The Fallacy of Strategic Voting

In the last election I spoke to many people who started off as Green Party supporters, but decided at the last minute to vote ‘strategically’ because they were afraid the ‘wrong person’ or the ‘wrong party’ would win. The rationale went something like this:

• It’s a tight Liberal/NDP race locally. I can’t stand the Liberal so I’d better vote NDP since they’re a little more to my liking.

• It’s a tight Liberal/Tory race nationally. I can’t stand Harper so I’d better vote Liberal, even though I’m not that fond of them.

But is this voting really strategic? Or is it tactical, or just downright irrational?

Strategy deals with the long term, with a vision for the future. If you just want to prevent the ‘wrong’ person or party from winning, you’re voting tactically at best. In terms of strategy, you’re hurting the long-term chances of the party or candidate you really support:

• Your vote is worth $1.75 per year in Federal funding to the party you chose. The Liberals probably scraped together an extra 500,000 ‘strategic’ votes in the final days of the 2004 campaign by playing up the fear factor of a Harper government. That has netted them $1.3 million in extra funding in the intervening 18 months. Wouldn’t you rather see your share of that money going to the Green Party, for whom many of these strategic votes might otherwise have been cast?

• For a candidate who gets over 10% of the local vote, half of the party’s local campaign costs are reimbursed by the government, meaning the party has considerably more money available to fight the next election. In this election there will undoubtedly be many ridings where our support is around 10%. A few extra votes may well push the local Green association over the 10% threshold this time, increasing their chances of winning next time by making more resources available to them to promote their Green message locally.

The higher the local Green vote in one election, the more likely people are to take us seriously the next time. During a campaign, the media often quote local election results from previous elections, and may also use them to decide if it’s even worth covering a candidate.

With Greens riding ever higher in the polls, this election it is especially important for our supporters to vote on principle and not out of fear. A seat is almost never won by a single vote, and a government is almost never chosen by a single seat. So wherever you live, choose your Green Party candidate and rest assured that this is really your best possible strategy.

Vote strategically – vote Green!