Vote-swapping in 16 ridings.
October 8, 2015 1:51 PM   Subscribe

 


So called strategic voting is not a proven win, and it means voting for craven apologists in my riding.

Fuck that. Fix the broken rep by pop system, and make gerrymandering punishable by removing a finger.

Until then, I'm voting my conscience.
posted by clvrmnky at 2:11 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]


I've had vague doubts about "strategic voting" in the past but I've never worked them out as well that link did, kurichina, thanks for that.
posted by Hoopo at 2:25 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yesterday I received a huge flyer from the Liberal candidate in my riding imploring voters to vote strategically. It showed a vote breakdown from the last federal election that showed how the conservative could have been beaten if folks had just voted Liberal instead of NDP (which I thought was a bit disingenuous). To be fair, this year's election polling is showing the Liberals as the most likely party to beat the Conservatives in my riding, but given how polling in this country seems to be becoming more and more inaccurate, I think it's hard to make a call on where the ABC vote is best cast.

I can also recall the days of Conservative/Reform "vote-splitting", and that there were attempts made to coalesce those votes strategically as well. It never worked.
posted by Kabanos at 2:36 PM on October 8, 2015


Above all, Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair get to prove that they can put Canada’s best interests above petty politics.

And trying to game the voting system is not petty?

Recent projections published by the CBC show the Conservative Party winning the election with 122 seats

...and since it takes 170 to form a majority, there's another way to guarantee Harper's defeat - wait for the election results, and have Trudeau support Mulcair if the NDP have more seats or have Mulcair support Trudeau if the Liberals have more. Announcing some vote trading scheme now would just hand Harper ammunition to use against his opponents.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 2:36 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


Yeah, at this point it's hard to believe that Harper could land a majority...but I'll believe it if and when it doesn't happen. I'll also believe that the NDP and Liberals will be able to get over themselves and each other enough to keep Harper out of the Prime Minister's office again if and when that happens.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:40 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


This is why first past the post must die. Ranked ballots would let us vote our conscience with a strategical spin.

Of course, any party or "independent" politician who squeaks in with, say, 17% of the vote will never, ever support ranked ballots. Toronto fucking council, man.
posted by maudlin at 2:58 PM on October 8, 2015 [7 favorites]


It showed a vote breakdown from the last federal election that showed how the conservative could have been beaten if folks had just voted Liberal instead of NDP (which I thought was a bit disingenuous)

Disingenuous, you say? The same party that has had a pop-up ad slathered about every site I have seen for the last three weeks that asks me to choose between, "YES, I am voting Liberal" and "Undecided"?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:09 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


Young folks, like those at /r/Canada are constantly flipping their lids over pet theories of voting systems.

The CPCs are in favour of FPTP, which, surprise, works well with a solid base which always turns out reliably and isn't swayed by the winds of fickle youth or the cynicism of new parents in their thirties. Making it harder for people to vote, by, for example, increasing ID requirements, helps keep away non-core voters.

The Liberals, or maybe just Turdeau, favour reform, and have publicly mused about an instant runoff system, possibly also including mandatory voting. 1-2-3 ranked voting or runoff systems tend to favour parties which voters view as least-worst options. Guess who polls strongly as the number 2 choice for a lot of NDP or CPC voters?

The NDP have come out in favour of proportional systems. These allow minority parties to consistently get strong representation in parliament. It might be no surprise to realize that the NDP have and are now getting strong, but third-place support from voters.

But I'm kind of cynical about all of the choices, including the reforms by the CPC last year. All of the positions most benefit the parties proposing them. All of them put a thumb on the scales for the benefit of the parties, but what's actually best for the country?

Full proportional weights national averages against regional representation. Do we want just the big provinces, even just the big cities to determine the continuous majority, even more so than now? Quebec, the North, Atlantic Canada, the FN, all face less representation with PR. Sure we could mandate special arrangements (and the constitution does for certain cases), but how does that get done fairly? And fairly for the future?

Does instant run-off and mandatory voting produce any better results than what we have now? I'm not convinced that it does.

We have laboratories to examine those questions in both Australia (the Liberal answer) and in NZ (the NDP one), each with almost 20 years of data. Do they have better turn out rates and less disenfranchisement? Are outcomes from the political process better, are indices like visibility minority, mixed-gender and aboriginal representation improved? Perhaps most importantly, do the end results of electoral change materially give better governments? Is GDP improved? Is the GINI index better? Are transparency and corruption indicies better?

I don't know the answers to any of those questions in detail, but I'm not convinced that Australia or NZ are massively outscoring Canada in any of those categories, even in things that are probably most direct like voter engagement and diversity of representation. I do know that trusting pols to pick systems mostly results in them choosing the system that works best for them, rather than for the benefit of the country as a whole. I'm not convinced that particular voting systems make that much difference however, looking at outcomes.
posted by bonehead at 3:13 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]


So called strategic voting is not a proven win, and it means voting for craven apologists in my riding.

Fuck that. Fix the broken rep by pop system, and make gerrymandering punishable by removing a finger.

Until then, I'm voting my conscience.


As the Conservative Party will never abandon first past the post, strategic voting to oust Harper from governing is the first step to reforming Canada's electoral system, and the first step to restoring a better functioning Elections Canada.

A progressive voter may be a Green, or NDP, or Liberal (even Bloq) supporter and holding one's nose to select a distance second choice amongst these options has to be better than letting the Conservative slip in with taking the riding.

