The apparent closeness of the federal election may deal a major setback to those advocating that people vote “strategically” on Oct. 19 in order to defeat the Harper government.
With polls (for what they are worth, which admittedly may not be much) suggesting there is a genuine three-way race between the major political parties, neither the NDP nor the federal Liberals can make the case that the other should get out of the way in order not to split the non-Conservative vote.
And considering the polls are often contradictory, it’s hard to see how the NDP or the Liberals can use them as “evidence” that one of them should be the natural alternative to the Conservatives.
A great example of why the argument to vote strategically may fall flat can be seen in the new riding of Vancouver Granville. If the riding had existed in the 2011 election, the Conservatives would have won with just 35.4 per cent of the vote, or about 2,300 votes ahead of the second-place Liberals and more than 5,100 votes ahead of the NDP.
A left-leaning activist group called Leadnow is targeting the Vancouver Granville riding as one where people should vote strategically to defeat the Conservatives. But both the NDP and the Liberals are running credible candidates — either of whom would be worthy additions to the House of Commons — and it’s impossible for anyone to make a credible argument that one of them should be shunned over the other.
The Liberals can make the case that they have, on paper at least and using actual past voting results, the best chance to defeat the Conservatives. The NDP counters that recent polls (those unreliable things) show that party is more popular in this province than the Liberals.
In other words, both parties could be right and both could be wrong. What’s a voter to think? There simply is no proven evidence that one party is better positioned to defeat the Conservatives.
Another B.C. riding where the idea of strategic voting becomes a very confusing one is the riding of Victoria, currently held by the NDP.
But the Green Party came oh-so-close to winning this riding in a byelection in 2012, losing by just 1,100 votes.
In this campaign, it’s hard to say which candidate — the NDP’s Murray Rankin or the Green’s Joanne Roberts — has the most residential campaign signs in sight (I disregard signs on public property such as boulevards; a sign on someone’s lawn is an indication of a committed voter), which suggests it is a competitive race between the two of them.
So how is someone able to figure out how to vote “strategically” in this situation? There is a decent chance the Conservatives (who finished third here in 2011) could win with a very low vote count, but why should anyone expect (or demand) that voters for either the NDP or the Greens, given both parties’ apparent strength, abandon their party to embrace another in order to beat Harper’s candidate?
This is another problem with strategic voting. It asks people to vote “against” something rather than “for” something. Other than political activists, I can’t see many people — particularly older voters, who may have been voting for a particular party for decades — putting aside one set of principles in favour of making sure a party they’ve never supported scores a victory on election day.
Most voters are not closely attuned to the political scene, and pay little attention to election campaigns until near the end of them. Parties can get excited if 1,000 people show up at a campaign rally in a particular riding, but that conveniently ignores the fact that means 44,000 voters (in a 45,000 voter strong riding) stayed away.
And unless something happens in this campaign that suggests that either the NDP or the Liberals are demonstrably and unquestioningly better positioned to beat the Conservatives, both parties’ supporters will likely stay away from strategic voting as well.
Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global BC. He can be reached via email at [email protected].
What are your thoughts? Send us a letter via email by clicking here or post a comment below.
