[RD] Do you feel your vote matters?

[Valka D'Ur]

I hate it when people say that. Especially since it is quite the opposite. Those who don't vote are the only ones who have any legitimate right to complain.

Why should people complain if they didn't vote? I can understand if they wanted to vote but couldn't due to some unresolvable problem, but I really don't have patience with the "there's nobody to vote for, so I'm not voting" excuse.

There have been some municipal elections in which I considered none of the candidates for mayor to be suitable. So when the DRO was handing out the mayoral, aldermanic, and school board ballots, I declined the one for mayor. A note was made that I had declined, and it was taken as me saying "I don't like any of the candidates." I voted for the candidates I wanted for city council and the school board, and that was the end of it.

People can do this at provincial and federal elections, as well. It's pointless to spoil the ballot, since the only person who sees it is the Deputy Returning Officer, whose first reaction will be "This idiot doesn't even know how to make an 'x'". The spoiled ballot will be noted and the ballot will be put in the Spoiled Ballot envelope.

I should have clarified, I guess. On an individual level, I'm fine with anti-Harper sentiment. My problem came with how the competing parties built their campaigns on "we're not Harper". Over the course of the campaign season it was difficult to pinpoint what each party's platform really was as everyone kept flip-flopping based on what the competitor was saying. Then, after all the finicky musical chairs, it essentially boiled down to "hey, at least we're not Harper!" which while true I found distasteful. It made it difficult to vote for a platform instead of a sentiment.

The ABC movement was seen as the last opportunity to get rid of Harper. His kind of conservatism is toxic, and those of us who endorsed ABC (even in ridings like mine where it didn't matter) just wanted Harper out, period. I didn't care whether it was the Liberals or NDP who ended up forming the government, nor did I care if they achieved a majority or minority. I just wanted the Reformers gone (they can call themselves "Conservatives" all they want - it doesn't change the fact that they hijacked the Progressive Conservative Party because their own party couldn't get enough seats).

I read the Liberal platform when it was released to the public. There were some good things in it, and I daresay that a lot of people voted for them based on the promise of electoral reform and a possible end to voting against who you don't want, rather than for who you do want. There's a reason why the phrase "holding your nose" is part of Canada's elections-related vocabulary.

I'm not a fan of Harper but I'm also not a staunch resister to him either. I don't have a compelling reason to defend him in this argument, it's really just the principle that I'm opposed to. Any time when a campaign devolves to pointing at one's character instead of their policies it tends to rub me the wrong way, especially when you can point to the policies and be confident that it'll showcase how awful the person is for you. Beyond that, I prefer voting for a party based on what they are instead of what they aren't and the previous federal election made that close to impossible. There wasn't a moment, not even at the very end, where I felt I knew what I was voting for if I picked Liberals or NDP.

As mentioned, the Liberals' platform was online. I don't remember if I read the NDP platform. At the end, it didn't matter in a lot of ridings; the moment Mulcair defended the Muslim woman's right to wear the niqab at her citizenship ceremony, that's when some people switched from NDP to Liberal.

When Trudeau was elected I was somewhat content with that as he promised electoral reform but have since been disappointed by the Liberals' eagerness to simply drop that quietly while slipping out the back door.

This is an example of Trudeau being unethical. Electoral reform would have gone ahead if people had been gung-ho for his preference for ranked ballots. Given how Canadians usually vote, that would have meant the Liberals could never again slip into third place, being neither the government nor the Official Opposition.

If he doesn't do something - at least find somebody a hell of a lot more competent for the relevant cabinet position than he's had so far - he will lose support in 2019. Electoral reform was something I was looking forward to.

I'm happy about legalization of marijuana as that route is seemingly going to be the only one available for pain management and nausea for me and I'm operating in a medical system that frowns heavily on any sort of marijuana intake, even just CBD (which is really all I want). Besides those two points I don't have much of an investment in the current federal politics situation... I expect that to change dramatically when the next election comes around and it's less "Heave Steve" and more platform-oriented (I hope).

