More views of money and politics in Nova Scotia

When information is presented in a format computer programs can read, as opposed to a static, telephone directory-style list, fresh insights spring from the data. Contrarian friend Gus Reed prepared a compendium of revelations arising from Elections Nova Scotia’s annual political donations report—once we liberated it from the cloistered format favored by the former Chief Electoral Officer.

Some examples:

  • Does Nova Scotia have a party of the rich? Not according to the donations made in 2010. When Gus plotted the proportion of donations against their size, all three major parties showed a remarkably similar distributions:

  • Vote tallies for the three major parties in the last several elections have shown sharp geographical variations. Is the same true of people who donated to political parties in 2010?  Here’s a list of the top 10 cities and towns whose residents contributed to each party.

Draw your own conclusions. Gus’s report has more of this, including a list of everyone who gave more than $1000 to a Nova Scotia political party in 2010. Download it here.

Elections Nova Scotia plans to release the list of 2011 political donations today [Update: Or not]. Wouldn’t it be great if the new Chief Electoral Officer could find his way clear to releasing the data in a format that makes searching for insights easy rather than hard?