Printed Matters

Lately, we hear a lot of talk about strategic voting. That is the practise of voting for a less-than-ideal candidate in the hopes of blocking some other especially abhorrent choice from succeeding. In recent federal elections in Canada, for example, that has manifested as voters on the left pitching their weight behind the strongest left-leaning candidate in their riding to avoid vote-splitting on the left, and to thwart the Conservative.

But there are only two possible outcomes of any attempt to swing election results through strategic voting: success or failure. I will argue both outcomes are undesirable, that one is more likely than the other, and that the more likely outcome hurts the strategic voter. A sort of political Pascal’s Wager, if you will.

If, in the first case, the strategic vote succeeds, it sabotages the democratic process of electing the most popular candidate in the riding. If everyone voted for their ideal candidate, the candidates actually elected would best reflect the wishes of the constituency. In our first-past-the-post election system, that may be the best we can hope for: a crude approximation of voter sentiment. But the cynical, half-hearted act of voting against the candidate you don’t want – and succeeding – means even that is lost.

But by far the most common outcome is that the attempt will fail. There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that to be successful, a strategic vote has to be organized, which is no doubt a difficult task. But the greater risk is that important benefits that would normally have gone to one’s ideal candidate are transferred to a less-than-ideal choice.

One benefit is that the candidate can demonstrate that he has more support going into the next election four years down the road. And the next election is arguably just as important as the current one.

A second, little-known benefit is that if a candidate can garner at least 15 per cent of the popular vote in their riding, that candidate will receive a reimbursement equal to 20 per cent of their post-writ campaign expenses from Elections Ontario. The candidate can use that money to pay off any debts incurred during the campaign,and the surplus goes to the party riding association to help it prepare for the next election.

So every vote a candidate receives is a vote that helps build the party locally in that riding. And these effects are cumulative and crucial. For all parties, but especially smaller ones, building for the next election is actually the fundamental campaign goal. Yes, they would like to get their candidates elected, but success is measured by growth: growing the numbers, growing the volunteers, growing the popular vote.

But a vote for the other candidate builds the other candidate, not the ideal candidate, and the chances that the strategic voter will ever be properly represented in the legislature are reduced. That is the risk that every strategic voter takes: she throws away her right to build toward her own ideals by participating in a cynical, undemocratic long shot.

To summarize: the strategic vote likely won’t work, and so it will likely help build the wrong candidate with nothing to show in return. If it did work, it would undermine what little representation we get from our current electoral system.

The mere existence of strategic voting with its attendant skewing of election results should sound the alarm that our electoral system is in need of radical reform such as what proportional representation as practised in much of modern Europe would provide. But that’s a discussion for another day.

In the meantime, let’s do our best to uphold the democratic process in the upcoming Ontario election Oct. 6. Let’s take a good look at the candidates, the parties and their platforms, and then vote according to our own values – not against someone else’s values.

At worst, we will ensure that the candidate sent to the legislature properly reflects the ideals of our communities, even if not our particular ideals. At the same time, we will better support our own favoured candidates and help give them every chance to succeed next time around.

At best, we’ll help prove that polls really are for dogs if we happen to send underdogs to the legislature.