitrary colours that everyone decided upon for some reason. I'm hesitant to put the map up for that reason. -- Earl Andrew - talk

NWT is coloured incorrectly
The "Second Round Winner by Riding" picture is coloured incorrectly in the "Results of 2nd Round" option in the infobox. The arctic islands of NWT are coloured as if they are a part of Nunavut rather than with the rest of NWT. -boldblazer (talk) 23:39, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, shouldn't the Derek Sloan colour in the legend in this same map be removed since he was eliminated in the first round? -boldblazer (talk) 23:46, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Colours (again)
I made a map of the results using red and blue, which look much better on a map than the random colours that had been chosen. I think we should really re-open the colour debate as purple and brown are terrible choices. -- Earl Andrew - talk 15:07, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll bring up the same arguments that I thought we had settled above about maps like this. How is this map useful? Because of the different sizes of the ridings, its depiction of the riding results is very misleading. We also had a consensus earlier to not use red or blue to represent candidates at all. Your colour choices make it look like O'Toole is a Conservative, MacKay is a Liberal, Lewis Green Party and Sloan NDP. - Ahunt (talk) 15:31, 24 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The map is absolutely useful! We used a similar map in 2017, and we have maps for nearly every recent federal and provincial election, so declaring the map is not useful is ridiculous. Any reasonable person would know that the size of a riding has no basis in how important it is, plus the map is shaded to identify the points allocated. Anyway, I fully expect someone will come around and make a better .svg map, and maybe they will use brown and purple, and I won't take an issue with it. But, I personally think choosing colours at random is arbitrary, and isn't based on anything in reality. I chose the colours directly from the candidate's websites, so there is evidence the candidates actually used those colours. -- Earl Andrew - talk 15:46, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I do not have a problem with the use of a map. We use these for federal elections too, and as each riding was worth (100?) points it makes sense to show the distribution in ridings, of course that tell less of the story in this contest than a general election, since the person that receives the "most" points in a riding does not "win" that riding outright (other candidates may have still received some points from that riding.  That said, democratic and republican primaries usually include these sort of maps showing county/district level results.  I think it is appropriate and helpful (even if not a perfect representation of the results).  Concerning the colours, I think we had consensus to avoid red.  There was extensive discussion that settled on those colour.  I don't think we should change that.  If we want to mess with the shade for contrast on the map, so be it, but there was a reason we did not do assign blue or red to either candidate.  Also, changing this made the other map (which uses the originally agreed colours) rather confusing.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 20:32, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why we had a debate over the colours months ago, when the only point to having them is for map making purposes, and we weren't going to need a map until after the actual leadership election. Anyway, I understand the argument for avoiding red and blue, but BOTH candidates used red and blue in their logos, and on their websites. Obviously, they don't care about the connotations. -- Earl Andrew - talk 20:50, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * We debated the colour scheme in anticipation of it being used on a map, in hopes of getting ahead of the issue and having it be settled by the time it was necessary. But I guess we're doing it again, so let me once again register my objection to using blue and red in the colour scheme (for the infobox and for the map). First, all four candidates used blue in their logos, and three used red. To use blue and red for two candidates but random colours for the others, then, is a bit inconsistent (two colours have basis; two are arbitrary), and suggests a degree of favouritism— as if those in red and blue are the 'real' candidates and the others are irrelevant also-rans. O'Toole and MacKay were obviously the frontrunners (even before the results) but I don't think it's right to suggest they're in a separate 'tier'. Second, blue and red have very specific meanings in political contexts— blue is the official colour of the Conservative Party and red of the Liberal Party, and they're inherent in the terms Blue Tory and Red Tory. Putting one candidate in blue suggests they are the "blue tory" and/or "true conservative" in the race, and putting one in red suggests they are a moderate "red tory" (at best) or a "Liberal-lite" (at worst). Given both MacKay and O'Toole have been called "red tories" before, and both have tried to burnish their conservative credentials in response, it is probably better to avoid these colours entirely rather than suggest anything one way or the other. The old colour scheme was preferable precisely because it was arbitrary, and because no deeper meaning could be inferred from it. — Kawnhr (talk) 04:48, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Nothing wrong with identifying O'Toole and MacKay as the 'real' candidates now that everything is said and done (i.e. when I made the map). I don't support the other colours for the other candidates either (in a map I made for Twitter, I used teal for Sloan and purple for Lewis; Sloan used teal on his website and Lewis used a shade of grey that was very close to a mauve colour), but someone already made a map, so I'm not going to bother. I understand the argument that blue and red have very specific meanings, but again, the candidates used those colours on their sites. If MacKay was afraid of being labelled as a Red Tory, why did he use it on his site? O'Toole was most associating himself with blue (calling himself a "true blue") Tory, so it wouldn't make sense using a different colour for him (unless they all started calling themselves that). Finally, I have also seen red and blue used for MacKay and O'Toole on most (if not all) maps made of the race outside of Wikipedia. All this being said, if someone wants to make a new map with the old colours, I won't protest. I just need to point out that they're both arbitrary and ugly. -- Earl Andrew - talk 13:25, 30 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I liked the old colors. These colors are affiliated with major federal political parties in Canada. Pink, yellow, turquoise, and purple would have been fine. Youhunt (talk) 04:03, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Sourcing for date of the leadership election
The article currently begins : "The 2020 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election was held by postal ballot on 23–24 August 2020" followed by two references ( and ). But neither of those references support the statement they are cited for. The CBC article refers to August 21, while the CP article does not mention any particular date on which the election was to be "held". Aside from that sourcing issue, it really isn't correct to say that an election "was held" on the dates when the ballots were counted. Typically the date of the election is given as either the final date of voting (August 21 per the CBC reference) or a range of dates during which voting was permitted (presumably "mid-July to August 21, 2020" per a CPC video which states that ballots were mailed out "by mid-July"). Mathew5000 (talk) 19:36, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree it's a little odd to use the date the results were announced as when it was "held", because obviously the ballots were sent out long before then. It's a obviously a holdover from other leadership conventions, but those actually had a physical component to them: both a convention as well as actual, in-person voting as an option (where postal ballots were instead "early voting"). Perhaps it would be best to adjust the wording to account for that. Something like — Kawnhr (talk) 20:05, 8 September 2020 (UTC)


