Anything But Green
That is the practical outcome of calling for “strategic voting,” which in reality is anything but. It could also be described as voting for what you don’t want in the hopes of getting what you do want, or, in other words, an exercise in self-delusion. Anything But Conservative was a terribly misguided campaign strategy for several reasons:
- In practical terms, it translates to Anything But Green, as we were not in the leading position in any riding. This alone makes it a boneheaded political strategy.
- If not Conservative, then what? It is the opposite of an inspiring and energizing way to engage people. There is no vision.
- What is the difference between us and the rest? ABC effectively counts Greens as equivalent to the Liberals and NDP.
- It is fearmongering – that Canadians soundly rejected.
- It is highly insulting to the millions of Canadians who voted Conservative. Rather than showing them how we are better, we simply attacked their leader.
- It is highly insulting to the hundreds of thousands who voted Green in 2004. That tiny 4.5% has had a very large influence on bringing climate, environment, and a green economy to the fore, and calls for strategic voting negate their impact.
The ABC campaign captures perfectly the failure of the environmental movement for the past 30 years: Focusing on fear, fighting countless battles, winning some, losing most, and certainly losing the war. The scientists, environmental groups, and some Green Party members who called for strategic voting have cost us – Greens, environmentalists, parents – dearly.
We need to re-evaluate our strategy and come up with a positive vision and messaging that inspires people. We need to find campaign strategists who understand that. And we need to make sure our leadership reflects it.
- Brian Gordon's blog
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Comments
Strategic votings sites prove to be a practical failure
Remember that with all of the strategic voting web sites, vote swapping sites and all the rest, this strategy of strategies accomplished nothing. It was a complete and utter failure. The Conservative majority was avoided by the drop in popular support for them, and the polls foretold the outcome.
Strategic voting is a pile of crap. You can quote me on that.
Jim Johnston,
Lambton-Kent-Middlesex
Opinions expressed are my own.
Historic low in voter turnout indictment of gaming the vote
Voter turnout was only 59.1 percent yesterday.
Election 08 now goes down in history for being the first federal election campaign to have generated such public disdain that over 40% of the electorate didn't bother even to cast a vote.
For Conservative voters, there was a greater incentive to get to the polls. In general, they knew that in voting FOR a party, their votes might actually count.
For most supporters of the NDP, Liberals and Greens, there would have been a depressing awareness that a visit to the polling station was going to be a useless exercise, that their vote wouldn't go toward electing anyone. Either that, or the elector had the distasteful 'option' of casting a vote AGAINST the Conservatives and for the party running second, one which they considered less than the best for Canada. That alone could have been a disincentive to show up.
Did vote swapping or strategic voting work? Not on your life. And the lowest voter turnout ever suggests that it helped achieve the opposite of what their proponents had wanted.
This is just one more argument for reforming our electoral system to one of proportional representation. I hope that Greens across Canada will do their utmost to support the referendum coming in BC on May 12th, 2009.
Four years ago, British Columbians voted 58% in favour of changing our electoral system to the Single Transferable Vote, one which includes both a preferential ballot and multi-member ridings. The Liberal government's imposition of 60% for passage of that - and the coming - referendum, a threshold supported by the opposition NDP, ensured that the voters were denied. For voters who had favoured STV, the irony couldn't have been more obvious.
Now we get to do it all over again in just over six months.
If British Columbians manage to exceed that 60% threshold, then a change here could increase the public enthusiasm and volunteer effort for proportional representation across the country.
WISE Book - Policies of Exclusion, Poverty & Health: Stories from the front
Podcast Channel: http://bcseawalker.podbean.com/
Personal Blog: Challenging the Commonplace - and other irreverent activities
http://challengingthecommonplace.blogspot.com/
FPTP is the name of the game
and the rules have to change.
Join Fair Vote Canada: http://www.fairvote.ca/en/Join
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Julien Lamarche, Ottawa-Vanier Greens
E-mail and Google Talk: Julien Lamarche
Y! chat: drjlamarche
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http://www.julienlamarche.ca - julien.lamarche@gmail.com
The 4 electoral systems: http://preview.tinyurl.com/5hzoxl
Amen to that! Have been a
Amen to that!
Have been a FVC volunteer for awhile now and also a volunteer with FVBC for the upcoming BC-STV vote.