Strategic Voting Will Never Work! Statistical Analysis shows it

By Matthew Piggott on 10 July 2010 - 10:56pm

This is a response to this previous blog

****Michale Vaillancourt, Ron Fischer, and Catch 22 pay close attention***

Ok so using actual numbers let's test the idea that if everyone who voted Green voted for another party the Conservative party would be defeated. I crunched the election results from 2008 and here's what I found:

Last election the NDP won 37 seats.

If 100% of Greens switched to the NDP, then the combined votes would win...

45 Seats, or a gain of 8.

Now what if 100% of all Green voters switched to the Liberals? Last election they won 77 seats. The combined votes(Liberals+Greens) would win:

85 seats, or another gain of 8.

So what does strategic voting accomplish? Not much. 16 seats assuming all voters are coordinated enough (which is impossible).

Now let's suppose that Catch 22 is a fabulous success and all 22 targeted riding switch from Conservative. Hurray right? Well no, that puts the Conservatives down to 122 seats, so still a minority government. Really, it doesn't change much.

So for those of you who are advocating strategic voting, do everyone a favour... STOP! You're hurting the electoral system and causing people to give up hope. What you're really doing is causing cynicism and increasing voter disenchantment.

Now to focus on the positive and move forward. I'm glad that the previous thread ended up progressing towards the idea that we need to change to proportional representation. That is the key piece we should support and make it a non-negotiable part of coalition, merger, or other agreement we would make.

Remember, with electoral form and some for of proportional representation, no party will ever get a majority. If you really want to stop the Conservatives from getting a majority(or any party for that matter), then we need to switch to PR and force our elected leaders to cooperate together!

Those are my thoughts, and I hope we can move forward from this really silly strategic voting debate.

Matthew Piggott
Communications Chair
Kitchener Centre EDA

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Comments

and that's assuming we can

Submitted by Carter Apps on 11 July 2010 - 7:34am.

and that's assuming we can even control green voters which we can't do. If there is a green candidate running, I will not be told to vote elsewhere. If there isnt a green running I'd probably sit on the side lines or find an indy to support, so even this 16 scenario is a best case scenario.

How on earth can we let liberals who can't inspire their own base to give, vote and support their out of touch tar sands loving twit of a leader push Conservative sucesss on us?

We are not the problem, we are the answer.

The system is broken, the status quo parties are unresponsive and uninspiring which is why in 2008 we had real vote growth while other did not. When greens strategically vote we are saying the system is ok broken and the other parties are good enough. Well you know what? They aren't good enough!

Catch 22 / Strategic Voting

Submitted by Michael Vaillancourt on 12 July 2010 - 7:08am.

Matthew,

I should clarify that Catch 22 is not making any requests or demands of the *parties*, such as saw-offs, coalitions or anything else. We understand that parties will put their own interests first every time. That's why Catch 22 is a grassroots effort to communicate with *voters* to help them make wise decisions at the ballot box.

Here's the Catch 22 perspective on whether strategic voting works, and we realise it isn't an exact science. As mentioned in the other thread, we expect to be targeting about 40 Conservative seats, which should be sufficient to defeat them (though it may require a post-election coalition).

We don't pretend that we can exert much influence over the parties, so we are focusing on the things that we can control, such as riding picks and messaging.

EDIT TO ADD my comments from the other thread:

In my view, this doesn't disenfranchise voters. It empowers them to take control as best they can under the current system, and it also highlights the flaws with our voting system (winner-take-all; rigging the system). The folks working on this campaign are big supporters of proportional representation, and promoting voting reform is part of this campaign as you can see from the FAQ.

The Greens really aren't a player in any of these ridings, so while it may reduce the vote subsidy (by what possible percentage range you could probably figure out if you crunch the numbers and make some estimates), it isn't otherwise much of a threat to the future success of the Green Party. Indeed, defeating the Conservatives may save the vote subsidy, so depending how you look at things this campaign may not be so hostile to the Green Party after all.

Getting annoyed...

Submitted by Ron Fischer on 16 July 2010 - 11:29am.

Mathew, I'm really starting to get annoyed!

MY POST had nothing to do with strategic voting and never did, so you can pull your reference as I don't accept it as valid in any way shape or form, and I would prefer that if you want to respond to a thread I innitiated you do it directly as I just found this piece.

It's just this kind of nonsense that made me stop posting here in the first place, there are way too many petty agenda's at work in this party and it appears very few actualy committed to winning seats and getting something done!

I will say again, we are a political party and not a protest group, our only reason for being is to get members elected and in so doing represent our voters and move our agenda forward, anything other then that is a true waste of time and a waste of the hope and trust Green voters put in us.

Ron Fischer: You may have missed my reply

Submitted by Matthew Piggott on 16 July 2010 - 4:38pm.

See here. There were many replies in that thread so you may have missed it in all the heated discussion.

Your post started the thread so I'm sorry I lumped you in with those advocating "strategic" voting.

I hope you'll come out to the BGM. Perhaps we can share ideas and you can learn what Kitchener Centre is doing in order to show we're "actualy committed to winning seats and getting something done!"

Unfortunately we often get distracted by "strategic" voters that just want us to throw in the towel and quit because apparently there's no way we can actually win.

If you'd like to share here how you've helped facilitate a discussion about an "outright coalition, or maybe just an agreement to not run in ridings" with other parties in your EDA please feel free to share.

Sincerely,

Matthew Piggott
Kitchener Centre

"People of good faith, figuring out where we are, not falling victim, making choices, based on our values, with the best available information." These views are my own and do not represent the official position of the Green Party of Canada.