DISQUS

John_Bessai · 1 year ago

The need to prevent too much vote splitting on the centre left to prevent a Conservative majority government is a necessary tactic. And given that it is increasingly likely we will succeed, the question can be raised about how, soon after the election we should organize ourselves so that the chances for right wing majority governments are reduced substantially. But for now tools like the widget on this site to help guide voters to prevent a Conservative majority is a reasonable tactic given the current first past the post system in place in Canada

Marc Hanner · 1 year ago

"The solution is election reform"
yes, but when liberals and ndp had a majority (together) they didnt care to reform the system...now it's biting them in the ass...if they can win this time, maybe they learn their lesson and finally do something about it.

Blair Irwin · 1 year ago

Climate change mitigation efforts will take approximately 30 years to take hold. We don't have another 4 years to wait around. Due to this urgency we don't have the luxury of waitng and playing the broken Canadian democratic system game. I have always voted for the party or candidate I believed in but this time around I have no choice as our childrens future is running out of time. And since our current first past the pole voting system is incapable of delivering "democracy" to the people, I have no problem "defeating what it stands for".

Jason · 1 year ago

The Earth's climate has always changed, the best choice is to learn to deal with not try to stop it (it might not even be possible). There is no climate crisis, it is an invented political movement grabbed at by government leaders as there is little else they can use to engage an increasingly jaded public.

davey jones · 1 year ago

but.. but ..Jason, never in the history of "civilization" has the climate changed so rapidly! By the time something like this is a personally-felt crisis, it'll be too late to do much about it. But now IS a good time to re-examine your high-flying luxurious lifestyle. Canadians are #1 in the world for per-capita pollution. NUMBER ONE!!!

The climate prognosis doesn't look good for anyone living at sea level or trying to grow food crops, and the dangerous tipping points like catastrophic methane release are kicking in now, but people like you are still clinging to 20th century denial. Or bitching about a miniscule carbon tax, which is why the NDP won't win any Green vote.

If governments start to backtrack on GHG reduction just because a few sleazy banks are tipping over and the economy looks weaker, what on Earth will they do when the sea rises a few feet? Throw subsidies at the ship-building industry?

Dashing Leech · 1 year ago

The problem is not the strategy. Indeed, this strategy is exactly what the Progressive Conservatives and Reform parties used by combining. They knew that vote splitting would kill them so they forced Conservatives to vote for Reformers and Reformers to vote for Conservatives by combining parties.

The problem isn't the strategy. The problem is the "first past the post" system. Strategic voting is the correct and inevitable optimization of that system. Ideological calls for "voting your heart" are great sentimentalities, but that's all they'd ever be. Natural selection eventually weeds out those who fail to optimize their chances of winning in competition with those who do.

The solution is election reform. Ideally, Condorcet voting would be implemented to select the true winner in each riding without vote splitting or strategic voting. People truly could vote their hearts. Proportional representation also improves fairer representation of interests at the population level. Implementing these reforms would go a long way to fixing the system.

Mark Kuznicki · 1 year ago

Please note that we have changed our commenting policy in response to the barrage of angry Conservative supporters, internet trolls and sockpuppets that we've attracted.

We want to continue to support real and civil dialogue for members of our audience: the undecided Canadians and supporters of the Liberal, NDP, Green and Bloc parties who are concerned about another Harper conservative government and are thinking about so-called strategic voting this election.

Effective immediately, you will need to be a registered Disqus user for your comment to appear automatically without manual moderation. Anonymous unregistered comments will be held for moderation and we cannot guarantee how quickly they will be approved. We encourage all of our users to get a Disqus account and use a photo as an avatar. We've found this helps keep the dialogue more civil, and many sites now use Disqus so you don't have to register at every site where you comment.

We also encourage our users to "Record video comments", a great feature of Disqus and Seesmic. Tell your own stories and express yourself.

Any comments with offensive language/expletives or that consist primarily of ad hominem attacks against the people behind this site or other users will be deleted without notification.

Thanks for all the messages of support and please keep the dialogue going.

Brian Mason · 1 year ago

This site can't be trusted. For Edmonton East, the suggested candidate is Stephanie Laskowski, of the "New Conservatives", whatever that is. Stephanie is actually the Liberal candidate. She was a last minute substitute after lawyer Jim Jacuta quit. There is very little sign of a serious Liberal campaign here, aside from a few signs on public property.

In contrast, the NDP candidate is Ray Martin, a previous leader of the provincial NDP. He has a full blown campaign which is evident from the many signs (far more than Peter Goldring, the tory incumbent), active canvassing and multiple literature drops.

