Change vs. change - April 25, 2025
- 3 days ago
- 1 min read
— Empirical data: In an effort to gauge whether or not signs accurately reflect the state of a local race, Bratt has actually counted every sign alongside pollster JANET BROWN and a gaggle of Mount Royal students.
During Alberta’s 2014 provincial campaign, the group targeted three Calgary ridings. They added up all the signs on private property and published their results in the Herald newspaper. A local Wildrose campaign even redeployed resources based on the count.
Bratt, Brown and the students accurately predicted two out of three ridings. In 2015, they forecast former Liberal MP KENT HEHR‘s win in Calgary Centre.
It was a labor-intensive process. “We pinky promised we would never do it again,” he says.
Read about the 2015 sign count in the Calgary Herald: Can you read the signs to tell who will win? Political study aims to find out