My biggest irritation: that pretty much no one seems to have numbers up more recent than midnight last night when they stopped counting. Hello?? I presume they must have resumed at some point... If I can't find a decent riding-by-riding breakdown soon, let's face it, I won't be pleased. CBC.ca has okay coverage, but all their stuff was last updated around midnight, which means no news on the riding where, with all votes counted, one candidate seems to have won by a single vote, and even more importantly, no update on the BCSTV numbers, which are still at 57% (of 60 needed...) with 87% of polls reporting. Last night I dreamed it won by four votes. I'm even an optimist in my sleep. Another number I'd like to see: turnout. Early estimates last night put it at 59% but they said that was assuming that the number of people who voted in the last couple of hours was similar to how many people had voted, per hour, throughout the day, which seems unlikely since usual the bulk of voting takes place roughly between 5 and when polls closed (8).

Accrodign to the CBC numbers, the LIBs came through with about 46% of the popular vote, which translates to 46 seats (that's leading or elected, I'll get into that) or about 59% of the seats in our legislature. The NDP came out with about 41% of the popular vote and 33 seats (a surprisingly proportionate outcome given our system, since that's right around 41-42% of the seats). Getting the shaft as usual, the Greens, whose 9% popular support translated into no seats, but rather more Liberal seats. These results are good enough to have made me very happy, for the record, but I will be very sad if STV doesn't manage to squeak through.

I'm not really going to get into the whole green-vote-splitting thing as I'm sure many angry NDPers are this morning (there are enough ridings where the NDP and Green votes combined could have defeated a Liberal that the NDP, arguably, could have won the election, and this includes GCam's riding itself, where the Green+NDP would have thrown him out of office) because it relies on the assumption that the NDP would be the second party of choice for all Green voters, which surveys are starting to show is often inaccurate (eg. Greens came second in West-Van Garabaldi where those polled who went Green listed the LIBs and some conservative fringe nut jobs as their second choices, thus supporting the claim that the greens aren't really that lefty at all). I said I wouldn't get into this, but I do have to admit I wish we could have had soem consensus in Point Grey so that only one candidate ran against Gordzilla to increase the likelihood of toppling him. You know, strategic cooperation between parties is very common elsewhere, but for soem reason, and often to our detrement I think, it rarely happens here.

Okay, this has gone on long enough, and everyone probably quit reading paragraphs ago, but I just wanted to touch on a couple of other things. First off, god if there is one, muster 14 more votes for Tim Stevenson in the recount, since that would be all he needs to defeat the currently-leading Lorne Mayencourt, who is truly evil. Second, I'm delighted by the narrow victory of Gregor Robertson over LIB Virginia Greene, since he was, in my mind, one of the best candidates anywhere in this election. I am not at all surprised by the trouncings handed down to their LIB opponents by Jenny Kwan and Shane Simpson in my riding and the one across Commercial from me, but I am delighted to see Corky Evans returning from Creston-Nelson. Also, congrats to David Chudnovsky, formerly of the BCTF, who was elected in his riding, and to Adrian Dix who won Vancouver-Kingsway and is truly one of the genuinely nicest people, let alone politicians, I've ever met, not to mention that he's quick, smart, principled, and his fiancee is a total sweetheart.

Okay, that's more than anyone wants to read, and I should go hunt down some brekkie, but congratulations to all who were elected except for the slimy losers I hate like Gordo and Mayencourt, who will hopefully choke on something (maybe an excess of opposition?) in the next few days and require replacing.