No 153 Posted by fw, April 12, 2011
Whether you’re a political junkie or just a curious spectator, Election Almanac is worth a visit. I discovered it quite by accident this morning while googling around in search of election polling news. Its information currency and content richness is impressive. It may become one of my go-to reference tools for tracking election news.
Ottawa political junkie Blake Batson, writes this about Election Almanac on his blog, Perspective Ottawa:
“For those of us who watch the election like watching water boil, Election Almanac is a great website. It features daily polls and seat allocations based on those polls, it’s a news aggregator and it gives you facts and figures from previous federal elections. It even counts the number of days left until voting! But seriously, I’m impressed with this website. Kudos to the initiator of this great resource.” (Posted March 29, 2011)
After being wowed by a colourful, eye-pleasing Home page, I stumbled across this significant bit of information tucked away at the bottom: “Note: This site is not sponsored by any political party, candidate, entity, or organization. This site does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites”
Clicking on the “Contact” link, which is also inconspicuously located at the bottom of the Home page, brings up these important “about” details:
Election Almanac provides complete coverage of federal, provincial and territorial elections in Canada. The site gets its information from a variety of sources, including news articles (print, televised, or otherwise), political party websites, candidates, as well as from information received online. While the accuracy of the information received cannot be guaranteed, the majority of information is sourced before it is posted.
Election Almanac is owned and operated by David A. MacDonald. In May 2006, David graduated from St. Francis Xavier University with a Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours in Political Science. Upon entry to StFX, David was a recipient of the university’s prestigious J. P. McCarthy Scholarship. At convocation, David was awarded the Walter Kontak Prize in Political Science as well as the Dr. Marguerite Michaud Prize for Canadian Studies. In 2004, David represented Nova Scotia at the Council of the Federation Youth Forum in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. David recently graduated from St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia in the Education program with Social Studies and Mathematics as his teachable subjects.
Finally, here are the topical categories featured on Election Almanac’s colourful Home page, running left to right, top to bottom —
As a one-stop election information resource, It doesn’t get much better than Election Almanac. So, a well-deserved tip o’ the tam-o’-shanter to David A. MacDonald. (Having spent my first undergrad year at SFX, I fondly recall the dawning bagpipe skirl from the piper parading outside my dorm. Still sends chills down my spine).