This time around I am hoping any of you that can vote in Ontario's election will vote NDP. Really I will be quite pleased if you vote for anyone that isn't the Conservative candidate, but the NDP is neck and neck with the Conservatives and if the people that are terrified of or angry at the Conservatives get together and vote NDP, the result will be a foregone conclusion.
I voted this afternoon and it was easy as anything. I didn't get my voter card in the mail so I just walked in with my ID and everything was all set up within 1 minute or so and off I went. The Liberals traditionally do really well in my riding but I voted NDP anyway, as I hate the idea of strategic voting and I want it to die in a fire.
The strategic voting calculator I checked tells me the Liberals are going to win my riding so my vote for the NDP is not likely to matter. Still, they are the ones I want to win.
The Conservatives have declined to post a complete platform this election. They brought in a bigoted, foolish, bombastic buffoon as their leader. He has a pathetic record as a politician, made ridiculous and contradictory promises, and clearly did not prepare for this race. Even if you are someone who likes Conservative principles there is every reason to think that voting for them this time is a disaster. If a party can't be bothered to figure out how they will spend your money prior to being elected, they clearly are not organized enough to govern.
I hope Ontario is sensible enough to see that Trump 2.0 is not the right choice to run our province. Now I suppose I just need to sit here and wait and see if we can actually live up to my expectations.
There are really only two ways to get rid of strategic voting.
ReplyDelete1) Get to the natural end state of First Past The Post and only allow 2 options each election.
2) Change voting systems.
Refusing to vote strategically because you hate the concept isn't going to accomplish anything. (If you refused for some other reason, like you wanted the NDP to get the $2.50 or whatever it is per vote, then at least you can say you're using our election system for some purpose orthogonal to what it does.)