Voting third parties (that probably don't have a chance)

[Zelig]

Modern polling has in large part made non-FPTP systems unnecessary. You check the polling before you vote, and cast your vote for your preferred candidate that has a chance of winning.

Some people think it is. What annoys me about the upcoming federal election later this year is that there is no longer any prohibition against the media communicating results from closed polls to regions of the country where the polls are still open. We have 6 time zones in Canada, so that means that when the polls close in Newfoundland, they're still open in Ontario and further west. It used to be that the TV networks would not start broadcasting in a specific time zone until the polls closed in that time zone, so as to not unduly influence people.

That's been tossed out, now. So now we'll have a case of the cascade of results we get dumped on us as soon as the polls close in Quebec and Ontario, before our polls close out here in the west. Then you get the people who think if they don't vote for whichever party is in the lead, they'll have "wasted" their vote.

Idiots.


It used to be suspenseful, to turn on CBC at 8 p.m. to see what's going on. Sometimes it was a relief to find out which party was leading, and other times I'd feel like throwing a brick at the TV. And sometimes it was too close to call, with a minority government waiting on results from British Columbia.

It was trivial to go online and see all the information anyway, they've simply stopped trying to enforce an ineffective and obsolete law.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

As I understand it, nearly all of Alberta is solid Conservative. Is it really tactical voting if the Liberals and the NDP also have no chance of winning your riding?

We have zero chance if we don't try. Especially if you consider that some of these ridings are won by some rather slim margins and a lot of people stay home since they think there's no use in voting because the Conservatives will win anyway.

Alberta is mostly solid Fake Conservative federally (there was a riding in Edmonton that was Liberal for a few years), but a bit less solid Conservative provincially.

Who knows what's going to happen provincially, now that the leader of the Wildrose Party and some of her caucus crossed the floor to join the Conservatives... we don't even know when the next elections are going to be provincially - the Premier could call one either this year or next. As for federally, the next election is scheduled for October this year, but some people are betting that Harper will call one in spring if he thinks he has a better chance.

 

[Tee Kay]

Modern polling has in large part made non-FPTP systems unnecessary. You check the polling before you vote, and cast your vote for your preferred candidate that has a chance of winning.

Or you could drop FPTP and just let people vote for who they like best and have their vote count.

You know, democratically.

FPTP is indefensible.

Polling suggested the Liberals would win yesterday in Queensland. They lost.

 

[Arwon]

Modern polling has in large part made non-FPTP systems unnecessary. You check the polling before you vote, and cast your vote for your preferred candidate that has a chance of winning.

This is a really really odd thing to say.

 

[Zelig]

This is a really really odd thing to say.

Is it not accurate?

The only real downside I see if if there are >2 candidates, people could game the system by lying to the pollsters.

Asides from that, you don't get proportional representation, but with honest, rational actors*, it works out the same as preferential voting.

*It's probably for the best if you don't let dishonest or irrational people vote in the first place.

 

[Arwon]

"You don't get proportional representation" you say that like it's trivial. The representativeness of an electoral system is pretty bloody important and there's no system less representative than single member districts with first past the post. You get huge swathes of the populace who are simply unrepresented.

And no. First past the post simply does not "work out the same" as single member preferential, much less like anything proportional.

 

[Tee Kay]

And no. First past the post simply does not "work out the same" as single member preferential, much less like anything proportional.

To continue with the Queensland example yesterday (voting system: single member optional preferential): if the election had been FPTP, the result would have had the Republicans LNP with 52 (or more) seats to Labor 34.

Instead the result is looking more likely to be LNP 40 to Labor 46.

Because god forbid people might want more than two options at the ballot box.

 

[Arwon]

And the rate of preference flows was much higher than last time, which helped Labor win a number of seats such as Mount Coot-tha where it was 74% this time versus 45% last time. Which shows Greens voters varying in how willing they are to proactively support Labor.

 

[Tee Kay]

Yes, so, the 52-34 figure is what things would have been based on how preferences flow last election, when it was basically almost a FPTP contest because so few voters bothered to rank their preferences. This time many more people did.

If either Canada and the UK had preferential voting for its last election, it's likely that neither would have a conservative government today.

 

[Arwon]

Assuming good communication and electoral cooperation yeah the anti-tory sentiment would almost certainly put the tories out in a lot of seats.

 

[Zelig]

And no. First past the post simply does not "work out the same" as single member preferential, much less like anything proportional.

Not for electoral results, but for an individual picking who to vote for, what's the difference?

 

[Rashiminos]

Just tell the corporations how many parties they need to bribe.

*It's probably for the best if you don't let dishonest or irrational people vote in the first place.

