On one hand, I really do agree PP as PM would/will be a calamity. On the other, this whole “anything but” voting strategy is a fucking travesty of the democratic process that’s exactly why we’ve been stuck on an endless cycle of Liberal/Conservative governments for the last handful of decades.
It is a travesty, but no party who gains enough power to lead a government in Canada has any incentive to change the system. The party currently in power always has the most to lose from it.
that’s exactly why we’ve been stuck on an endless cycle of Liberal/Conservative governments for the last handful of decades
Genuinely I can’t see how this follows and I’ve tried.
Keep in mind when I say ABC, I don’t mean anything like campaigning for the LPC instead of the NDP “to defeat” the CPC. ABC in my world is just about strategy of voting on election day (or early voting), not about doing what you should do to get more people to vote for the candidates you want to win. If I prefer the NDP (I do), I’d donate and talk to friends and family about voting NDP, especially in the ridings where NDP candidates can win. For example in Parkdale—High Park, but not in Fort Mac.
By voting ABC I mean specifically looking at the numbers for the local riding on the day I vote, checking which one of these cases they resemble:
CPC: 34, NDP: 33, LPC: 33
CPC: 44, NDP: 44, LPC: 12
CPC: 44, LPC: 44, NDP: 12
CPC: 12, LPC: 44, NDP: 44
CPC: 12, LPC: 48, NDP: 40
Then vote like this respectively:
CPC: 34, NDP: 33, LPC: 33
Vote NDP since either has a chance of beating CPC and I prefer NDP
CPC: 44, NDP: 44, LPC: 12
Vote NDP since they’re the only ones that have a chance of beating CPC. Voting LPC likely won’t get the LPC to win this riding but is depriving the NDP from a vote that can tip it over the CPC, therefore increasing the chance of the CPC winning
CPC: 44, LPC: 44, NDP: 12
Vote LPC since they’re the only ones that have a reasonable chance of beating CPC. Voting NDP likely won’t get the NDP to win this riding but is depriving the LPC from a vote that can tip it over the CPC, therefore increasing the chance of the CPC winning
CPC: 12, LPC: 44, NDP: 44
Vote NDP since the CPC has no chance of winning this riding and I prefer NDP
CPC: 12, LPC: 48, NDP: 40
Vote NDP since the CPC has no chance of winning this riding and I prefer NDP and hopefully we can close the gap and defeat the LPC candidate
There are other cases, but these are good enough to illustrate my reasoning. I just can’t see how this strategy can lead to more wins for CPC and LPC and fewer for NDP. ABC as described here should lead to fewer CPC MPs and more other MPs proportional to their vote share. Under these conditions, how much that vote share is depends on who people prefer more.
I think the reason why we’ve had CPC/LPC swings for decades has more to do with Canadian society as a whole eating up the neolib propaganda fed to the world since the 80s.
I think the reason why we’ve had CPC/LPC swings for decades has more to do with Canadian society as a whole eating up the neolib propaganda fed to the world since the 80s.
I think it’s a workaround that increases the democratic representation within FPTP. I prefer an LPC MP than a CPC MP because the LPC MP represents me more closely than the CPC MP, even if I’d ultimately prefer an NDP MP. As I’ve mentioned in another comment - ABC doesn’t mean vote LPC if you don’t want CPC. It means vote for whoever not CPC can win in you riding, NDP, LPC, Green, etc. It sucks but I think that is in fact more democratic within the not-so-democratic system we have than producing vote splits which elect people who represent us even less.
I see where you’re coming from, but that’s kind of a lazy excuse (on a wider scale, not you personally). If candidate 2 is the crappy incumbent ABC people will vote for them to keep out candidate 3 because they think they have a shot, even if they all would’ve preferred candidate 1. And then the cycle repeats and gets more entrenched.
Yes but you’re telling me about problems of FPTP we’re already familiar with. FPTP is a bad system.
