Strategic (sic) Voting
Jan. 6th, 2006 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
c9Everybody in Canada goes on and on about strategic voting, which is actually misnamed. It should be called tactical voting, since it's a single tactic contrary to your overall interests, exercised individually, not an overarching strategy commanded centrally and consistently over time.
But anyway. The gist is this: You like Party A, then party B second, then Party C third. A has no chance of winning, so you vote B to ensure that C doesn't win. Most commonly, A=NDP, B=Liberal, and C=Conservative.
The problem is most people forget that a Canadian election is really 308 little elections, and the national polls don't matter. So Joe Canadian thinks A has no chance *nationally*, so he votes B, even though in his riding A would have won if they had his vote. This happened all over last time, to the NDP's detriment (and the Liberals' amusingly, since a stronger NDP would have meant they could form a stable coalition).
So if you must vote "strategically," please make sure you know what you're doing. Learn more here.
But anyway. The gist is this: You like Party A, then party B second, then Party C third. A has no chance of winning, so you vote B to ensure that C doesn't win. Most commonly, A=NDP, B=Liberal, and C=Conservative.
The problem is most people forget that a Canadian election is really 308 little elections, and the national polls don't matter. So Joe Canadian thinks A has no chance *nationally*, so he votes B, even though in his riding A would have won if they had his vote. This happened all over last time, to the NDP's detriment (and the Liberals' amusingly, since a stronger NDP would have meant they could form a stable coalition).
So if you must vote "strategically," please make sure you know what you're doing. Learn more here.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 09:51 pm (UTC)Therefore, if I absolutly did not want the Cons to come to power, it would be in my best interest to vote for the Liberals. So, if you're a strategic voter, the best tactic is to vote Liberal.
Of course, this doesn't apply to the non-strategic voter who votes based on their personal political affiliations, presumably you in this case.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-07 05:37 am (UTC)Example riding:
NDP at 35%
Conservatives at 33%
Liberals at 29%
Green at 2%
If some NDP voters get scared and vote Liberal, the Tories could win. This actually happened last time, where people looked at the national polls and got worried, and actually made the Tories win more ridings because of their misunderstanding of the system. It's important to know what your own riding can do. What is happening overall has no effect: it's just something to talk about.