Will 2015 be the last Canadian federal election under First-past-the-post?

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Wait, are you saying the conservatives won last time because voters were voting strategically? I'd think that it would be because the opposite was true and the Liberal and NDP parties split the vote.

No, I am saying the effect is not known, but thus far there does not seem to be much indication that it works in practice. There are many variables in play, but the end result was a Conservative majority. If strategic voting had an impact, it was insufficient, neutral or detrimental. I am not saying it cannot work under any conditions, but I will say it is unreasonable to expect the same ploy which has proven inadequate at best to suddenly turn for the better without some significant overhauls. It's certainly not an obvious conclusion that strategic voting is the right path forward, not by a long shot.

 

[bilby]

Wait, are you saying the conservatives won last time because voters were voting strategically? I'd think that it would be because the opposite was true and the Liberal and NDP parties split the vote.

No, I am saying the effect is not known, but thus far there does not seem to be much indication that it works in practice. There are many variables in play, but the end result was a Conservative majority. If strategic voting had an impact, it was insufficient, neutral or detrimental. I am not saying it cannot work under any conditions, but I will say it is unreasonable to expect the same ploy which has proven inadequate at best to suddenly turn for the better without some significant overhauls. It's certainly not an obvious conclusion that strategic voting is the right path forward, not by a long shot.

Well what Tom seems to be arguing is that of your three possibilities, the idea that strategic voting is detrimental or neutral can be discarded - which I think is fairly obvious in a FPTP system, as voting strategically will serve to reduce the gap between the conservative and the leading left-wing contender, even if the conservative nevertheless defeats both challengers.

This leaves the argument that it is insufficient - that is, that in prior elections, not enough of it was done to be effective.

Hence his contention that you are in fact both arguing for the same thing - More strategic voting is needed if it is to become sufficient; If it hasn't worked in the past, then this implies that you should do everything you can to increase the amount of it that happens, or it will remain insufficient.

If you fail because you didn't try hard enough, then the appropriate response is to try harder next time. Unless you are Homer Simpson.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwVNuyfhF0Q[/YOUTUBE]

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

There is NO CONTENTION that it is mathematically possible for non-conservative voters to stack their votes against the Conservatives to win. Yes, that is obvious which is why I have NOT ONCE said it is not true. But the fact that it is mathematically possible does not mean in the slightest that it is possible in practice to coordinate voters to actually stack the vote that way in enough electoral districts to make a difference.

If it hasn't worked in the past, then this implies that you should do everything you can to increase the amount of it that happens, or it will remain insufficient.

It really doesn't. The fact that prayer hasn't worked in the past does not imply that I need to pray harder. It implies the efficacy of prayer needs to be called into question. And I need to be perfectly clear here; I consider practices like prayer and strategic voting to be ethically questionable, and that is the nature of my opposition. However, if someone is going to claim I am an idiot for sticking to those convictions I am going to point out that to date their "obvious" path forward is not evidenced to work, so even if I accept a lesser of two evils position in strategically voting to achieve a means to an end, there needs to be some evidence offered on what is different in this election over the previous failures which would make the voting public more receptive and coordinated toward that goal. We need to operate in reality, not in wishful thinking.

 

[bilby]

There is NO CONTENTION that it is mathematically possible for non-conservative voters to stack their votes against the Conservatives to win. Yes, that is obvious which is why I have NOT ONCE said it is not true. But the fact that it is mathematically possible does not mean in the slightest that it is possible in practice to coordinate voters to actually stack the vote that way in enough electoral districts to make a difference.

If it hasn't worked in the past, then this implies that you should do everything you can to increase the amount of it that happens, or it will remain insufficient.

It really doesn't. The fact that prayer hasn't worked in the past does not imply that I need to pray harder. It implies the efficacy of prayer needs to be called into question. And I need to be perfectly clear here; I consider practices like prayer and strategic voting to be ethically questionable, and that is the nature of my opposition. However, if someone is going to claim I am an idiot for sticking to those convictions I am going to point out that to date their "obvious" path forward is not evidenced to work, so even if I accept a lesser of two evils position in strategically voting to achieve a means to an end, there needs to be some evidence offered on what is different in this election over the previous failures which would make the voting public more receptive and coordinated toward that goal. We need to operate in reality, not in wishful thinking.

But unlike prayer, strategic voting has an actual effect on the number of votes cast.

The effect has been too small to reach the goal in most ridings in the recent past; but it is an effect that exists, and that can be increased by persuading people to do it. Perhaps not by much; but it needn't be much.

Your argument is as uncompelling and irrational as the Global Warming deniers who claim that as water vapour is the biggest greenhouse gas, CO₂ can be ignored - it misses the point that a marginal change can push the system past a critical 'tipping point'.

In the case of a FPTP election, that tipping point is obvious and real - a conservative who gets one more vote than his nearest rival wins, and if he gets one fewer votes, he loses. Winning by one vote, or a hundred, or a thousand is still a win; and in this particular case, with future electoral reform on the table if the conservatives can be ousted, it is clearly not only not immoral, but positively a moral imperative, to vote strategically, as one small but significant part of an overall strategy by the left wing to maximise the probability of a conservative being replaced by a non-conservative member.