Guess what happens the next time after the vote is split between the shit incumbent and the better choice, electing a con - people go back voting for the shit incumbent that previously lost in the hope to not elect a con again.
Strategic voting (not campaigning) doesn’t come from thin air. It comes from people’s lived experiences with vote-split events that led to bad governments (for them) and trying to avoid that in the future.
Not running candidates in ridings where they’d split the vote is the only practical workaround I can think of that obviates the need for strategic voting. None of our parties are doing that except perhaps BQ.
Treating the FPTP as something that it’s not is the worst option in my opinion. It’s a shit system and the more people understand how it works and what outcomes their votes produce the better. Even better, the more people understand that, the more they’ll demand a change to something else.
I don’t know, that’s my thought process and I don’t think it’s devoid of logic.
On one hand, I really do agree PP as PM would/will be a calamity. On the other, this whole “anything but” voting strategy is a fucking travesty of the democratic process that’s exactly why we’ve been stuck on an endless cycle of Liberal/Conservative governments for the last handful of decades.
It is a travesty, but no party who gains enough power to lead a government in Canada has any incentive to change the system. The party currently in power always has the most to lose from it.
Genuinely I can’t see how this follows and I’ve tried.
Keep in mind when I say ABC, I don’t mean anything like campaigning for the LPC instead of the NDP “to defeat” the CPC. ABC in my world is just about strategy of voting on election day (or early voting), not about doing what you should do to get more people to vote for the candidates you want to win. If I prefer the NDP (I do), I’d donate and talk to friends and family about voting NDP, especially in the ridings where NDP candidates can win. For example in Parkdale—High Park, but not in Fort Mac.
By voting ABC I mean specifically looking at the numbers for the local riding on the day I vote, checking which one of these cases they resemble:
Then vote like this respectively:
There are other cases, but these are good enough to illustrate my reasoning. I just can’t see how this strategy can lead to more wins for CPC and LPC and fewer for NDP. ABC as described here should lead to fewer CPC MPs and more other MPs proportional to their vote share. Under these conditions, how much that vote share is depends on who people prefer more.
I think the reason why we’ve had CPC/LPC swings for decades has more to do with Canadian society as a whole eating up the neolib propaganda fed to the world since the 80s.
That part we can mostly agree on
I think it’s a workaround that increases the democratic representation within FPTP. I prefer an LPC MP than a CPC MP because the LPC MP represents me more closely than the CPC MP, even if I’d ultimately prefer an NDP MP. As I’ve mentioned in another comment - ABC doesn’t mean vote LPC if you don’t want CPC. It means vote for whoever not CPC can win in you riding, NDP, LPC, Green, etc. It sucks but I think that is in fact more democratic within the not-so-democratic system we have than producing vote splits which elect people who represent us even less.
I see where you’re coming from, but that’s kind of a lazy excuse (on a wider scale, not you personally). If candidate 2 is the crappy incumbent ABC people will vote for them to keep out candidate 3 because they think they have a shot, even if they all would’ve preferred candidate 1. And then the cycle repeats and gets more entrenched.
Yes but you’re telling me about problems of FPTP we’re already familiar with. FPTP is a bad system.
Guess what happens the next time after the vote is split between the shit incumbent and the better choice, electing a con - people go back voting for the shit incumbent that previously lost in the hope to not elect a con again.
Strategic voting (not campaigning) doesn’t come from thin air. It comes from people’s lived experiences with vote-split events that led to bad governments (for them) and trying to avoid that in the future.
Not running candidates in ridings where they’d split the vote is the only practical workaround I can think of that obviates the need for strategic voting. None of our parties are doing that except perhaps BQ.
Treating the FPTP as something that it’s not is the worst option in my opinion. It’s a shit system and the more people understand how it works and what outcomes their votes produce the better. Even better, the more people understand that, the more they’ll demand a change to something else.
I don’t know, that’s my thought process and I don’t think it’s devoid of logic.