Monday, October 21, 2019

Too Close to Call (Alien Election)

As I am writing this, it appears all but inevitable that the Liberals will cling onto power, though most likely in a minority government, whether propped up by the NDP in a formal power-sharing alliance or just in a precarious minority situation where they have to watch out for every vote that could be construed as a vote of confidence.  While the NDP didn't get completely wiped out, they didn't do quite as well as they had hoped (as of last week), so I don't think they'll be in any rush to go to the polls again.  (Incidentally, it looks like Israel is going to be forced into yet another election.  While I am definitely in favour of electoral reform, it has to be done in such a way that you don't have endless splinterings of the parties as they do in Israel and Italy.)

In any case, I am not writing about this election, but the informal one that was the audience participation aspect of my Fringe show, Final Exam.  At the start of the show, we passed out a slip of paper and a golf pencil. After the pros and cons were debated in class, we had the students (and the audience members) vote on whether to get signed up to the group mind or not, with the ballots put in a fancy ballot box.  I remember most of the time, the Nos ran at about 75-80% of the ballots, but I seem to only have the ballots in hand from the last performance, where a bunch of friends of the actor who was strongly in favour of group mind turned up (and voted in solidarity with her).  There may also have been some ballot stuffing...  In any case, the Yes side picked up 12 votes to 17 for the Nos.  Close indeed.

If the rest of the ballots turn up, as I keep cleaning out the basement, I'll tabulate them below.

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