Making one's vote count

I've never been shy about noting that I don't generally see a strategic vote (defined as voting for a party other than the one which best reflects one's own values and priorities) as a viable means of expressing one's democratic will. While other bloggers have done their best to set criteria under which strategic voting makes sense, I tend to the view that it's only in the rarest of cases that a strategic vote can possibly do more good than harm. This post will explain the reasoning behind that view.

My argument starts from the question of what one can actually accomplish with one's vote - and I'll note initially that media coverage of the campaign bears little resemblance to the plausible impact of one's vote. The media coverage focuses largely on who will form Canada's next government, with very little consideration given to the local races that shape such a national outlook, how that government will function or how the country's political spectrum will shift as a result of the election.

I'll accept that there's a lot more to report on a daily basis about what the leading candidates have done in a given day as opposed to what may be relevant in determining Canada's future direction - after all, speculation doesn't make for easy or compelling news. But the focus of the "horse race" coverage, no matter how many parties are included or excluded, is to simultaneously miss both the smaller picture (the races in individual ridings) and the bigger picture (the long-term direction of the country). And that leads to a problem where even for a voter who wants to vote strategically, there's very little information to determine where a strategic vote would could actually have any effect.

But what of the smaller picture? If a person has reliable information that one's riding will most likely come down to parties other than one's first choice, does that justify strategic voting?

Here too, one needs to be careful; no matter how good that information during the course of the campaign, it doesn't necessarily reflect the way voters will ultimately cast their ballots on election day. But if there's a relatively large difference between two parties' marginal chance of winning and a relatively small difference in their apparent values, then in theory a strategic vote could be the most likely to produce a positive result.

The problem with this view is that a vote does more than to just decide one's local riding. Let's take a look at some of the effects of an individual vote beyond merely electing a local candidate:

Your vote helps to allocate party funding until the next election. Granted, that $1.75 per year alone won't make a huge difference - but then neither is an individual vote likely to be the deciding factor within a riding. And the effect of systematic strategic voting can be a massive transfer of money from one's first choice to one's second choice. In 2004, the NDP's share of the vote dropped 2% from most of the polls to election day based largely on strategic voting. If those votes had stuck with the Dippers, then the NDP would have had an extra half a million dollars per year in the meantime with which to make itself heard - instead of that money being in Liberal hands to try to scare voters away from the NDP.

Your vote helps to influence governments and party platforms. The more popular a given party's platform appears to be, the more likely other parties are to adopt similar measures in the next election - or even to implement them while in power in order to appeal to the greatest number of voters possible. See e.g. the Liberals moving quickly toward balancing budgets in response to pressure from the Reform opposition in the mid-'90s. If, on the other hand, your vote goes to a party with an "appealing to everybody" type of platform (which in most cases will be the party most likely to benefit from a strategic vote), then that gives parties no real information as to your policy preferences - and helps to ensure that those preferences are ignored when political parties choose their future direction.

Your vote helps to influence the way your preferred party treats your riding in the next election. Frustrated with the fact that your first-choice party doesn't seem to be running a winnable campaign in your riding? There are probably many people similarly frustrated - but if the party doesn't see potential for growth in the riding, it's not likely to do anything other than write off the riding all the more in future elections. On the other hand, if a relatively weak campaign manages to win more votes than expected, then the party will see the riding as more fertile ground that it may have before. And that may mean a more "electable" candidate and a better campaign next time out.

Your vote helps to shape the media narrative surrounding the election. While all parties do their best to spin election results, it's ultimately the media which makes the final call - and however a party's results compare to the initial expectations becomes part of the conventional wisdom surrounding the election. Regardless of how many seats a party wins, it's likely to win credit for its campaign strategy if it can pull out more votes than expected...and that only makes it easier for that party create momentum for itself in the next election. In contrast, the late 2004 losses for the NDP have put the party on the defensive this time out, as the party has had to spend far too much time and resources trying to prove that an election-day switch to the Libs isn't inevitable.

Ultimately, in deciding whether or not to vote strategically, a voter gets to choose between the following priorities:
(1) the chance that, if the presumption of a strategic voting situation is accurate, one's vote may help to elect one's second choice ahead of a lesser choice; or,
(2) the certainty that one's vote will benefit one's first-choice party in terms of finance and public perception, along with the chance that the vote will affect the riding result due to the preexisting assumption being wrong.

Given that balancing of factors, it seems to me highly unlikely that strategic voting can lead to the best outcome in any but an exceptional case. And that's true regardless of which party stands to gain or lose from a strategic vote.

I leave for another time the question of how to determine which party best shares one's values: I certainly wouldn't suggest taking any political party's platform at face value and ignoring a track record which casts reasonable suspicion on the sincerity of a party's claims. But where a voter can identify a party which best fits that voter's vision for Canada, it's never a wasted vote to cast one's ballot accordingly - and all too likely to be a wasted vote to vote otherwise.