Strategic voting isn't perfect, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good in this election. You may not be voting for who you want right now, but strategic voting could help to get what you want in the future.
posted by praiseb at 3:42 PM on October 8, 2015 [14 favorites]


Earlier this year, people were predicting that Cameron would get ousted in the UK. Instead, he's stronger than ever. Likewise, I think the Harper government is going to trample it's opponents, due to the same issues that collapsed the SNP/Labor/Greens in the UK. The current system is meant to preserve a conservative oligarchy albeit with a pantomime of democratic process. Same as it is for the US and Russia.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 3:51 PM on October 8, 2015 [5 favorites]


Um , voting is compulsory in Australia, you get fined if you don't show up. Turnout is uniformly excellent and there's no evidence of widespread fraud.

Either proportional or preferential (or both) systems are far, far more democratic than ftpt, which is indisputably the least democratic voting system. Anything proposed is better than that.
posted by smoke at 4:04 PM on October 8, 2015 [6 favorites]


These tactical voting suggestions are utterly out of place in an election where it is unclear who the dominant center/center-left party is. This conflict will not be solved by a tactical extra-parliamentary coalition between Liberal and NDP voters. It will only be solved the same way the PC/Reform split was resolved: with the parliamentary eradication of one or another of the parties.

This is not the time for low-level voting tactics. It is the time for higher level voting strategy, aimed at the federal-level eradication of the Liberal Party.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:13 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


Strategic voting isn't perfect, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good in this election.

Given that we do not have accurate riding-by-riding polling data, this is a case of conscience being the enemy of cynical guesswork.

As You Can't Tip a Buick said, we have a solution to the splitting-the-vote problem which does not require changing the laws: party merger. Currently, the NDP, Liberal, Bloc and Green parties care more about the differences between them than they care about defeating the Conservatives, so they remain separate and lose.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 4:18 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


The differences between the parties are meaningful, though. A formal Lib/NDP merger would result in a political formation palatable to absolutely no one, that wouldn't ultimately be able to elect anyone. And the Canadian Greens are, well, hella weird, with kind of incoherent positions from all over the political spectrum when compared to other nations' green parties, and the Bloc are, well, separatists. Any sort of broad front between these parties is untenable.

Focusing for a moment on the main parties: although the NDP has moved to the right since their rise to near-power and since Layton's tragic passing, there is nevertheless still more of a difference between the NDP and the Liberals than there was between the PCs and the Socreds Reform Party Alliance Conservatives. As such it's less a matter of the two parties learning to put aside their differences and work together, and more a matter of the Liberal Party accepting that it is, like the old Progressive Conservative party, no longer a relevant or useful organization. Unfortunately, likely it will shamble on until it experiences an electoral defeat as thoroughgoing as the PC's defeat was.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:28 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


Looks like I live in one of those "special" ridings, and I don't even have to change my vote! Just proceed normally...
posted by Kevin Street at 4:45 PM on October 8, 2015


Either proportional or preferential (or both) systems are far, far more democratic than ftpt, which is indisputably the least democratic voting system. Anything proposed is better than that.

So how does one go about proving that?

Canada right now suffers from an abundance of ideological, rather than data-driven thinking. I, for one, am heartily sick of arguments that start with "Obviously" or "Indisputably". We've had ten years of fuckery as a result of that. Left-wing or populist fuckery, to my mind, shouldn't get a pass just because that's the sort of politics I prefer either.

Our system does have real problems in terms of representation, particularly in terms of gender and ethnic minorities. Votes in city ridings tend to be less valuable than those in sparse or rural ridings, even ignoring the 10-year demographic lag we have. We need a better system. But let's figure out, in an informed way, what actually solves those problems, rather than resort to knee-jerk armchair solutions which favour one party's electoral strategy over another.
posted by bonehead at 5:04 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


heh, cause data-driven analysis is totes not ideological. totes.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:15 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


fptp, which is indisputably the least democratic voting system

I think it comes in second to last past the post. Which would make for interesting results.
posted by jeather at 5:21 PM on October 8, 2015 [4 favorites]


A party or a candidate has to earn votes, not demand them.
posted by Nevin at 5:21 PM on October 8, 2015


Fix the broken rep by pop system, and make gerrymandering punishable by removing a finger.

It's satisfying to express that kind of anger (and I agree it'd be nice to chop off some fingers etc), but there's no talking or even dreaming about PR if the CPCs win, which is going to happen unless people expand the remit of their conscience to include the expulsion of the CPC. There's no point in wasting breath on the details of any particular policy until and unless that happens.
posted by cotton dress sock at 5:23 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


A progressive voter may be a Green, or NDP, or Liberal (even Bloq) supporter

BQ and PQ support a niqab ban. Liberals supported C-51, and when last in office implemented security certificates and secret trials, and did not prevent our own citizens from being sent to Syria to be tortured. The Green Party had an MRA-themed policy plank until it was quickly and quietly pulled from its website in August. The NDP supports pipelines and the oil sands.

How are all of these parties "progressive" again?

My point is, as I mentioned above, the party or the candidate has to earn your vote. Simply being called "progressive" is not good enough a reason to "vote strategically."
posted by Nevin at 5:25 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


The NDP supports pipelines and the oil sands.