The promise of reform to fix the broken electoral system is the thing that is different in this election which should make the voting public more receptive and coordinated. That is the reality; If the voters wish that reality away with the self fulfilling prophecy that strategic voting won't work, then they are shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

But unlike prayer, strategic voting has an actual effect on the number of votes cast.

It has an unknown effect of unknown value. Strategic voting applies to ridings which have close margins either in previous elections or in polling data. Problematically, things can change substantially from one election to the next, and polling data is not always accurate or granular enough to make useful determinations for specific ridings. On top of that, human behaviour is a complex dynamic to account for. The NDP and Greens, for instance, are left-leaning parties, while the Liberals tend to be more centrist. Not everyone is willing to move between parties for various reasons. For instance some NDP voters see the Liberals as just as bad as the NDP, and some Liberal voters see the NDP as far too left-leaning to be viable. Given there are voters who switch between Liberal and Conservative strategic voting can actually go both ways. There are also those who simply do not agree with strategic voting as it places aversion first and policy second.

So not only do you need an accurate model of who is likely to be the best contender, but you also need to gauge which voter groups are the most inclined to switch in the direction indicated, hope that there are a sufficient number of people willing to vote strategically, have clear lines of communication with them, and avoid confusion with any other strategic voting initiatives which may not be on the same wavelength. If you are wrong, you send your strategic voters against your own goal.

The promise of reform to fix the broken electoral system is the thing that is different in this election which should make the voting public more receptive and coordinated.

It's not different in this election. Electoral reform and eliminating first past the post is an issue which has been debated for ages and proposed a number of times before by hopeful parties under different formats. While I think it is a very important issue, and it certainly seems to be getting more attention recently than it has for some time, it is not likely one of the most significant issues in the minds of most Canadian voters this election. While I won't vote for a party which does not support electoral reform, it's questionable if any of the main contenders would or could make good on this promise. So no, what you are talking about is not reality.

That is the reality; If the voters wish that reality away with the self fulfilling prophecy that strategic voting won't work, then they are shooting themselves in the foot.

What self-fulfilling prophecy? That is utter fucking nonsense. At no point have I said "don't vote strategically because it won't work". I've said don't bank on something working which has yet to produce results in elections which have produced decreasingly desirable outcomes despite strategic voting efforts in all of those elections. Don't call people idiots because they vote according to different standards than strategic voting for different reasons when you cannot back up that strategic voting actually does anything positive. Strategic voting is not the only way to promote change. It was never the only way.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Finally saw the debate. Mulclair I really didn't know before but he impressed me more than anybody else on that stage. I may actually vote NDP this year, for the first time.

If I were you, I'd vote for whoever is more likely to win between the Liberal and the NDP candidate.

You make sense. I think I will do exactly that. Not sure who that is though. I actually have a place I can call home and vote from in two different ridings, one in Burlington Ontario and one in Mississauga Ontario. Not sure which I should declare as my home riding and register to vote in. Anybody know of a handy resource to tell who voted for who where?

Edit: I found results for 2011 on wikipedia (just google 2011 election ridings results). It turns out that Conseravite party won both of my possible places and liberals came in second both times....

but I now I see what krypton is saying... after the last election how can I be so sure that the liberals will outpace the NDP again this time?

I have only one vote to cast, and I'd like it to count against Harper.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Shit.

Not everyone is willing to move between parties for various reasons. For instance some NDP voters see the Liberals as just as bad as the NDP, and some Liberal voters see the NDP as far too left-leaning to be viable.

Just as bad as the Conservatives, not NDP (which makes no sense).

 

[Tom Sawyer]

but I now I see what krypton is saying... after the last election how can I be so sure that the liberals will outpace the NDP again this time?

I have only one vote to cast, and I'd like it to count against Harper.

The only way to do it is on a riding-by-riding basis. For instance, where I live, it used to be Liberal but then it flipped to Conservative last time by a margin of less than the Liberal and NDP votes combined, with the Liberal out in front of the NDP by a ways. The Liberal candidate is currently leading in the polls by a few points, but there's a decent NDP showing as well. Assuming that the Liberal party doesn't completely fall apart for some reason between now and the election, a Liberal candidate switching to the NDP does nothing but reduce the Liberal lead over the Conservative, since it's essentially a two way race in the riding. The opposite would hold true in a riding where the NDP are leading over the Liberals. Find out which is leading where you and help unseat the Conservative who currently holds it by supporting whichever party gives the most efficient chance of doing that.

Once Trudeau or Mulcair are PM, they intend to change the system so that there'll no longer be a need to strategically vote for someone you don't support and you can just cast your vote for the policies you like instead of against the ones you oppose.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Edit: I found results for 2011 on wikipedia (just google 2011 election ridings results). It turns out that Conseravite party won both of my possible places and liberals came in second both times....

but I now I see what krypton is saying... after the last election how can I be so sure that the liberals will outpace the NDP again this time?

I have only one vote to cast, and I'd like it to count against Harper.

Coordinated strategic voting sites will emerge over time such as http://www.strategicvoting.ca/. I cannot vouch for the site I linked -- it's just an example, but it is one of the more common ways to get this sort of information. You cannot be sure that the Liberals are the right horse on which to place your bet, but running up to the election, people will be devoted to giving the best analysis they can for each riding. You'll have to wait until much closer to the election should you go that route. Predictions made this far out may not be worth much come election time.