About Us
ManitobaElection.ca is a citizen-created resource for the 2011 Manitoba Provincial Election.
Our site is volunteer-run and was created in the spirit of openness, community and accountability.
For more information on how this website was built and how it is operated please see our FAQ.
ManitobaElection.ca has no affiliation with Elections Manitoba, the official Election authority in the Province of Manitoba.
Open Democracy Manitoba
The site was built by the volunteer efforts of Kyle Geske, Jody Gillis, Andrew Burton and Ken Harasym. Together these four friends founded Open Democracy Manitoba, the community organization that maintains this website.
In the fall of 2010 we created a similar website for the Winnipeg civic election.
Our Mission
We strive to educate voters, empowering them to understand the roles, issues, and visions of our representatives in order have a more accountable and respectful democracy.
Contact
Press Mentions
Red River College Red Blog - October 3, 2011
While many students care deeply about these questions, some don’t feel well informed enough to play an active role in the election. To help overcome this barrier, two Red River College instructors have created an independent election website at ManitobaElection.ca.
People of Interest on CKUW - October 3, 2011
Radio interview with ManitobaElection.ca co-founder, Kyle Geske.
The Winnipeg Herald - September 29, 2011
'Promoting Voter Engagement' a neighbourhood forum article by ManitobaElection.ca co-founder, Jody Gillis.
Internet Pundits on UMFM - September 28, 2011
Radio interview and panel discussion with ManitobaElection.ca co-founder, Kyle Geske.
MetroNews Winnipeg - September 26, 2011
Cultivating more engaged voters is also the goal of [a] new website created for this campaign, ManitobaElection.ca.
U of W Uniter - September 21, 2011
New informative election site aims to engage the disengaged.
Uptown Magazine - September 15, 2011 (Article)
ManitobaElection.ca has the answers to almost any question a person might have in advance of Oct. 4’s vote.
Uptown Magazine - September 15, 2011 (Blurb)
While all the major media outlets will have their own election coverage and online tools, this is an interesting project that provides valuable information for voters, created by the same team that developed WinnipegElection.ca last fall.
North End Times - September 14, 2011
Kyle Geske, who helped co-create www.manitobaelection.ca, a website devoted to provincial election coverage and history, said one of the reasons why young Canadians aren’t more engaged in the political process is they aren’t provided with enough information.
Breakfast Television Winnipeg - September 12, 2011
Exercise your right to vote! Co-founder of ManitobaElection.ca, Kyle Geske, is interviewed about engaging the youth vote online.
Red River College Red Blog - September 9, 2011
A pair of Red River College instructors have launched a new website aimed at helping Manitoba voters make an informed choice in the upcoming election.
Winnipeg Free Press - September 9th, 2011
Kyle Geske admits that as a young adult he was too overwhelmed by the lack of real information about elections to feel confident casting a ballot. More than a decade later he is leading the charge to inform the electorate with web pages chock full of non-partisan information about who is running, important dates and events, and how and when to vote.
CKLQ Brandon Radio - September 8th, 2011
Manitoba voters have a one stop shop to get information on candidates in the provincial election. A group of volunteers have created a website and spokesman Kyle Geske says they've made it as unbiased as possible.
ChrisD.ca - September 8th, 2011
A website acting as a resource for information relating to Manitoba’s upcoming provincial election is catching on as more people begin to focus on the candidates and their policies.
MetroNews Winnipeg - September 8th, 2011
ManitobaElection.ca has launched a non-partisan website that will provide electoral maps, educational resources and a list of election-related events.
Press Releases
Voters and Educators Embrace Citizen-Created Manitoba Election Website - September 29th, 2011 
With less than a week to go before the 2011 Manitoba provincial election, the team behind Open Democracy Manitoba is busy putting the finishing touches on their citizen-created election resource. Their ManitobaElection.ca website is already a clearing-house for candidate information, but it is growing into something bigger.
"This all started with our own frustrations about not being able to find unbiased election information online" says Kyle Geske, one of the site’s founding members. “Our goal is to build an approachable, well-organized resource for voters. This includes gathering information about the candidates, but it also means educating voters on the election process and on politics in Manitoba” adds co-founder Jody Gillis.
Since the site launched, the members of Open Democracy Manitoba have been fielding questions about elections and the political process from family and friends. To answers those questions they added a voter education section to their site. Written in plain English, the material explains everything from the roles of elected officials to how constituency boundaries are created. This new feature caught the eye of a number of educators and students.
“The feedback we’ve received inspires us to keep adding to the site” says Ken Harasym, the member of the team responsible for graphic design. “We’ve received amazing compliments from college students, high school teachers, and university political science professors.”
“Our most recent feature is an interactive map that visualizes the Manitoba election results from 1958 to 2007” say Andrew Burton, another team member. “We’ve added an issue page that links to a comprehensive array of election related organizations, each trying to promote their individual issues. We also just finished posting all the candidate questionnaire responses we received back from candidates.”
The website is currently attracting thousands of hits each day from all over Manitoba. The Open Democracy Manitoba team is using this traffic as an opportunity to communicate important notices to voters, such as the change in electoral boundaries since the 2007 election. They want to remind all voters to double-check their constituency since the majority of boundaries have changed since the last election.
Citizen-Created Election Website Empowers Manitoba Voters - September 7th, 2011
The folks at Open Democracy Manitoba want to help you make an informed choice as a voter on October 4th. Their new election website aims to be a comprehensive resource for information on the upcoming provincial election.
The ManitobaElection.ca site features interactive constituency maps, a calendar of election-related events, and educational resources on legislative politics in Manitoba. Election candidates are listed along with links to their web pages, email addresses, Facebook fan pages and Twitter feeds. Online news articles that mention candidates are also linked, providing up-to-date election news from a variety of media sources.
The Open Democracy Manitoba community organization was founded by Winnipeggers Kyle Geske and Jody Gillis. In 2010 Geske and Gillis, instructors at Red River College, built a similar site for the Winnipeg civic election.
“The response to WinnipegElection.ca exceeded our expectations,” says Gillis. “By election day our site had been visited by over forty-five thousand Winnipeggers.”
“We’ve raised our expectations for ManitobaElection.ca”, adds Geske. “We want to engage voters and empower them to learn about the candidates, the issues, and the legislative process itself.”
Now that the election has officially been called, the group is working on adding historic election data to the site. They are also preparing a candidate questionnaire, which will be sent to all the candidates once nominations close on September 13th.
Learn to Question. Question to Learn.