This nonsensical recommendation makes me wonder if this site is really just a front for a Liberal strategic voting scheme. Either that, or it's severely flawed.

Brian Mason
MLA, Edmonton Higlands-Norwood

Yukonlass · 1 year ago

I live in rural Alberta near Drumheller and am sad to say that I have yet to see a single Liberal sign anywhere despite driving a great deal around the area. I offered my assistance to my local Liberal candidate and haven't even heard back from her. Perhaps she is sobbing on a couch somewhere, depressed and intimidated by the attitudes of her would-be constituents. Well, I know for certain that she has my vote, despite her lack of advertising.

Mark Crawford · 1 year ago

Strategic voting is a response to the lack of electoral reform.

Alberta is a perfect example---There are only two ridings that the Tories can lose, Edmonton Strathcona, where Liberals threaten to be spoilers, and Edmonton Centre, where the NDP play the spoilers. Unless New Democrats in Edmonton Centre agree in effect to swap votes with Libs in Strathcona, the Conservatives will win all 28 seats in Alberta--and possibly hand Stephen Harper a narrow majority with as little as 35% of the vote nation-wide.

Matt K. · 1 year ago

Dear,Mr. Mason,

First let me say that I appreciate all the work that you and your party have done in the name of bringing something that resembles an opposition to Alberta's broken democratic system.

And I agree with your commment that the site is not always accurate for voter recommendations as it bases its calculations solely on the the vote count from the last election with no accounting for the present candidates. I am in Edmonton East and will be voting for Ray Martin as he has both name recognition in the community and a solid record of past public service.

What is not beneficial is your highly partisan and therefore self-defeating complaints that sites like these are part of a liberal campaign agenda. If you entered a postal code for Edmonton Strathcona it would tell you to vote Linda Duncan, NDP. As for Edmonton Centre, it has been a close contest for Conservatives and Liberals for at least the past 2 decades, that's just a statistical fact. In the last election the closest contender to unseat Goldring was the liberal candidate.

Seriously, if right of centre thinkers like the liberals and the left (NDP, Green Party) at the Federal and Provincial level don't get their act together and put the people they represent before the party line, you risk making yourselves politcally irrelevant, as has already happened in Alberta.

Learn from this. Until someone with the political will to implement electoral reform for proportional representation actually obtains office, strategic voting is the only option that we , average canadian voters, have to stave off the extremist right-wing policies of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Sincerely,

Matt K.
Concerned Citizen

Another Concerned Citizen · 1 year ago

White text on a black background is bad design, never mind retina burningly difficult to read. Still, I hope Harper falls hard.

Cathleen · 1 year ago

I feel that you pick for Edmonton East is just wrong. Ray Martin, of the NDP, is the one with the chance to unseat the Peter Goldring. Where did you get your information? I believe that the Liberal got more votes than the NDP last election but Ray is a well-known candidate and the Liberal is a last minute replacement. She was a campaign organizer and I heard her speak on the radio - not very inspiring...

I have a feeling that this site is constructed in the East. You are leading us astray! If you don't have a solid answer for a certain riding, you should state that, instead of messing up whatever strategic voting that we are trying to arrange for ourselves.

Mark Kuznicki · 1 year ago

Cathleen, our data for the widget comes from VoteForEnvironement.ca based on 2006 electoral result plus regional daily tracking polls. They are based in Vancouver and work very hard on their picks. Please visit VoteforEnvironment.ca for more details!

Ms. Watson · 1 year ago

Strategic Voting is a terrible idea. It totally defeats what our democracy stands for. People should vote for what they really believe in. Don't waste your vote giving people you have no faith in more power than they deserve. Give power to the people you want to lead your country. Remember a vote "against" someone is a vote for someone else. Stephan Dion does not deserve to win just so Harper doesn't. Stick to your own beliefs and vote true to them.

Eric-Mtl · 1 year ago

In an election, everything is the result of a carefully planned strategy.
The ridings limits are defined by the incumbent party to maximize it's chances, advertisements, including those that blatantly lie are a part of this strategy, talking points are tested with 'focus groups', all the medias and opinion polls, the way their results are twisted and commented, the debates, P.R. firms, dirty tricks, everything is done for strategic reasons.

Why should we, the targets of all this careful strategic planing, be expected to behave naively ?