The NDP is a labour party first and foremost. They are very interested in making sure the pipefitters and welders and truckers all have good union jobs. The tensions between left-wing environmentalist and labour interests are problems the party has not fully been able to resolve (and the reason the Greens exist). The support of the oilsands is one of those seemingly odd outcomes. Pipelines make sense by this logic as market access is the major problem the northern Alberta fields have.

They're also (by a very long way) the best environmental choice if you want to move a lot of oil, but that's not a particularly palatable truth, so it gets downplayed.
posted by bonehead at 5:32 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


Imo, focusing on the oil sands and pipelines as the ultimate environmental evil That Must Be Stopped, instead of broader policy issues like a carbon tax and government incentives for renewable energy just plays into the hands of conservatives (and Conservatives), because it splits us into regional blocks. No one in Alberta is going to argue for a policy that would gut our economy.
posted by Kevin Street at 5:37 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


These tactical voting suggestions are utterly out of place in an election where it is unclear who the dominant center/center-left party is.

If we follow LeadNow and strategicvoting.ca [methods; aims] we'll end up with a Liberal minority and decent NDP representation, which would likely mitigate the worst Liberal excesses and create a space for NDP priorities.

(My hope is that some shitshow happens within the CPC over the next few years and gets some of them to defect to the Greens or Liberals or go independent, isolating a really obvious and excisable former Reform unit.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 5:38 PM on October 8, 2015


Oh, I wasn't necessarily criticizing the NDP position; I know they have to make a political choice, and also have to pay the consequences for that choice.

It's just that you can't simply call a party "progressive", because the meaning is rather fluid.

And by the way - the largest number of mass arrests in Canadian history were as a result of civil disobedience when the provincial NDP government of BC, which has strong links to the national party, wanted to log old growth forest here on Vancouver Island.

NDP premier Glen Clark called environmentalists "enemies of BC." The nightmare scenarios that could occur under another Harper government have already occurred in Canada under different governments. "Progressive" premier Dalton McGuinty campaigned against Islamic schools in a previous election. The rendition and torture of Maher Arrar occurred under a Liberal government. The gassing and detainment of APEC protesters occurred under a Liberal government.

Once again, my point is that candidates and parties have to earn votes. A simple "progressive" label is not enough.
posted by Nevin at 5:38 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


Any discussion of electoral reform just gets me pig-biting mad, because it reminds me of that debacle in the 2007 Ontario electoral reform referendum, which was conducted by a majority govt, and totally designed to fail. "...the lack of information and balanced analysis available to voters was not an accident, but the result of inadequate funding, an excessively limited approach to public education by Elections Ontario, a last-minute approach to informing the public, the lack of attention to the role of the Assembly, and hostility from the media elite." Ugh, that awful phrase: "When the pundits weigh in..." The conservative segment of the media elite are utterly reprehensible. And other foul words.

On the brighter side, I am somewhat optimistic that in this federal election, even with split ridings, a Con majority is unlikely. The PM seems to be riding strong now, driving his core constituency of paranoid gramps & grannies (the only humans who answer telephone polls) & media toadies pretty hard, egged on by dangling that nice sweet racism in front of them, but on the other hand, there are a lot of mostly red tory voters in Canada who feel dismayed by the PM's utter lack of human decency.

The Liberal and NDP parties have both expressed interest in federal electoral reform, so something, anything better that FPP could possibly happen in the future. If it does, it will probably be decided by a parliamentary vote, and not an ignorant and confused referendum.
posted by ovvl at 5:39 PM on October 8, 2015 [3 favorites]


(LeadNow and #votetogether are everywhere, it's got momentum.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 5:39 PM on October 8, 2015


it splits us into regional blocks

That's a good point, but as someone who lives on the coast and can count tanker traffic transiting through Juan de Fuca Strait every day (the pilot's office is just a few blocks from here) oil pipelines are definitely a bigger issue than carbon capture.

I know it sucks (I'm being sincere) that we think in terms of BC (or, rather, the BC coast) than in terms of Canada, but energy companies are evil fuckers. Can't trust 'em, and I don't want an oil spill where I live.
posted by Nevin at 5:41 PM on October 8, 2015


Earlier this year, people were predicting that Cameron would get ousted in the UK. Instead, he's stronger than ever.

Tell that to the pig.
posted by delfin at 5:43 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


>the same issues that collapsed the SNP/Labor/Greens in the UK

Um, I may have a little bias, but I wouldn't call this a collapsing SNP:
SNP               : 56
Labour            :  1
Conservative      :  1
Liberal Democrat  :  1
posted by scruss at 5:45 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


I understand what you're saying Nevin, and I share your concerns. For you the Northern Gateway pipeline is a very pressing issue that could have terrible effects upon your local environment. It's not theoretical.
posted by Kevin Street at 5:46 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


I don't want an oil spill where I live.

One of the worst, most divisive, parts of this whole mess is how the provinces that accrue the most benefits (not just Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario and, to a minor extent, Quebec as well) are generally not those that accept the highest risks, those of the on/off loading terminals and the tanker transits.

It makes you wonder if this could be treated as not just an inter-provincial matter, as if some sort of national government might have a place in figuring out an national energy strategy. But of course that's totally unreasonable.

For you the Northern Gateway pipeline is a very pressing issue that could have terrible effects upon your local environment.