 * That would be a better approach. - Ahunt (talk) 20:09, 8 September 2020 (UTC)


 * It's not quite accurate to say "results announced on August 23–24" because the results were announced entirely on the 24th. Maybe say, "... with the ballots processed and results announced on August 23–24, 2020." Mathew5000 (talk) 22:11, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Turnout was 65.01%, not 64.89%
The article currently gives a turnout figure of 64.89%, based on a CPC Facebook post stating that 174,849 ballots were "accepted". But the CPC's final report of the voting results does not mention that figure of 174,849 anywhere. That document suggests that the number of ballots returned by members and accepted into the counting machines was 175,192 (including 199 blank ballots and 589 that were overvotes on Round 1). The turnout figure should therefore be 65.01% (using 269,469 as denominator per ). Mathew5000 (talk) 21:30, 8 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Now fixed . In my opinion, the turnout figure for a vote like this should ideally also include ballots returned to Conservative HQ but not entered into the counting machines, because of a defect like forgetting to sign, or forgetting to include a photocopy of valid ID, or mismatched signature, etc. However, as far as I am aware, the CPC has not released any information about the number of ballots returned but rejected for reasons like that. Mathew5000 (talk) 01:34, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Points rather than votes in the infobox
We should explain in the infobox itself that the "ballot" figures are not votes but points, and the percentage figures are not the candidates' percentage of the votes, but percentage of the points. As the infobox stands in the current version, many readers will be confused about what those percentage figures represent. I would suggest (1) we delete those percentage figures from the infobox, because of the high chance of confusion, and because they aren't really necessary (since readers can easily compare the point totals given), and (2) we insert a boldface note within the infobox itself, something like, "These figures are the number of points each candidate received, not the number of votes. In determining point totals, each electoral district is weighted equally." And one more thing: the article (including the infobox) refers to "First Ballot", "2nd Ballot", and "Third Ballot" but that's not the correct terminology for speaking of the successive rounds of counting. The second round did not have a new ballot; the same ballot was used as in the first round. Each voter submitted only one ballot. The Wikipedia article should follow usage by the Party itself, namely "Round 1", "Round 2", "Round 3" rather than "1st Ballot", "2nd Ballot", "3rd Ballot". Mathew5000 (talk) 03:58, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Good point re: "ballot"; I went and made the appropriate changes. I'm not entirely sure the point system needs an EFN, though; the previous races didn't do that. That said, if you want to make that change I'm not opposed to it. — Kawnhr (talk) 22:36, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Confusing wording regarding delays
"...but the first round results were not announced until after midnight EDT on 24 August due to significant delays due to machine malfunctions."

Does this mean after the midnight of 24 August? This should probably be changed to "early morning on 25 August EDT" or words to that effect.

Or does it mean on 24 August, after the midnight of 23 August? This should probably be changed to "early morning on 24 August EDT" or words to that effect.

Benny121221 (talk) 23:35, 14 September 2020 (UTC)


 * ✅ - Ahunt (talk) 01:58, 15 September 2020 (UTC)