Web-based Election Results
November 2002
Internet-based reporting of municipal election results was ubiquitous November 16, municipal elections day across BC. In fact, so in-demand were web-based results that servers run by the City of Vancouver, for example, crashed as early returns were posted. Even after the results were pretty much definite, the City was still unable to deliver the numbers.
News outlet CKNW, contractually obligated to cover the Canucks-Rangers game, devoted its intermissions to reports from a host of news staffers but was unable to deliver on its promise to keep interested listeners up to date on election results through the station’s Internet site, www.cknw.com.
Throughout the game the station site remained inoperative, coming back on-line about two hours after the polls closed, and certainly after the makeup of council, school board and parks board for Vancouver had already been announced by other news outlets. Talk show host Jon McComb offered a mild apology around 10:10 p.m., attributing the loss of service to “excessive hits.”
Even then, the CKNW site, while technically operative, offered no results. Clicking on any of the links in the impressive list of cities did nothing more than return the impressive list, except for those regions that had reported final totals. On air, once the hockey game was over, the former “Top Dog” offered a much better performance.
Competing news outlet, News1130, aka CKWX, wasn’t much better on election night. No web-based results were to be found. Even the news clips featured on the web site appeared rather out of date.
CBC radio, using several former ‘NW staffers, did a much better job at delivering timely results than did the private broadcasters. In addition, their Sunday morning summary package was better than that offered by any other radio outlet, running almost fifteen minutes in length.
Canada.com, the common web site for three major news outlets in the lower mainland, The Vancouver Sun, The Province and GlobalTV, managed to keep up a semblance of breaking news coverage for the Vancouver election returns by offering anecdotal “returns” until the city’s web servers once again began delivering poll numbers.
In keeping with the special issues that the Vancouver Sun had run in the weeks leading up to the election, the Canada.com election results’ coverage was broken down on a regional basis. In most cases the site offered no results of its own but instead linked directly to municipal web sites. Once again, it was apparent from some of these links that there was tremendous demand for live data. Some city web servers were very slow and others timed out for short periods as demand overwhelmed capacity.
Most cities and municipalities across the lower mainland managed to deliver full results to their web sites within an hour or so of the close of polls. Among the few still tallying ballots by hand was Port Coquitlam, where final results didn’t materialize until almost 11 p.m. Nevertheless, the city web site carried updates within no more than a few minutes of their being received from the various poll sites.
Interestingly, each region had its own format for web-based results. Some chose a simple spreadsheet format with candidates listed in ballot order, a contrasting colour being used to identify winners. Others, such as Surrey, separated the various contests and presented results in finish order.
On television, Shaw’s Cable 4 offered continuous updates across the coverage region, keeping apace with results as they appeared on municipal web sites. The audio quality of the interspersed commentary left much to be desired and there were complaints that the scrolling text screens ran too quickly. These problems aside, Shaw’s coverage was superior to that of any other television outlet. Another plus, for those who chose not to stay up for final results, was that the data remained available through much of the next day.
None of the major television outlets interrupted regular programming to carry election updates, with most waiting until their late evening news package to offer a regional summary.
On the print front, the Vancouver Sun certainly deserves kudos for its special Sunday elections run. Minor errors and omissions not withstanding, the layout and detail offered were superb. And even though the Sun’s editorial board had endorsed the NPA’s Jennifer Clark for Vancouver’s top elected position, there was no evidence of sour grapes to be found at the two-to-one showing of victor Larry Campbell.
Internet-based reporting of municipal election results was ubiquitous November 16, municipal elections day across BC. In fact, so in-demand were web-based results that servers run by the City of Vancouver, for example, crashed as early returns were posted. Even after the results were pretty much definite, the City was still unable to deliver the numbers.
News outlet CKNW, contractually obligated to cover the Canucks-Rangers game, devoted its intermissions to reports from a host of news staffers but was unable to deliver on its promise to keep interested listeners up to date on election results through the station’s Internet site, www.cknw.com.
Throughout the game the station site remained inoperative, coming back on-line about two hours after the polls closed, and certainly after the makeup of council, school board and parks board for Vancouver had already been announced by other news outlets. Talk show host Jon McComb offered a mild apology around 10:10 p.m., attributing the loss of service to “excessive hits.”
Even then, the CKNW site, while technically operative, offered no results. Clicking on any of the links in the impressive list of cities did nothing more than return the impressive list, except for those regions that had reported final totals. On air, once the hockey game was over, the former “Top Dog” offered a much better performance.
Competing news outlet, News1130, aka CKWX, wasn’t much better on election night. No web-based results were to be found. Even the news clips featured on the web site appeared rather out of date.
CBC radio, using several former ‘NW staffers, did a much better job at delivering timely results than did the private broadcasters. In addition, their Sunday morning summary package was better than that offered by any other radio outlet, running almost fifteen minutes in length.
Canada.com, the common web site for three major news outlets in the lower mainland, The Vancouver Sun, The Province and GlobalTV, managed to keep up a semblance of breaking news coverage for the Vancouver election returns by offering anecdotal “returns” until the city’s web servers once again began delivering poll numbers.
In keeping with the special issues that the Vancouver Sun had run in the weeks leading up to the election, the Canada.com election results’ coverage was broken down on a regional basis. In most cases the site offered no results of its own but instead linked directly to municipal web sites. Once again, it was apparent from some of these links that there was tremendous demand for live data. Some city web servers were very slow and others timed out for short periods as demand overwhelmed capacity.
Most cities and municipalities across the lower mainland managed to deliver full results to their web sites within an hour or so of the close of polls. Among the few still tallying ballots by hand was Port Coquitlam, where final results didn’t materialize until almost 11 p.m. Nevertheless, the city web site carried updates within no more than a few minutes of their being received from the various poll sites.
Interestingly, each region had its own format for web-based results. Some chose a simple spreadsheet format with candidates listed in ballot order, a contrasting colour being used to identify winners. Others, such as Surrey, separated the various contests and presented results in finish order.
On television, Shaw’s Cable 4 offered continuous updates across the coverage region, keeping apace with results as they appeared on municipal web sites. The audio quality of the interspersed commentary left much to be desired and there were complaints that the scrolling text screens ran too quickly. These problems aside, Shaw’s coverage was superior to that of any other television outlet. Another plus, for those who chose not to stay up for final results, was that the data remained available through much of the next day.
None of the major television outlets interrupted regular programming to carry election updates, with most waiting until their late evening news package to offer a regional summary.
On the print front, the Vancouver Sun certainly deserves kudos for its special Sunday elections run. Minor errors and omissions not withstanding, the layout and detail offered were superb. And even though the Sun’s editorial board had endorsed the NPA’s Jennifer Clark for Vancouver’s top elected position, there was no evidence of sour grapes to be found at the two-to-one showing of victor Larry Campbell.
posted by Peter Vogel at 4:50 PM
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