I'd be more concerned about TMX in the Juan de Fuca. It's very likely going to happen. ENG is on an indefinite hold right now and, IMO, will likely be impossible to build until the CFN suits are resolved. They haven't even gotten to trial yet.
posted by bonehead at 5:51 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]




Has anything ever been resolved by Premiers getting together and talking? (I honestly don't know.) If there ever is going to be a real national energy strategy, it will have to come from a federal government with a substantial mandate. The current election seems too evenly split to produce one of those now, but a lot can change in a couple of weeks.
posted by Kevin Street at 5:59 PM on October 8, 2015


You've all convinced me. I'm spoiling my ballot and moving to Myanmar.
posted by clvrmnky at 6:01 PM on October 8, 2015


I understand what you're saying Nevin, and I share your concerns. For you the Northern Gateway pipeline is a very pressing issue that could have terrible effects upon your local environment. It's not theoretical.

It's depressing - but enlightening - to consider that Canada really *is* a federation of relatively independent provinces, with no real common sense of purpose. It doesn't make any sense for British Columbia to block "Alberta oil" on the coast if you think that getting the oil to new markets benefits everybody in the country thanks to transfer payments. I'd also add that the provinces often compete against each other when attempting to promote overseas trade. Australia and South Korea (our peers) don't do that.

Anyway, Harper owns oil and resources. He lifted the moratorium on tanker traffic. He stacked the review panels. He also failed to persuade Obama and Congress to pass Keystone XL, the schmuck.
posted by Nevin at 6:02 PM on October 8, 2015


You've all convinced me. I'm spoiling my ballot and moving to Myanmar.

I really don't understand the hesitation. Exactly how bad does it have to get?

I would have loved to not have voted for the Liberals most of the times I did. I could feel righteous then, I could be proud of standing by a self-consistent belief system, no dirty hands. But so fucking what. My votes would have been wasted in that riding. Because the system's the dirty thing, and it's not going to change if everyone indulges in the luxury of high ideals.
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:12 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


He lifted the moratorium on tanker traffic.

Lots of other comments can be made about the process, but this one, technically, isn't true. There was never an official moratorium, just a voluntary commitment from the US that tanker traffic would go on the west coast of Vancouver Island. In essence, BC asked nicely and the US government agreed. No treaty or other formal agreement was ever in effect.

There was confusion about this even in some of the official federal government reports, even a statement by a minister at one point. If you're really interested, there was a long discussion of this in the Northern Gateway hearings and written evidence.
posted by bonehead at 6:18 PM on October 8, 2015


You Can't Tip a Buick: the federal-level eradication of the Liberal Party.

That's an interesting take but I'd argue it isn't the Liberal party who is in that position but the NDP. If there ever was a schizophrenic political party it is the NDP, especially under Mulcair. The move to the right and populism and the frequency of times where Mulcair has said something in French then turnaround and contradict what he said in English. Utterly exasperating. In terms of parties joining, I think we would sooner see the Liberals unifying with whatever remaining Red Tories there are (especially after this remarkably racist election) before we'd see the NDP and Liberals amalgamating.

An new electoral system is what we need but we're never going to get it under Harper. Our goal in this election should be that - get rid of Harper. Until that happens most conversations about progress or change are kind of moot because he's a dictator in all but name.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:00 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


this one, technically, isn't true

The perception on the West Coast is that there was a tanker moratorium.
posted by Nevin at 7:39 PM on October 8, 2015


It's true that that's commonly put forward in the media and by other interested parties. And that's not to say that a voluntary agreement didn't exist, just it is informal and there never was a law banning tankers from an exclusion zone (or the inside passage).

In any case, the M/V Westwood Annette wouldn't have been governed by either the TEZ or the inside passage agreement; it was a cargo carrier, not an oil tanker, and so not covered by any of those agreements. What fouled Squamish marsh was its fuel, not cargo.
posted by bonehead at 7:58 PM on October 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


So how does one go about proving that?

I don't mean to sound condescending but it is obvious. A Fptp system can result in the election of the candidate a majority of the directorate finds most unpalatable. A preferential system ensures the election of the candidate the electorate finds most palatable. Depending on implementation and electorate size etc, proportional can result in the election of the candidate that the voter has as their first preference.

I mean they really are obviously more democratic in the sense of better expressing the will of the voter.
posted by smoke at 10:57 PM on October 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


First, no voting system is perfect. In any system it's possible to achieve obtuse results. What we're arguing is how likely those are to occur with any system. The Canadian context is that we have three and in some places four parties that can all expect to attract a large chunk of the vote, and that the run-offs don't always split in ways that make a lot of sense.

In case of a tight three way race, like much of Canada is in currently, it's easy to construct situation where preference voting ends up with a choice no one really likes as well:

Voter 1 ranks candidates as A B C
Voter 2 ranks candidates as C B A

Thus candidate B, whom no one preferred, wins (or could win under certain versions of this). There are many close three-way races (see the original post) where preference voting could arrive at results no one really wants. Is a second (or even third place) choice better than a plurality wins, FPTP scenario?

Under a preference system, in a multi-party system Canada's, voters are still going to have to vote strategically and hold their noses to vote when the candidates they don't like win. If the goal for a preference or instant-runoff system is to eliminate the need for strategic voting, I'm not convinced that's going to happen. It will be different sure, but it will still be necessary, particularly in near contests.

