What is Strategic Voting?
Strategic Voting is defined as voting for other than your preferred candidate in an election.
See Menu for case studies in Strategic Voting.
Why vote strategically?
One of the main reasons to vote “strategically” is because there are three or more candidates or parties with a chance of winning. The votes are “split” if everyone votes for who they want to. You might not prefer the person/party with the most expected votes to win. So strategically you would vote for the second most likely to win (not the third, fourth etc. that you would like to vote for), so that the second -place person/party comes out the winner.
In strategic voting, you pick a person to vote for strategically for a desired outcome. You may not like them or their party the best. But you still make a free choice of who to vote for.
Why should you vote strategically?
The decisions that politicians will make on our behalf are of critical importance. Don’t waste your vote! In a “first past the post” system such as Canada has, multiple candidates may be great candidates, and may have policies or politics that align well with your own. However, when two (or more) candidates draw from the same pool of aligned voters, they divide the votes from that pool, resulting in a win for a candidate that could have been defeated. Afterwards, the defeated candidates have no governing power.
Why should you not vote strategically?
The following are some of the issues with strategic voting:
- It is difficult to gauge whether strategic voting efforts successfully alter individual voter behaviour
- In some cases, strategic voting efforts have backfired – voting against a candidate with momentum and resulting in a split vote anyways
- Strategic voting in Canada has meant voting Liberal in districts where the Liberals and Conservatives are competitive, but New Democrats are weak (leading to a two-party system)
- Many voters in Canada interpret “strategic voting” to mean “vote Liberal”. In ridings where Conservatives and New Democrats are traditionally the main contenders, such messages create confusion
- Progressive organizations such as Unions often don’t agree on which candidate is best positioned to be the strategic candidate in a riding
- Candidates may proclaim themselves as the strategic choice even when mainstream of strategic voting efforts support other choices
- There is an issue of political parties or candidates that have more financial resources (than other parties/candidates), who may try to sway a strategic vote in their favour
- A related issue is the quality of information available during an election. Polling may not have been done at the level where the relative chances of each candidate to win are known
Strategic voting campaigns have difficulty adjusting to changes in party support mid-campaign that can change the dynamic in local races.
Advocating strategic voting makes the argument that “defeating x or achieving y” is more important than voter engagement or plurality of opinion.
Engagement of the public in the voting process is critical for acceptance of public participation in government as worthwhile, and as a bulwark against manipulation by external self-interests/actors.
Strategic Voting should not be advocated without consideration of the associated risks.
Making Strategic Voting work:
To be useful a strategic voting campaign must take actions that will address the potential issues.
The question of the effect of strategic voting campaigns is not simple to answer. While voters may appear to vote strategically for their own reasons, there a lack of evidence that campaigns trying to organize a strategic vote work (cause change in voter behavior).
To test if strategic voting campaigns work, something along these lines would need to be done: sufficient voters would need to be reached by a campaign to be aware of it, and then polled after the voting is complete, in sufficient numbers to answer questions about how they voted and the impact of the campaign. A comparable voter population that did not hear about the campaign would also have to be polled to find out how they voted.
A useful (functional) strategic voting campaign would need to be widely discussed and understood in a voting population. The information on who represents a “strategic candidate” would need to be known and acknowledged.
How to identify a strategic candidate?
The following are some suggested ranking methods:
- Candidate ran in last election with higher vote count than other aligned party candidates
- Same party candidate had second highest vote count in last election
- candidate’s win would address historical inequities
- polling indicates a party/candidate is in the lead in a riding
Sources:
Does Strategic Voting Actually Work? | The Tyee
Canadian election 2021: Do strategic voting campaigns actually work?
Minority Government
In a Minority Government situation, the coalition in power acts as a brake on excessive government action by the leading party. More voter’s interests are represented by the coalition government process.
Canada’s 2021 Federal Election Results – Source: Canadian Election Results: 2021
In the 2021 federal Canadian election the Liberals were the leading party by seats but failed to win a “majority” of seats (169). In order to govern the Liberals and NDP entered into a “supply and confidence agreement” (Minority Government) where the NDP would agree to support the Liberal government in exchange for the implementation of certain policies. The policies included:
- Ban the use of replacement workers at federally regulated workplaces
- 10 days annual sick-leave at all federally regulated workplaces
- Sustainable Jobs act, to support the creation of sustainable jobs in a net-zero economy
- Establish a roundtable to implement the recommendations of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
- National Dental Care Program
- National Pharmacare program (status in process)
- Legislation for national long-term care standards (not introduced yet)
The achievement of all of these worthy policies were the direct result of a minority government of the combined Liberal and NDP parties Link to CBC News
Representative voting systems
The current first-past-the-post structure of Canada’s electoral system sets the major political parties against each other, and Canada’s citizens are the losers. A system that encourages multi-party cooperation is possible and has been tried in other nations (Link to The Conversation). The citizens of Canada need to use the resources available to them to make decisions in their best interests. The use of Strategic Voting is a tool to direct the outcomes of elections. Why not vote for coalitions?
New Zealand switched to a Mixed Member proportional system in 1996 (the same as used in Germany), and since then each successive government has successfully passed a budget (Link to The Conversation).