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There are a lot of people in Canada who don’t like Stephen Harper. A majority of voters, in fact, have tried in vain to replace our sitting government over the last couple of elections, only to watch as the Conservatives march to victory through the fractured left of the Liberals, NDP and Greens. So, the theory goes, let’s smarten up and get strategic.
As of this writing, the Liberal Party is within reach of forming a minority government. A recent Forum Research survey found support for Justin Trudeau’s party is at 37 percent, while Stephen Harper and the Conservatives hold second at 31 percent. The NDP is now a far-off third, at 23 percent. In terms of seats, it appears the Liberals will be 25-30 shy of the 170 needed for a majority government.
Which is not a comfortable-enough lead for Canadians hoping for a non-Harper prime minister on October 20. This election, more than ever, has been dominated by the numbers game. Strategic voting has become the progressive religion when it comes to toppling the Conservatives. It likely won’t work.
Since the last federal election in 2011, a range of websites and eager advocacy groups have arisen to help Canadians make up their minds come October 19. Sites like votetogether.ca, anyonebutharper.net and strategicvoting.ca are all hoping to weaponize voters for maximum damage on the Conservative regime.
According to the latter, nearly five million progressive voters who went to the polls in 2011 didn’t elect a single MP. The combined progressive vote in those 57 ridings, however, would have been greater than the total Conservative support. So it’s a no-brainer—pool all left-leaning voters to strategically elect whoever has the best chance of beating the Tory.
In Atlantic Canada, the strategic advocates have identified 14 swing ridings—four of which are in Nova Scotia. Progressive voters are being asked to vote Liberal in Central Nova, Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley, South Shore-St. Margaret’s and West Nova. The HRM, meanwhile, doesn’t play as much of a factor. With a Liberal and three NDP incumbents, the Conservatives are unlikely to take any seats.
Beyond potentially ousting Stephen Harper, strategic voting also combats the democratic apathy in which Canadians feel their voice doesn’t matter. It’s also cooler. Tactical voting sounds badass, and imbues Canadian voters with the confidence that they’re gaming the system like a sabermetric superhero.
It’s a nice feeling, but reality suggests strategic voting plays a very small role in elections compared to traditional, “sincere” votes. Research from the University of Montreal’s political science department has shown a reticence for strategic voting amongst those who already politically identify with a particular party. Strategic voting also doesn’t seem to match up against strong political stances, or even the work a particular candidate has done for their neighbours and community. All those elements play a much larger influence on where the X is marked.
“The promise of strategic voting is, in the end, a siren song,” McGill political science professor Antonia Maioni recently wrote in the Globe and Mail. “People who show up at the ballot box are overwhelmingly those who vote by conviction rather than calculation.”
There were similar strategic voting efforts before the 2011 election. Although they were nowhere near the funding and scale Canada has seen in 2015, the impact of tactical voting in 2011 seemed miniscule.
Directly after that election, punditsguide.ca’s Alice Funke called out the “unsophisticated data-crunching” behind seat projection websites for getting Canadians engaged in democracy under the false pretense of gaming the system: “Your vote is your opportunity to express your point of view. Don’t let others try and divert it for their purposes, and don’t believe strategic voting snake-oil salesmen and soothsayers. They actually have no idea which way a riding is going to go, nor what is the best way to vote to stop that….If you vote in favour of something or someone, you will never have to second-guess whether the choice was correct.”
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This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2015.
No one asked for your opinion, writer.
Geoff Regan will be in cabinet and all the other Liberals will be bench warmers and voting as ordered.
Succumb to Harper and all will be good. Is that the message Jacob?
Failure to vote strategically helps Harper split the vote and win. Just like last time. Alice Funke’s rosy notion that your “vote is your opportunity to express your point of view” is futile in our first-past-the-post system, unless your point of view is divide and conquer.
What do people want to be happy on a non “vote split” one party to get over 50% of the popular vote? The last time that happened was 1984….barely (fractions of a percentage point) and that was guess what a conservative government!
Much as I have wished that strategic voting would be the magic bullet that would take down Stephen Harper, I have grown dismayed at the path that it has taken. My suspicion that it could be used by one non-conservative party or another has been confirmed as I watch the sites recommend voting Liberal in ridings where the NDP has the best chance. The example I know best is South Shore- St. Margaret’s where the conservative incumbent is gone, the conservative candidate is unknown outside his village at the extreme end of a huge riding and the NDP has consistently come second in past elections. So why then are people saying the Liberals are the strategic vote? The NDP is best placed to defeat the conservatives in that riding. We “progressives” must be very careful that we are not swayed by the extremely unreliable polls or we risk creating a bandwagon effect.
The only kind of strategic voting that works and is fair, I’m afraid, and it is too late for this campaign, is the kind where two leaders get together, and just don’t run candidates in ridings where the other party has the best chance…somewhat like the Greens and Liberals did in 2006 in order to defeat Peter McKay and elect Elizabeth May. It didn’t work then, but it could work…but that would require the leaders actually speak to one another. As I recall, it was Trudeau that refused NDP overtures, personally insulting Mulcair. What we really need is proportional representation so that we never have to go through this again!
So explain how dumping Megan Leslie and Robert Chisholm is a vote against Harper ?
Liberals are playing Harper haters for fools.
Is reducing the NDP to 3rd party status with less than 50 seats good for democracy or is it just a way to say ‘ I’m jumping on the big red bus with my friends ‘ ?
What a poorly timed and irresponsible editorial for The Coast to run as a news item. “Granted, the most important concern of voters in this election is to get rid of Harper at all costs, and granted his majority government elected by less than 37% of the population last time around proved that our electoral system doesn’t work for people who vote for the candidate they most prefer, and granted the other parties have all promised to change that electoral system so that this would be the last time strategic voting was called for, and granted the concept has never had this much money and organization behind it or come with the added ammunition of extensive polling by riding, because times have never been quite this desperate before. But still, a couple of people have said that strategic voting has been historically distasteful to certain voters and, besides, it involves an element of risk.” The smug certainty of the headline is just the icing on this shaky, misguided cake.
Honestly, I can’t believe the number of un-educated and asinine comments supporting the idea of not strategically voting (for this election). I hope they are all on the losing Conservative team, otherwise this country is fucked.
Excellent and concise – well done Jacob! Your strategic Vote is to vote for what you really want your government or MP to be. The notion it will be like last time predicates a 615 voter turnout – I think the advance poll activity clearly tell us that Stephen Harper has a snowballs chance in Heck of winning this election. I predict a 72% Voter turnout and an end to the Harper Regime.
Wow, what a surprise. An NDP rag advocating not strategically voting when the NDP are getting their asses handed to them at the polls…
Sorry NDP, your 15 minutes is up. #CrushOrange
Thos concerned with this topic may be interested in my article on the subject for Rabble.ca,”The art and science of strategic voting.”
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/christophe…
If you oppose Harpers agenda you need to vote for parties that disagree with him. That means NDP or Greens.
My vote is cast strategically: it is a tool to advance policies and values that I support. A vote for the Liberals or Conservatives is not strategic if you support hard targets on greenhouse gas emissions, or having oil lobbyists out of government inner circles. If you want lower tuition fees, stronger public health care, public childcare, public pharmacare, and legal protections for trans people, you need to elect a party other than the liberals or conservatives. If you want to repeal bill c-51, you need to think a bit deeper than “stop Harper” and vote for the NDP or Greens.
Jacob… strategic voting worked and your precious Conservatives are gone!
103 of 139 identified Conservative swing ridings elected either a Liberal or an NDP member. Congratulations to us all!