Proportional helps in a different way, but it does violence to the concept of regional opinions, which I'm not sure voters are willing to give up either.
posted by bonehead at 7:49 AM on October 9, 2015


The questions that I want answered btw is not some nebulous "obviously more democratic", because what does that even mean?, but does it get us a better parliament, better laws, or a better governed country? It's really not clear to me that wonky fiddling with the electoral system really matters. Close races will still be close, big shifts are still big shifts. Do we get more people voting? Do we get a more representative diversity in parliament? Do we get a less fractious, more effective legislature? Do we get better laws, which result in better national outcomes?

What I don't want to see is a huge disruptive change for basically no real gain aside from pleasing some abstract notion of "fairness". We did something similar with equally poorly researched shift of the daylight savings change and it was a huge waste of time. Arguably its biggest effect was a bump to the software companies that go paid to fix all the clocks and the autobody shops who had to deal with all the results of the traffic accidents.
posted by bonehead at 7:59 AM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


The Japanese system (a bicameral parliament, with the innovation, at least compared to Canada, of an elected upper chamber) uses a mixture of first-past-the-post and proportional representation.

The proportional seats are in the Lower House, and are assigned to regional blocs (Mutant Frog has a good summary). So you have the benefit (depending on your point of view) of smaller parties getting into parliament, and also regional representation. However the Japanese polity itself has a number of problems that have made their system largely dysfunctional.

Anyway, BC had some sort of referendum about STV a few years ago that failed. Prop-rep can only be championed by government; it will never succeed as a grassroots movement, simply because there will never be a coherent grassroots movement. The people championing STV in British Columbia were nerds and did not present well. It was like the tabletop games club was running the "yes" side of the STV referendum.
posted by Nevin at 8:02 AM on October 9, 2015


but does it get us a better parliament, better laws, or a better governed country?

I think so, yes. The Conservatives only had 39.6% of the vote last time. If they only had 39-40% of the seats in parliament for the past 5 years things would have been run a little differently. Better? Who knows.
posted by Nevin at 8:04 AM on October 9, 2015


Thus candidate B, whom no one preferred, wins. There are many close three-way races (see the original post) where preference voting could arrive at results no one really wants. Is a second (or even third place) choice better than a plurality wins, FPTP scenario?

This depends on your preferences. If your favourite candidate is a 10 and the third candidate is a 0, it's possible that the second place candidate is an 8, so sure, you'd be okay with giving them a "better than nothing" vote.
posted by jeather at 8:07 AM on October 9, 2015


That's true, but it's an awfully fiddly, wonky answer, capturing a few extra percentage points either way. And no offense intended, I fully understand the impulse to push buttons and tune dials. I'm a natural fiddler too.

But step back. I'd say the major problem we have is that as well as voters 1 and 2 in my naive example above, there are also potential voters 3 and mostly 4 who don't get their opinions counted at all. In municipal elections there can be uncounted voters 5 and 6 too. Turn-outs of less than a third are common.

So rather than fiddling with the margins at the edge of significance, if we're going to change the system, lets try to focus on the real representation problems we have. Let's try to engage those communities, like the FN and the new immigrants who actively choose not to vote, as well as those who are apathetic.

It's a claim often made that better voting systems will make disengaged voters feel their votes matter. If this is really true, I'd be all for those changes. But looking at other countries where this has happened, like NZ, voter engagement is continuing to fall there as well, on the same trendline as Canada. So I'm not really convinced this will matter.
posted by bonehead at 9:08 AM on October 9, 2015


Let's try to engage those communities, like the FN

I was listening to an interesting interview on 690 on the Vancouver drive-home show with Stephen Quinn. Quinn was interviewing someone from SFU about SFU's efforts to encourage aboriginal and First Nations students to vote.

One tactic is to facilitate group trips to the polls. The reason why, the SFU rep explained (I believe she leads a First Nations initiative at SFU) is that many First Nations students find voting intimidating. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one striking thing she said was that aboriginal and First Nations citizens of Canada did not have the right to vote until something like 1955, and this is within living memory for many First Nations families. So this may be only the second or third generation of First Nations people to actually have the right to vote.
posted by Nevin at 9:14 AM on October 9, 2015


In some bands, e.g. the Haisla, the Kanesatake, the message from the elders is not to vote. There are currents that they are sovereign unto themselves and so not voting in a Canadian election is an act of national self-determination. I don't have a good feel for how universal these sentiments are, but they're there in the background.
posted by bonehead at 9:32 AM on October 9, 2015


we have a solution to the splitting-the-vote problem which does not require changing the laws: party merger.

Ugh. I am OK with a coalition but a merger? Fuck that. The NDP has already moved further to the center than I am comfortable with.

the frequency of times where Mulcair has said something in French then turnaround and contradict what he said in English

I haven't really seen much to substantiate this; it seems like a Liberal talking point. One of the allegations has to do with some comments he made in 2013 vs today on Energy East, which, yeah people can change their minds on things when it becomes clear that the electorate is against it. He's not against a pipeline but he won't approve one with the country's current standards in place. The other one about Quebec sovereignty is overstated
posted by Hoopo at 9:42 AM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


In case of a tight three way race, like much of Canada is in currently, it's easy to construct situation where preference voting ends up with a choice no one really likes as well:

Voter 1 ranks candidates as A B C
Voter 2 ranks candidates as C B A

Thus candidate B, whom no one preferred, wins (or could win under certain versions of this). There are many close three-way races (see the original post) where preference voting could arrive at results no one really wants. Is a second (or even third place) choice better than a plurality wins, FPTP scenario?


