Strategic voting and Change Alberta

[langis]

A group called Change Alberta is encouraging strategic voting this election to try and get more progressive representatives elected in the face of what's been a very pro-conservative election.

http://www.changealberta.ca/

An FYI for anyone looking to vote strategically in a week.

[DTrobotnik]

<rant>strategic voting is a stupid defeatist concept for those who choose fear of an unknown outcome instead of voting how they really want. i will always vote for the party i would like to see elected. this is the only way to create change. strategic voting is just a way to eat a different flavour of turd pie if you vote for a party you don't like. it's still a turd pie though. and if strategic voting fails. you compromised yourself for nothing. but you can always vote again next time</rant>

[Glenco]

Originally Posted by DTrobotnik

<rant>strategic voting is a stupid defeatist concept for those who choose fear of an unknown outcome instead of voting how they really want. i will always vote for the party i would like to see elected. this is the only way to create change. strategic voting is just a way to eat a different flavour of turd pie if you vote for a party you don't like. it's still a turd pie though. and if strategic voting fails. you compromised yourself for nothing. but you can always vote again next time</rant>

Gosh darn you say the cutest things.

[moahunter]

^right though I think, its a bit silly to vote "against something" instead of "for something". A very negative and defeatist mind-set.

I wonder if the PC party paid for the site?

[Paul Turnbull]

I really dislike the campaigns that tell me to vote for them out of fear of who might get in if I don't. If you want my vote tell me who you are not that the other guy is evil. I'm not interested in voting for the lesser evil.

[nobleea]

Originally Posted by moahunter

^right though I think, its a bit silly to vote "against something" instead of "for something". A very negative and defeatist mind-set.

I wonder if the PC party paid for the site?

They most certainly did not pay for the site, since its main goal is to avoid getting WR and PC elected.

[KC]

Originally Posted by DTrobotnik

<rant>strategic voting is a stupid defeatist concept for those who choose fear of an unknown outcome instead of voting how they really want. i will always vote for the party i would like to see elected. this is the only way to create change. strategic voting is just a way to eat a different flavour of turd pie if you vote for a party you don't like. it's still a turd pie though. and if strategic voting fails. you compromised yourself for nothing. but you can always vote again next time</rant>

Maybe so but isn't that how many party leadership contests also work?

You yourself are saying you vote strategically by "voting for the party" rather than the individual representative.

[KC]

Originally Posted by Paul Turnbull

I really dislike the campaigns that tell me to vote for them out of fear of who might get in if I don't. If you want my vote tell me who you are not that the other guy is evil. I'm not interested in voting for the lesser evil.

That may be your only option among the choices. Moreover, in an election evil will never look like evil. Someone has to point to it.

However look at Germany before Hitler. Hitler made the others look like they were the evil to be feared. Whether we like it or even believe it or not, we're all being manipulated one way or the other as that's the nature of the game.




“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” - John Maynard Keynes


"The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds." - John Maynard Keynes




.

[Paul Turnbull]

Originally Posted by KC

Maybe so but isn't that how many party leadership contests also work?

You yourself are saying you vote strategically by "voting for the party" rather than the individual representative.

Party leadership contests have more than one ballot so people are free to vote freely and then move their support as it becomes clear where the most people are leaning.

I would really like to see a progressive ballot replace the first past the post in Canada so that we could rank our preferences. That would completely eliminate the strategic voting debate.

[langis]

Without getting into specifics: if you don't want to vote strategically, that's fine and all, but to call it an affront to democracy is silly. It's merely playing to win.

You should always play to win. Like David Sirlin.

[Komrade]

I vote for who I want to win. Its really ****** system tho that we have when we need to vote against the people we want to loose.

[EveB]

I usually vote locally (and there is often precious little information for me to go on for that strategy). But I also keep in mind what is going on in the total election (whether national or provincial). So there often is a conflict and sometimes I vote strategically on that basis.

I like municipal elections where I can vote for each office (Councillor / Mayor) directly.

Eve

[theblueskin]

It's unfortunate that our antiquated first past the post system means a vote against a particular candidate can carry more weight than a vote for your candidate of choice. However it is what it is and like many others I make the most of it. In my opinion any democracy that allows a party to hold 87% of seats with only 53% support is not a true democracy. That's just Provincial by the way, at the Federal level we score far worse! Strategic voting really can make a difference, so unfortunately until democratic reform finally happens and we get a better system, it's highly unlikely that I will be throwing away my vote on my party of choice.

[moahunter]

Originally Posted by nobleea

They most certainly did not pay for the site, since its main goal is to avoid getting WR and PC elected.

Oh, I read the word progressive, and assumed they wanted the PC's and their NDP'esk leader Redford

[KC]

Originally Posted by theblueskin

It's unfortunate that our antiquated first past the post system means a vote against a particular candidate can carry more weight than a vote for your candidate of choice. However it is what it is and like many others I make the most of it. In my opinion any democracy that allows a party to hold 87% of seats with only 53% support is not a true democracy. That's just Provincial by the way, at the Federal level we score far worse! Strategic voting really can make a difference, so unfortunately until democratic reform finally happens and we get a better system, it's highly unlikely that I will be throwing away my vote on my party of choice.

I'll have to read up on the alternatives. It seems though that part of the question arising from seat vs support disparities comes down to the question of whether you want to vote for a real human representative for your constituency or an trans-constituency entity / party / ideology?

[theblueskin]

^Agreed, it is nice to be able to identify with and vote for a specific person and it's unclear how that could work with a more proportional system. Still, it has to be better than voting for an end of the political spectrum (not even a specific political party let alone a person), which is basically what strategic voting is. It seems there are more progressive systems out there that allow the voter to put their support behind a specific candidate and not just a party (STV for example). It apparently complicates things a little, though not insurmountable.