Well, Steve has already been heaved, so hopefully we won't have to do it again.

The character attacks against Trudeau and his family, as you mention, are unacceptable. But I feel the same way about those insulting Trump as well (he has tiny hands and bad hair!). I find the whole "insulting their appearance or character" schpiel in politics to be rather inane. I opt out whenever possible when I'm involved in a conversation that goes down that path. Most of it is woefully disrespectful or at the very least completely irrelevant to what's actually important.

I care less about what Trump looks like than the garbage that comes out of his mouth and from his Twitter account. The fact is that most Canadians can't vote in American elections, so I'm at a loss to understand why CBC.ca has become infested with American Trumpaganda peddlers.

The conservatives are a dead party here in BC, with the vote split between the Liberals, NDP, and Greens. It is an odd scenario in the upcoming election where the Green party is projected to have over 20% of the vote yet will only be afforded 3 seats. To compare, the Liberals are expected to have 38% of the vote (38 seats) and the NDP with 39.7% of the vote (46 seats) [source].

Well, 3 seats are triple the number they have now.

Not that I'm a Conservative supporter by any means, but the Alberta economy is still reeling from that little exercise in democracy.

More like it's reeling from Saudi Arabia deliberately crashing the oil market, in large parts to drive the tar sands out of business. Only so much a provincial govt can do when that is going on.

You can't blame that on Rachel Notley. The price of oil was dropping well before the election, but of course her detractors started sneering on election night, even before all the polls reported in (and we knew the NDP had won), that she hadn't fixed the problem yet.

She's not perfect, and there have been missteps. There are things I wanted to happen that are apparently not even on the government's radar. But at least I can say that for a short time I lived under a provincial government that wasn't either Conservative or Social Credit. I have no illusions that the NDP will be in for that long a time. Not if Jason Kenney manages to pull off his planned hijack - oops, I mean "merger" of the Conservative and Wildrose parties.

What's really disgusting about provincial politics is the rabid hatred that exists. Threats of assassination of a premier are not supposed to be what happens here. I ended up unfriending someone I've been friends with since high school - nearly 40 years - because I just couldn't take all the anti-Rachel Notley rhetoric and expressions of violence on her Facebook feed. It's a far cry from 20+ years ago when she phoned me during one of the elections, asking for advice on strategic voting to keep the Conservatives out. So I guess we can still talk about science fiction, but politics is out of the question.

What does this mean? Oda's response makes it seem like this issue wouldn't be explained by local politics.

Non-NDP supporters tend to blame the NDP, and the premier in particular, for the drop in the price of oil. It affected my province to the extent that there have been massive layoffs, many people who came here from other provinces for the jobs have packed up and gone home, and it's had a ripple effect throughout every part of our economy. Of course the fire in Fort McMurray didn't help.

That said, it's actually benefited me to some extent. The vacancy rates are such now that a renter can actually negotiate more when it comes to signing a new lease or renewing one. For the past year and a bit, the property managers of my building have been paying my internet and cable (got the same deal this year), and not only did my rent not go up this year, I also got a significant discount on the first month of my new lease.

 

[Kyriakos]

A vote should matter. Usually it doesn't. But there also come times where it becomes so ludicrously obvious it doesn't that it leaves a very lasting or even permanent impression. Eg the referendum vote here, which was 67-23 against austerity, and look what followed it.

 

[Zelig]

The fact is that most Canadians can't vote in American elections, so I'm at a loss to understand why CBC.ca has become infested with American Trumpaganda peddlers.

Non-NDP supporters tend to blame the NDP, and the premier in particular, for the drop in the price of oil.

You should really stop reading cbc comments, and/or wherever else you're getting people's opinion, it's painting for you a horribly skewed picture of what the the non-NDP supporting populace actually believes.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You should really stop reading cbc comments, and/or wherever else you're getting people's opinion, it's painting for you a horribly skewed picture of what the the non-NDP supporting populace actually believes.