That could be an issue if people must rank three candidates, even if there is a huge gap between their first choice and all others. But don't some ranked vote systems allow you to select as few candidates as you really want? If Voter 1 is lukewarm OK with B and despises C, they could rank as A B. If the only one they really want is A, they would list A only.

Minneapolis does it that way:
Does my vote still count if I only select one choice?
Yes. Your vote will count for your one choice. You may - but are not required to - rank up to three different choices for each office. Your vote for a candidate stays with that candidate through all rounds of counting until that candidate is defeated, and only then is your vote transferred to your next ranked candidate.
posted by maudlin at 10:34 AM on October 9, 2015


That could be an issue if people must rank three candidates,

The Australian system does appear to require that. It also appears to be similar to what Trudeau favours. So that's what I took as a starting point.

But yeah, there are tons of little ins and outs. I don't think we really have a good feel, certainly I don't, what those will do to our system, which is why I want a few basic questions answered before any switch is considered. Is this going to be really better or just a little bit theoretically better? It's a lot of bother just to scratch someone's itch, and someone else will have different itches. That's the problem with tinkering with policy.
posted by bonehead at 10:54 AM on October 9, 2015


Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

FOR THE LOVE OF RALPH NADER NO
posted by SassHat at 12:09 PM on October 9, 2015


What's amusing now is the NDP's talk of "ABC strategic voting" means that now people ought to (according to that logic) be voting Liberal.
posted by Nevin at 3:42 PM on October 9, 2015


Horrifying wait times reported to vote in advanced polling. The FEA seems to require quite a lot of ID checking. And funnily enough, some polls haven't been equipped with enough scrutineering staff.

By the way, for those who aren't already following it, I highly recommend The Strategists podcast (and thank you to Homeboy Trouble for introducing me to it). I think it's some of the best commentary on this election available.
posted by figurant at 6:50 PM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh no, figurant. This doesn't bode well. If there are procedural issues and the CPC wins, we know from recent history that sweet nothing's going to make a difference, and any other result is going to be challenged.
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:17 PM on October 9, 2015


I'm not a DRO (Deputy Returning Officer) this year, but I was following the DRAMA through Twitter. It looks as if the extra wait time was probably due to a combo of:

a) Possibly a higher ratio of new temp staff compared to old hands. If you're brand new and facing a long line up from the start (instead of the less popular poll I was lucky to get my first year), you are going to fumble more than an experienced DRO or poll clerk.
b) There is some extra recording required at advance polls, as mentioned in the CBC article: "As well, because it's an advance poll, people have one more form to sign. A record of advance votes must be maintained, so a form has to be printed, signed by the voter and filled out by staff, which adds to the voting time." This extra step isn't required on election day.
c) More people interested in advance voting.
d) Some polling locations were short of polls and staff, it seems.

But I wouldn't freak out about the voter ID process. The identification process looks to be pretty much the same as in 2011, except that there are a few more alternative forms accepted, such as prescription bottles with your name on it. (See the current list of acceptable voter ID here.)

People who have a driver's license or a provincial photo ID card can still show that one piece of ID and be done with it. If you don't have an approved piece of ID with your name, address and photo on it, you'll have to provide two approved items with your name on it, and one of those must include your current address. As long as you know ahead of time that you need to provide this, this should be pretty easy for most of us: provincial health card + utility bill, or credit card + income tax assessment -- there are many possible combinations. And if you don't have any acceptable documentation with your address on it, you can provide two approved items with just your name on it, swear an oath, and have an appropriate person vouch for you, as shown in that link.

That's not to say that providing ID is right or easy or logical. It's a stupid new requirement, but it's almost the same stupid requirement that we've had for the previous two federal elections. There is nothing new and nefarious being cooked up by Elections Canada. (But I really wish that they could organize that list of Voter ID better. They need a nice, clean version, both on the web and as a desk display, that is in alphabetical order or clustered into categories.)
posted by maudlin at 8:35 PM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh yeah, maudlin, my only issue with Elections Canada is that they're underfunded and underpowered (somehow).
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:03 PM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Has anything ever been resolved by Premiers getting together and talking?

Nope.

If there ever was a schizophrenic political party

Don't do this, please.

The Japanese system (a bicameral parliament, with the innovation, at least compared to Canada, of an elected upper chamber)

Look at the nonsense that is the US electoral system and think again about whether you want an elected Senate. What we need is reform in the appointments process--citizen-driven with a rubber stamp by the PMO. Maybe start--as a tongue in cheek suggestion I read said--by bundling a Senate seat with an appointment to the Order of Canada.

Or staff it like jury duty. Randomly selected, here's your job for ten years.

In some bands, e.g. the Haisla, the Kanesatake, the message from the elders is not to vote. There are currents that they are sovereign unto themselves and so not voting in a Canadian election is an act of national self-determination.

Given how horrifically we have treated First Nations peoples, I am unable to disagree with that stance at all.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:18 PM on October 9, 2015


What we need is reform in the appointments process

Well, the US has a presidential system, so looking at their Senate isn't exactly relevant. Besides, we need to have elected - not appointed - representatives. We did have an extra-constitutional convention for a bit where provinces could elect new senators following a vacancy. I think Alberta elected one by referendum.

