With the federal election less than a week away, it's coming down to decision time for many North Shore voters. For some voters, whether to vote with the head or the heart - and whether that really that looms large.
This election, a number of "strategic voting" campaigns have targeted potential swing ridings, including all three on the North Shore. Campaigns like Vote Together, organized by the activist group Lead Now, are upfront about their goal of defeating Conservative candidates by getting left-leaning voters in Liberal, NDP and Green Party camps to throw their support behind candidates they think have the best chance of beating the Conservatives.
But some have criticized the campaigns as encouraging a cynical vote against something rather than for something voters truly believe in. Other critics just aren't sure it works.
From a rational perspective, choosing to vote strategically is "perfectly reasonable" if the goal is "getting the government you dislike least," said Greg
Lyle, a pollster and political strategist with Innovative Research, who makes his home on the Sunshine Coast.
The scene for strategic voting is set only when several conditions are met, said Lyle: You have a clear preference but you don't think your party will win in your riding, you have another party you don't want to see win and an acceptable alternative to your first
choice.About 18 per cent of the electorate are potential strategic voters, said Lyle. Most of those are soft supporters of the Liberals, NDP or Greens who would consider switching to one of the other camps. They are the voters currently being targeted by Lead Now's Vote Together campaign promoting strategic voting on the left side of the political spectrum.
Matthew Carroll, director of engagement for Lead Now in B.C., said while his group's main focus is on issues like environmental concerns and democratic reform, the problem of vote-splitting is key because "it's made it so hard to make progress on the issues we care about." This election, the group targeted ridings where vote-splitting in the last election could have made a difference to local results. As national polls have changed, in some cases Lead Now has also added ridings to its target list. Burnaby North-Seymour, North Vancouver and West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country are all on the Lead Now target ridings. "We're organizing those people," said Carroll. "So we can rally those voters as a block."
One problem for strategic voters is it's difficult to tell in many tight races who the best-positioned "strategic" choice would be. National polls don't necessarily reflect trends at the local riding and local polling information is limited.
"It's very hard to have good information," said Richard Johnston, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia. "You don't want to be basing your decision on information that's a month old."
To combat that, Lead Now has partnered with the Dogwood Initiative to commission Insights West to conduct local polling in targeted ridings, with the last of those results expected to be released this week.
Another challenge for strategic voting advocates is in many cases the poll's margin of error is bigger than the point spread separating candidates - a statistical tie. In that case, "Who do you recommend?" said Lyle.
Not all politicians and voters on the left are enthused about strategic voting.
Lynne Quarmby, Green Party candidate in Burnaby North-Seymour, said she gets asked about the issue "only 20 to 30 times a day."
Some people have even emailed her and said, "If I don't drop out and the Conservative gets in they'll hold me personally responsible," she said.
As someone who has strongly opposed the Conservative stand on environmental issues, Quarmby said she understands why people advocate strategic voting. But there are problems with its practical application, she said. Of those who tell her on the doorstep they are planning a strategic vote, half say they're voting NDP, the other half Liberal, she said. "I say good luck with that," she said, adding one of the problems for "strategic voters" in her riding is "the polls have been all over the map. This is a volatile riding."
Johnston said those kinds of issues highlight the challenges of strategic voting. Nobody is sure how much of it really goes on, he says - or whether it has the desired result. That may be something for political analysts to ponder later - after Oct. 19.
