Vision workers were sounding awfully cheerful and peppy yesterday and this morning about the Vancouver election, while Non-Partisan Association campaigners, while putting on a brave face, were noticeably morose.
But that was this morning. This afternoon, the mood changed a little bit with news that voter turnout is not humongous.
For those who haven't had this drummed into their little civic heads yet by umpteen pundits, low turnout is generally assumed to mean the NPA wins, since their voters always come out in steady numbers no matter what.
High turnout usually means good news for their challengers, since when turnout goes up, it's typically from all those people who favour the left but don't bother to vote.
Elections chief Paul Hancock told me this afternoon that turnout was at about 56,000 by 2 p.m. That means, if the same number of people come out in the second half as the first, about 110,000-115,000 might vote for the day. Add the 15,000 who voted in the advance poll and that's a total of 130,000.
That's not terrible -- in the doldrums of the 90s, it was sometimes 80,000 or 90,000 for the Vancouver election. But the Larry Campbell/COPE sweep in 2002 brought out 140,000 and even 2005's strange battle between Jim Green and Sam Sullivan drew a respectable 132,000.
But it might be enough of a lukewarm turnout to make a significant different in Vision's success at council.
I just left Peter Ladner an hour ago finishing up a little tour of Chinatown and that was his hope. He'd heard there was low turnout on the east-side polls, an encouraging sign for him. And, he said, "I feel like the tide turned in the last two weeks. Whether it turned enough, I don't know." Still, he didn't look like the world's happiest guy.
The answer will come in hours.