The challenge is that the prime minister in Canada tends to try to accumulate as many levers of executive control as possible, and one of those levers is the Senate.
posted by Nevin at 6:19 AM on October 10, 2015


Instant runoff voting yields unpredictable and broadly speaking anti-democratic results when there's more than two viable parties. Unlike conventional FPTP, it doesn't have the problem with small third parties acting as spoilers, but once a third party gets sizable enough, the need for tactical voting returns with a vengeance. This is why legislatures elected through IRV, like legislatures elected through FPTP, tend to contain exactly two parties or exactly two coalitions (see: Australia). ,

In my misspent youth, I was a serious voting system fetishist. Most people of that category prefer the Condorcet method to IRV. The user interface for Condorcet is much the same as IRV — you turn in a ballot with your rankings for the candidates — but the Condorcet method involves assessing those ballots through pairwise comparison, figuring out how each candidate would do if they and each of the other candidates were in a series of two-person races with each other, instead of one multi-person race. Typically this yields clear winners, but in rare situations loops will form where it appears that the electorate prefers A to B, B to C, and C to A. In this case there are a number of different math tricks you can use to figure out which candidate the electorate probably actually prefers.

The problem, of course, with Condorcet is that it is stupid hard to explain to people who aren't already invested in understanding voting systems. This is why not even the American Mathematical Society uses it for their elections. Instead, they use approval voting. The way approval voting works, instead of ranking candidates you just vote for every candidate you'd find acceptable, with whatever threshold for acceptability the individual voter prefers. Whichever candidate is approved of by the most people wins. Although this superficially gives the voter less choice ("I don't get to rank them? I just have to say yes or no to each of them?"), approval voting doesn't display anything like the problems that IRV does when there's more than two major parties, is not easily susceptible to distortions introduced through tactical voting, and tends to yield more broadly democratic multi-party systems. And, unlike Condorcet voting, non-wonks can follow how it works.

Of course what we really need is a transfer of power away from bourgeois parliaments and to councils of workers who've seized control of the means of production. But until we've got those, approval voting would be great.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:22 PM on October 12, 2015


Or staff it like jury duty. Randomly selected, here's your job for ten years.

There is a case to be made (a really fucking solid case, in fact) that this strategy for selecting officeholders yields more democratic results than any other system, including Condorcet. The technical name for it is sortition, and it was, in fact, how all Athenian officeholders were selected back in the day.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:26 PM on October 12, 2015


A progressive voter may be a Green, or NDP, or Liberal (even Bloq) supporter and holding one's nose to select a distance second choice amongst these options has to be better than letting the Conservative slip in with taking the riding.

I've been waiting for the Liberals to make their usual 'Hold Your Nose and Vote For Us' call to the NDP for a while now, and here it is: Justin Trudeau angles for NDP voters in Toronto.

Every. Fucking. Election. With less than a week to go, they're a bit behind schedule this time. Usually, it's two weeks out.

But saying to NDP supporters that 'this guy you've been supporting is exactly the same as this guy you can't stand' -- that's a new one. I don't expect that part will play out very well.

Personally, this 'Hold Your Nose' call fills me with Teh Rage, as I fell for it in '93, when I really, really, really wanted the Tories gone. It proved completely unnecessary, and our new PM told us all on election night itself that he wouldn't be making any policy concessions to those who lent their votes to block the Tories.

My everlasting shame. I was duped once, but never again. Never again.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:03 AM on October 13, 2015


And yet, the NDP pushes the exact same line about the Greens and has been since the day the Greens were founded. Every single election, provincial and federal, we have been told to vote NDP "just this time" and that we are wasting our vote voting Green, etc. Our local NDP candidate closes every debate with a speech about how all the Liberals and Greens have to vote for him.

So, I can't feel much sympathy for the NDP on this issue because they do the same thing, except they don't limit it to one or two weeks. The drumbeats start years before the election and the shaming editorials start immediately after. The NDP are the way worse on this issue and they have absolutely no shame about it.

Of course, if anyone brings up electoral cooperation, they just get ignored.

And, to be realistic, the NDP and Liberal platforms are much more similar than they have ever been.
posted by ssg at 9:37 AM on October 13, 2015


I haven't heard about any of that, but then, I haven't been on the receiving end of it. I'm sorry, ssg. That shouldn't be.
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:54 AM on October 13, 2015


A progressive voter may be a Green, or NDP, or Liberal (even Bloq) supporter

I'm sorry, after the whole niqab mess, coming after the race-baiting by Marois and even the "ethnic vote" line coming from the mouth of possibly the best thinker the PQ had ever, I cannot, ever, see the Bloq as anything less than a blot of nationalists driven mostly by racism. Sure they have their collectivist and socialist impulses, but when things get serious, the thing that matters to them is ethnic and cultural purity. They (and the PQ) are not, and never have been "progressive" in any meaningful sense.
posted by bonehead at 1:47 PM on October 13, 2015


It proved completely unnecessary,

You came to this conclusion after the fact of this strategy's success in ousting the Conservatives, in 1993, after Mulroney (recession, free trade agreement, introduction of the GST), when Kim Campbell was an unpopular placeholder. Clean sweep all but guaranteed.