So I was just imagining that newscast where they yelled for Rachel Notley to be "locked up" and the Conservative and Wildrose politicians just looked on with smiles on their faces?

Did I imagine the photo that showed a picture of her intended to be used as target practice?

Which news source are you recommending I use instead - the online editions of the Sun?

 

[Kraznaya]

I live in a congressional district with a huge PVI in California. So no, save for state referenda.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

In the previous years I would have said "no, voting is a waste of time", but I did actually vote in the 2016 election. I didn't vote for president, but there were some referendums in the state of California that I enjoyed voting for (namely the legalization of marijuana). I don't know how I feel about elections at the Federal level, but as I get older I see participation in local referendums at least as something valuable.

Ooh, good point! The proposals and referendums do hand some power to people. I wish more choices were put on a public ballot more often.

Recently we shot down a sales tax increase to fund road maintenance. I think it was mostly because once you got into the voting booth and read the proposal you could see that only a fraction of the money was dedicated to roads. Unfortunately only a few months later they raised the gas tax without any vote. I wonder why some things make it to a ballot vote and others don't.

 

[Grisu]

I vote almost everytime I can. I see it as a priviledge that many around the world don't have, and I'm quite glad to be able to use it. Of course, a single vote isn't going to sway an election, but it's at least a small step in the right direction.

 

[Zelig]

So I was just imagining that newscast where they yelled for Rachel Notley to be "locked up" and the Conservative and Wildrose politicians just looked on with smiles on their faces?

Did I imagine the photo that showed a picture of her intended to be used as target practice?

There are fringe radicals on both sides of the spectrum.

Which news source are you recommending I use instead - the online editions of the Sun?

Ars Technica and Mosaic Science are top notch. But really, CBC is fine, just don't read the comments. Online news/youtube comments are posted by the dregs of society.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I think in the (US) presidential elections, my vote doesn't matter much. I live in a state in which the Democratic candidate has won 60-62% in the last 6 national elections. Meanwhile, Trump won Florida by ~112,000 votes out of ~10 million (which means, if you're eligible to vote in Florida and didn't, you're partly responsible now - whether that's a point of pride or shame is up to you).

 

[warpus]

In my riding 1 vote won't make a difference, or at least it didn't over the last couple elections. I still vote though, because I have the power to. There was a time when I lived in a place where people didn't have such a power. So it wouldn't feel right to not vote, you know?

Plus each vote that a party gets impacts how much funding they get.. I think? So even if my riding is already decided, it does feel like my vote is contributing to more than just that.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think in the (US) presidential elections, my vote doesn't matter much. I live in a state in which the Democratic candidate has won 60-62% in the last 6 national elections. Meanwhile, Trump won Florida by ~112,000 votes out of ~10 million (which means, if you're eligible to vote in Florida and didn't, you're partly responsible now - whether that's a point of pride or shame is up to you).

Would he have lost this election if he had lost Florida? (cause by the end he had a lot of electors, gained from those rust belt states).

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'm no expert on multi-party, parliamentary governments, but I'd imagine that vote totals matter more in those countries than in our 2-party, presidential system.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Would he have lost this election if he had lost Florida? (cause by the end he had a lot of electors, gained from those rust belt states).

No, not Florida by itself, but there were other states where the margin of victory was narrow: Trump won Michigan by 10,000 votes, out of 5 million, for example, Pennsylvania by 44,000 out of 6 million, and Wisconsin by 22,000 out of 3 million (all numbers approximate). So anyone who didn't vote in those states may well have altered the outcome (provided that they would have voted for Clinton, had they held their nose and voted for the lesser evil, or however they would characterize it).

 

[tjs282]

The last time I was allowed to vote in a national-level election* was 20 years ago: the British General Election (FPTP system) in 1997. And there's a great on-topic story to go with that...