A drawback of strategic voting is it's effect on 'small' political parties and if that's your concern, then, instead of walking away from strategic vote, you need to refine your strategy by using vote pairing ( http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_pairing ). This can be done privately by swapping your vote with someone you know and trust, using the 'Swing Ridings Widget' on this website as a guide or using an organized vote pairing website such as :
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pair-Vote-Swap-Ca...
http://fr.wordpress.com/tag/anti-harper-vote-sw...
http://www.voteswapcanada.ca/
http://www.votepair.ca/ (warning: this site also accepts conservative pairing)
Elections Canada confirmed the legality of doing so.

To take an analogy, people use condoms, even if they'd rather do without them, to prevent a much worse outcome (potentially deadly STDs), and that's the responsible thing to do. In this election, we all agree the worst outcome would be a conservative majority as it would allow them to apply the same neo-conservative agenda that led to the current fiasco south of the border. If you're serious about avoiding this scenario, then you should act accordingly. That's the responsible thing to do.

If it was not effective, why would Conservatives be so strongly opposed to strategic vote when their own political party is the result of a strategic merge (hostile takeover ?) between the Tories and the Alliance/Reform ?

RyanMcFitz · 1 year ago

On the face of it, you're right -- strategic voting is counter to the ideal of democracy.

However, it also presumes that you have a choice between two (or more) good candidates. Unfortunately, as a society, we've gotten used to the loss of "ideal democracy" and have gradually settled to an acceptance of the "lesser of two evils" paradigm.

So what can someone do then if they know that "voting for who you believe in" will open the door to a party that openly espouses intolerance and bigotry? This is where strategic voting comes in. A person who votes strategically is not contradicting the fundamentals of democracy -- he or she is a symbol of them.

Voting strategically means two things: (a) putting the nation's interests ahead of one's own and (b) adopting a larger, longer-term picture instead of the immediate gratification of selfishly popping a ballot in a box to make yourself feel better.

Strategic voting is a keystone of civic duty.

Danny · 1 year ago

The liberals, NDP, Greens, and even the Bloc, have agendas representing 2/3rds of Canadians, The Conservatives have an agenda representing 1/3rd of Canadians. We would be fools not to vote strategically so that we can get what we want. So, yes, thank you very much for your suggestion of "sticking to our beliefs", that's what I intend to do. I will be voting strategically.

ML · 1 year ago

If it were true that the Liberals, NDP, Green and Bloc have agenda's representing 2/3rds of Canada, why don't they merge to form a united center-left party? Because, in reality they are as different in their ideals as they are to Conservatives. Strategic voting can only lead to the same level of dissatisfaction. Make a decision! Vote for the party with the plan you believe in AND the capacity to achieve results.

spun · 1 year ago

you goto love Harper supporters, so hypocritical on so many isues, -Harper being bashed at the debate, remember the debate with Paul Martin????? now there all against strategic voting becuz it doesint work in there favor, remember that the Canadian Alliance party of Canada (Stephen Harper) took there 25% of the populare vote from the west and brought it to the conservative party, that would be the only reason Harper and the concervative's have even a chance to govern this country, Harper minority govermant did nothing becuz they would not work with anyone who opposted there idea, and the most secretive goverment in canadian history was harpers, you ideots what us to vote unstrategicly, i sure will when the concervitives drop back to there 20% of the populare vote where they d\belon, unfortunatly if you look at the popular vote history, it take a conservitive magority to place them back to the bottem, happen 3 time in the past 1935,1958 and 1984........http://www.nodice.ca/elections/canada/popularvote.php check it out

Skye Fjordyn · 1 year ago

if our democratic system actually allowed us to vote for the PRINCIPLES of what we believe, there would be no need for strategic voting. unfortunately this is not the case. our choices are: a fragmented and ineffective opposition, or a government that stands for more than conservative ideas. we need to unite together in order to make them understand that they no longer (if ever) have the support of the people.

MasterBugz · 1 year ago

You can’t build a party with one-night stands or by renting other parties’ supporters. The secret of electoral success is in transforming other parties’ supporters and independents into your party’s loyalists by forging an emotional connection with the voters. Suggesting that ones supporters vote for the other party is just not a strategy, it’s the opposite of everything that should be done.

Eric-Mtl · 1 year ago

The goal is not to 'build a party with one-night stands' but to prevent Harper from getting a majority government. If you split the vote in your riding and end up with a Conservative, that would clearly be 'the opposite of everything that should be done.'

Elections are not about making a statement or voting with your heart, it's about deciding who will form the next government. Don't act in a way that would lead to the worst possible outcome !