We've got far from the same kind of unanimity today. Your strategic vote matters in 2015 (and hopefully only now, if we can get rid of FPTP as well).
posted by cotton dress sock at 4:08 PM on October 13, 2015


Main Street Research is teasing upcoming polling results: "After tonight, I can comfortably say, it will be a Liberal majority on Oct 19, only question left is how big".

I -- beg to differ. First, I predicted a Liberal minority at a meetup in September and I hate being wrong. Second, I cannot count out the Tories pulling something off, or pollsters being duped by the Shy Tory Factor. Every time I look at Eric Grenier's Poll Tracker, the default Avg values look like the Tories are definitely lagging (although tonight's update has them dropping a bit), but switch to Max and you've got a BIG Tory majority.

Six more days. I cannae take this.
posted by maudlin at 8:54 PM on October 13, 2015


Here's a pessimist after my own heart. Sure, he's saying recent polls favour Liberals, but note the current prediction in the margin. The Tories could still pull this off.
posted by maudlin at 8:59 PM on October 13, 2015


As happy as I am that the Jays won yesterday, now I'm worried a substantial number of people who would otherwise be voting will skip that to watch the game on Monday.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:24 AM on October 15, 2015


That's what Advance Polls are for, TCC.

Yep, I voted already. Zero lineup, and they even let my 12 year old son put the ballot in the box. My 6 year old did the same for my wife (although he did point at her ballot and loudly say "You're voting for XXXX, right?", so we still need to work on the concept of secret ballots.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 12:42 PM on October 15, 2015


When I was that age I thought secret ballots meant you weren't allowed to ask people who they voted for and they weren't allowed to tell you. I'm not sure if I thought it was illegal or just totally inappropriate.
posted by jeather at 12:50 PM on October 15, 2015


That voting pessimist at Canadian Election Watch is now giving the tiniest of edges to the Liberals. Sadly, it seems to be at the expense of the NDP once again.
posted by maudlin at 8:33 AM on October 17, 2015


If it is a Liberal minority they'll need NDP support to govern. That would be a very nice result, actually. Politicians hate minority governments and political parties are sometimes punished for taking part in them, but they often produce policies that are closest to what the population as a whole actually wants.
posted by Kevin Street at 11:34 AM on October 17, 2015


It's going to be very interesting to break this down after Monday's results. If current trends continue, then the long campaign and the Conservative insistence on the "Just not ready" narrative could have combined to put Trudeau on top. In the short term, it worked to suppress Liberal support and buoyed Mulcair. But day after day passed without a gaffe, and voters began to see through the empty narrative. They didn't see an incompetent Trudeau, and slowly the numbers started climbing.

The Conservatives also have failed to highlight what they have done in the past nine years, and failed to put forward any clear plan for what they would do next. But honestly I don't know if there's anything the Conservatives could have done to ensure another majority, the anti-Harper bias appears to be too strong. They have their core supporters, and there's just not a lot of votes they can draw from their opposition.

As for Mulcair, frankly I don't know what has gone wrong. Maybe it's the insistence on staying the fiscal course that hurt them. It was meant to reassure moderate voters that they'd be fiscally responsible, but it seems to have suppressed core supporters who were looking for more socialist solutions. I can understand why they did it, but you get more support when you align with your principles. I don't think any voter actually believes a politician that says they're going to stick to a balanced budget; I can't think of a single time a party stood by that, then immediately upon viewing the books claimed the outgoing government had left the economy in even worse shape than they led the public to believe.

That's partly what helped MacNeil here in the last Nova Scotia election. The NDP and PCs kept promising a balanced budget no matter what, and the Liberals said they'd balance it only if the economy could support it. That was a smart move, and Trudeau coming out saying "yes, there will be deficit spending but here's why" just sounds like a more honest approach.

I so hope it's a Liberal minority rather than a majority (but I'll take either over a Conservative anything), as long as Mulcair insists on some policy changes for his support. Trudeau has said he would change C51; a minority would ensure he holds to that. With luck, it could be a great way to moderate any of the more egregious policy choices.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 5:10 PM on October 17, 2015


As for Mulcair, frankly I don't know what has gone wrong.

This sense to me (niqab --> less support in Quebec --> strategic voters betting on Libs).

I worry that the hypothesized Liberal advantage will lead some to assume that it's in the bag, and vote NDP in ridings where Lib/NDP are the main contest, with the idea of wanting to keep the Libs from a majority/promote a minority. Or, they'll vote for an unelectable candidate in a swing riding (as one person told me they would, "just to show support"). Overconfidence like that will guarantee vote splitting again. This is not the moment to take anything for granted :/ If people really want Harper out, they can't let themselves think they're two steps ahead of other voters, or vote with the goal of an ideal balance of representation; they have to focus on the singular goal of Harper eviction and follow the largely agreed-upon plan.

I really think that if we can get it together to get a non-Conservative party in, they'll deliver on their promise of taking proportional representation seriously. And after Monday, we should all write our MPs and ask that that be priority #1.
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:26 AM on October 18, 2015


(And I think electoral reform should be the first priority. C-51 is more substantively important, and it might be that we get a Lib minority, and they wind up working well with NDP in support and get that business dealt with; or, they'll squabble and play party politics and we'll have another election in a year and a half. If that happens, and we're still stuck with FPTP, one-time ABC voters will be burned out and pissed off, and we'll have vote-splitting and the Cons in power again in a heartbeat.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:40 AM on October 18, 2015


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