Lie detector tests select for better liars.

Spoiler :

Plus the dishonest/irrational people running want dishonest/irrational people to vote.

As for why 3rd parties pursue national elections rather than focusing on local elections in competitive districts: it's really hard to motivate/excite people to volunteer for the party - stumping/number crunching/donating/canvassing/etc. for such small chips. People are already quite apathetic about local elections (plus incumbency rates are really high; nobody likes Congress, but nearly everybody loves their representative) as it is. National elections are a great way to get the name and the platform out to a national audience. Get the name recognition out there and it might translate to more people voting for those party members in local elections. None of these 3rd parties are genuinely expecting to win those presidential or big ticket congressional elections. They're merely hoping to bring their brand and platform out to a larger audience. Unfortunately they usually get shut out of the debates so even that small goal doesn't materialize for the most part.

Seems like a cart before the horse story.

 

[Arwon]

Not for electoral results, but for an individual picking who to vote for, what's the difference?

Whether or not you have to worry about whether voting for your preferred party will help a party you hate win. The tactical voting dilemma in FPTP elections is one of the worst things about it. I thought this was obvious.

Even if we accepted your theory that it would be possible to 100% anticipate the contest via polling, and ignore that a system which forces people to vote for a non-preferred party is a heinous injustice, practically speaking at a seat-by-seat level there's just very little polling data and it's notoriously unreliable.

In the last Canadian election, for example, there was a late swing from Liberal to NDP which left a lot of seats in Tory hands when a majority would have preferred NDP or Liberal over them, simply because previously Liberal seats had the Liberals drop below the Tories without the NDP passing them. A swing happened late, nobody knew quite what to expect on a seat by seat basis, and so correctly tactical voting would have been very difficult if not impossible in many electorates.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

In the last Canadian election, for example, there was a late swing from Liberal to NDP which left a lot of seats in Tory hands when a majority would have preferred NDP or Liberal over them, simply because previously Liberal seats had the Liberals drop below the Tories without the NDP passing them. A swing happened late, nobody knew quite what to expect on a seat by seat basis, and so correctly tactical voting would have been very difficult if not impossible in many electorates.

The last election was an anomaly in that the NDP became the Official Opposition. Voters in Quebec had had it with the Bloc and didn't want to vote Liberal. So enough NDP candidates won, and some of them were woefully unprepared to actually do the job. One of them has been revealed to have attended just 8% of the votes in the House and she almost never shows up at her constituency office. Her excuse? "I have kids."

Well, so do a lot of other female politicians. She can afford a babysitter/nanny even on a backbench MP's salary, so she should either resign or hire somebody. Why it took Mulcair this long to deal with her is beyond me. I doubt Jack Layton would have put up with it.

 

[Arwon]

Yeah and how much better for protesting Bloc voters if they could rank their preferences and let the count sort it out.

 

[Bootstoots]

We have zero chance if we don't try. Especially if you consider that some of these ridings are won by some rather slim margins and a lot of people stay home since they think there's no use in voting because the Conservatives will win anyway.

I certainly don't have a problem with trying, but once you get down to the last days of an election and your candidate is trailing by a poll average of 20+ percentage points, you have no chance whether you try or not. I don't think not having a chance of winning makes elections or voting useless - quite the opposite. What I'm saying is that people who won't vote third party because those candidates never win should also logically never vote second party in any lopsided race. That of course would defeat the whole purpose of voting in the first place.

Alberta is mostly solid Fake Conservative federally (there was a riding in Edmonton that was Liberal for a few years), but a bit less solid Conservative provincially.

Who knows what's going to happen provincially, now that the leader of the Wildrose Party and some of her caucus crossed the floor to join the Conservatives... we don't even know when the next elections are going to be provincially - the Premier could call one either this year or next. As for federally, the next election is scheduled for October this year, but some people are betting that Harper will call one in spring if he thinks he has a better chance.

I took a look at Wikipedia's Politics of Alberta page. Apparently the Conservatives have controlled over 60% of the seats in every provincial election from 1971 on, usually over 70%. I guess that's a little less lopsided than having all but one riding going Conservative federally, but still...

 

[warpus]

"You don't get proportional representation" you say that like it's trivial. The representativeness of an electoral system is pretty bloody important and there's no system less representative than single member districts with first past the post.

Yeah.. for example the Greens have so far only gotten 1 seat ever.. in all elections put together. (Correct me if I'm wrong other Canadians - but I think that's right)

And how many votes do they get each election? 5% - 10%.

That's not right no matter which way you look at it, as much as I disagree with the platform of the Greens or whoever.