Revisiting Local Campaign Effects: An Experiment Involving Literature Mail Drops in the 2007 Ontario Election

An invariant feature of constituency election campaigns is the literature mail drop, usually a one-page leaflet or card left at the door profiling the candidate and appealing for electoral support. In this article, we report on a field experiment designed to assess the effects of such mail drops. The experiment was conducted during the 2007 Ontario provincial election campaign in the constituency of Cambridge and entailed distributing literature for the Green party candidate in that constituency. After randomly assigning constituency polls to treatment and control groups, and delivering the Green candidate’s partisan literature only to the selected treatment group polls, we compared the candidate’s support levels in the treated polls with those in the control group. Our research detected a modest effect associated with the literature drop. The effect was largely limited to constituency neighbourhoods fitting at least part of the Green party’s traditional demographic, that is, those with higher than average socio-economic status

The 2007 Provincial Election and Electoral System Referendum in Ontario

Ontario’s general election in Oct. 10, 2007, was unprecedented for several reasons. The election was held on a date fixed by legislation and not one set by the premier or his caucus, something new to Ontario and relatively new to Canadian politics. Turnout declined to 53%, the lowest ever in Ontario history. The incumbent Liberals won a second consecutive majority government, something the party had not achieved since 1937. And finally, the election featured a referendum question that asked voters in Ontario to approve reforms to the electoral system, a proposal that was overwhelmingly rejected. This article explores each of the above-stated elements as they unfolded in the election

Exit Polling in Canada: An Experiment

Although exit polling has not been used to study Canadian elections before, such polls have methodological features that make them a potentially useful complement to data collected through more conventional designs. This paper reports on an experiment with exit polling in one constituency in the 2003 Ontario provincial election. Using student volunteers, a research team at Wilfrid Laurier University conducted an exit poll in the bellwether constituency of Kitchener Centre to assess the feasibility of mounting this kind of study on a broader scale. The experiment was successful in a number of respects. It produced a sample of 653 voters that broadly reflected the partisan character of the constituency, and which can hence be used to shed light on patterns of vote-switching and voter motivations in that constituency. It also yielded insights about best practices in mounting an exit poll in the Ontario context, as well as about the potential for using wireless communication devices to transmit respondent data from the field. The researchers conclude that exit polling on a limited basis (selected constituencies) is feasible, but the costs and logistics associated with this methodology make a province-wide or country-wide study unsupportable at present

Draft Genome Sequence for Desulfovibrio africanus Strain PCS.

Desulfovibrio africanus strain PCS is an anaerobic sulfate-reducing bacterium (SRB) isolated from sediment from Paleta Creek, San Diego, CA. Strain PCS is capable of reducing metals such as Fe(III) and Cr(VI), has a cell cycle, and is predicted to produce methylmercury. We present the D. africanus PCS genome sequence

Alternative catalysts for low-temperature CO-oxidation

MnO sub x, Ag/MnO sub x, Cu/MnO sub x, Pt/MnO sub x, Ru/MnO sub x, Au/CeO sub x, and Au/Fe2O3 were synthesized and tested for CO oxidation activity in low concentrations of stoichiometric CO and O2 at 30 to 75 C. Catalytic activity was measured for periods as long as 18000 minutes. At 75 deg Au/MnO sub x is most active sustaining nearly 100 percent CO conversion for 10000 minutes. It also retains high activity at 50 and 30 C with negligible decay in activity. A direct comparison between an unpretreated 10 percent Au/MnO sub x catalyst and an optimized 19.5 percent Pt/SnO sub 2 (pretreated) catalyst shows that the Au/MnO sub x catalyst exhibits much higher catalytic activity and far superior decay characteristics. Other catalysts including Au/CeO sub x and Au/Fe2O3 also perform well. The Cu/MnO sub x exhibits a high initial activity which decays rapidly. After the decay period the activity remains very stable making Cu/MnO sub x a potential candidate for long-term applications such as CO2 lasers in space

Hydrogenolysis of [PhBP_3]Fe≡N-p-tolyl: Probing the Reactivity of an Iron Imide with H_2

This paper describes the reductive hydrogenolysis of a low-spin (S = 1/2) iron(III) imide. Pseudotetrahedral [PhBP_3]Fe^(III)≡N-p-tolyl is reduced by hydrogen at ambient temperature and pressure in benzene solution. The reduction appears to proceed in a stepwise fashion. An intermediate S = 2 iron(II) anilide, [PhBP_3]Fe(N(H)-p-tolyl), is observed and has been independently generated and structurally characterized. Prolonged hydrogenolysis in benzene results in the complete hydrogenolysis of the Fe−N linkage to release H2N-p-tolyl. The major iron-containing product formed from this step is the diamagnetic cyclohexadienyl complex, [PhBP_3]Fe(η^5-cyclohexadienyl), which has also been independently prepared and structurally characterized. Evidence is presented to suggest that the final [PhBP_3]Fe(η^5-cyclohexadienyl) product is formed via benzene insertion into a reactive [PhBP_3]Fe^(II)-H intermediate