How to find out target ridings for BC-STV

So there was a post this morning on the BC STV website about a volunteer in North Vancouver doing some online research and coming up with specific areas in their riding that had not reached 60% in the 2005 referendum so that they could be targeted with information pamphlets.

It’s actually not too difficult, at least if you know where to go.

So I thought I would post the resources here for people so that others could do the same for their riding.

#1: Go get Elections BC 2005 Referendum results.

#2: Find your riding in the PDF and print out the maps that have the voting areas.

#3: From the PDF you should be able to copy and paste the table from the PDF into an Excel sheet. This is the hardest step because sometimes it doesn’t copy and paste right… so you might have to copy it into a text file one line at a time, then import it into Excel. It’s important to get it into Excel so that you can calculate the percentages automatically. It makes everything else much easier! When you’re done, you can create an extra column with percentages… like I did with my riding here (download XLS file here)

So now you have the voting geography… and the voting percentages…

#4: Now you can find your worst percentage areas and shade in the areas on your maps you printed out. (or do it digitally with a program like Photoshop or OmniGraffle)

#5: Now you need Carrier routes so you can tell Canada Post where you want your pamphlets to go. Go on the Canada Post HouseHold Counts and Maps webpage.

#6: Go to the Province and Urban area of your choice…

#7: Once you’re in your City, look for the “LCW Map” (Letter Carrier Walk). This will tell you where the different delivery routes are!

#8: Now you can note those routes on your maps. And maybe come out with something that looks like this!

That’s it! (Click the images for the larger, zoomable, PDF versions of each)