Dear Editor,
Did you vote ‘No’ in the recent Wildrose Progressive Conservative unity vote? I did and call me a sore loser if you like but before you dismiss me completely out of hand, please consider the following:
The truth is still the truth even if only expressed by a minority of one.
How likely is it that 95.4% of any group of people agree on anything?
The result of the poll showed 4.6% of the participants voted ‘No,’ for a grand total of 1,132 people. Divide that amongst 83 ridings comes to 13.63 people per riding so let’s call that 14. At the rally to promote a ‘Yes’ vote in Westlock last Friday, Brian Jean asked how many people in the room were going to vote ‘No’ and more than 14 put up their hands, about 25% (not 4.6%) of the people there according to the newspaper reporter and I think it is fair to assume that there were a lot more ‘No’ voters in the riding that did not go to the meeting. So is our riding a hotbed of dissent? Not very likely really.
The result seemed so improbable to me that I phoned two friends from other ridings and asked them to add up the people that they knew had voted ‘No?’ Without breaking a sweat we could account for 10% of the entire ‘No’ vote across the province and yet we were only accounting for a miniscule geographic area. How could a mere three people locate 10% of the total votes in a few minutes? There is a greater probability of us being struck by lightning than that happening.
Considering the widespread vote rigging that has been reported in the United States where electronic voting has been employed, illustrates that this form of conducting a poll is prone to manipulation.
We are told that only 57% participated in the vote and we know that thousands of eligible members could not get PIN numbers and were disenfranchised as a result. There were lots of reports of members spending hours on the telephone being say 240th in line and when they reached say 20th in line they would get cut off and have to start again. Hundreds must have given up in frustration.
At the very least, the poll was very badly run and at the worst, well you know what that means. Look at the evidence and make up your own minds. I smell a rat.
Call me a sore loser if you like but this is a sellout to the corrupt establishment Progressive Conservatives of a great party built by honest hard working Albertans. Defeat has been snatched from the jaws of victory. What a shame! The PC’s are back in charge and the free market individualists who can’t stomach all the socialism will have nobody to vote for yet again.
Edward Goodliffe
Busby