At the time, I lived in Winchester, Hampshire, UK, which had long (Decades? Centuries?) been a bastion of the (right-wing) Conservative Party. That year, the (generally centrist) Liberal Democrat Party candidate won with just over 20000 votes, but beat the incumbent Conservative MP by only 2 votes. I voted LibDem, and so did my mum (because Labour had no chance, and neither did the Greens -- the latter weren't even running a candidate). It could be argued, therefore, that our 2 votes swung that election.

(Yes, I do know that every LibDem voter that year could claim the same -- there were celebratory badges made: "I am one of the Winchester 2!")

What made it especially delicious was that the incumbent challenged the result, and then lost the re-run 6 months later by about 20000 votes instead (35000 vs. 15000), about 6000 of which appear to have come from people who'd previously voted for him (Labour's vote-share dropped from 6000 to just under 1000, accounting for the other 5000). I guess there's nothing that 'small-c' conservative Brits despise more than a bad sport...

So yes, I think my vote counts. When I'm allowed one (don't ask me about Brexit... ).

*

Spoiler :

Due to residency-/ citizenship-based legal restrictions which have applied to me since then.

 

[Zelig]

You can easily calculate the odds that your one vote is the deciding vote. It's a non-zero number, as long as more than one candidate has non-zero winning odds.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

There are fringe radicals on both sides of the spectrum.

The Conservatives and Wildrose are hardly on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Ars Technica and Mosaic Science are top notch. But really, CBC is fine, just don't read the comments. Online news/youtube comments are posted by the dregs of society.

Gee, thanks a lot. Nice to know I'm part of the "dregs of society."

Part of what I was doing during the 2015 campaign was explaining to some people how the voting process works and how to tell if the DRO/Poll Clerk team are doing their jobs correctly. There's a lot of suspicion and misinformation out there. There's also something that Elections Canada makes absolutely no effort to publicize: Mobility-challenged disabled voters are allowed to request an in-home special ballot. That's something most people don't know, and there are some people like me who just assume that if they can't physically get to the polling station, that means they can't vote.

Not true, and if I could spread the word so even one person in that situation got to vote when they thought they couldn't, it was worth the time and effort to post.

Plus each vote that a party gets impacts how much funding they get.. I think? So even if my riding is already decided, it does feel like my vote is contributing to more than just that.

It used to be so, but Harper got rid of the per-vote subsidy in a blatant move to starve the smaller parties and hamper the larger ones.

 

[Lohrenswald]

I've voted 4 times
In the three elections I've voted in, none of the people I voted for got any seat in any level of government

In the referendum I voted in last year, my side actually won, but what do you know, the government is going to ignore it and carry out the merger anyway

 

[Silurian]

The last time I was allowed to vote in a national-level election* was 20 years ago: the British General Election (FPTP system) in 1997. And there's a great on-topic story to go with that...

At the time, I lived in Winchester, Hampshire, UK, which had long (Decades? Centuries?) been a bastion of the (right-wing) Conservative Party. That year, the (generally centrist) Liberal Democrat Party candidate won with just over 20000 votes, but beat the incumbent Conservative MP by only 2 votes. I voted LibDem, and so did my mum (because Labour had no chance, and neither did the Greens -- the latter weren't even running a candidate). It could be argued, therefore, that our 2 votes swung that election.

In 1997 i was working away from home and staying in Cirencester in Gloucestershire. So after work rather than going back to the place I awas staying I jumped on the train back to Torquay in South Devon. The libdems won by 12 votes there. It was nice sunny day that Friday so we went to the local pub and had a few drinks in the beer garden too celebrate. I was quite pleased when I told my colleagues that I was one of the twelve.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Of course it doesn't. That is why it is so tempting to view the government of ones country as mere theater. Or a reality show. Like a lightening show. If you could, you wouldn't cast lightening onto the world, but being a force of nature, you mayas well stand, watch and enjoy the show.

 

[warpus]

Your vote matters on the grand stage, in the same way a liver matters but individual liver atoms or molecules really don't.