Good idea, but it rarely works

Voting strategically on Oct. 19? Here’s why it’s likely to fail.

Stephen Harper must smile to himself every time he reads articles about how Liberal and NDP supporters plan to vote strategically to defeat him and his Conservative candidates.

He is smiling because the reality is Harper has no real fear that a successful, unified assault on Tory candidates will materialize.

That’s because, as past close elections have shown, the effect of strategic voting has been minimal, affecting only a handful of extremely tight races in individual ridings.

In recent days, near-panic has started to emerge among progressive voters who fear Harper and the Conservatives will be re-elected, possibly with a majority government, in the election barely two weeks from now.

Their worries are sparked by recent polls showing the Conservatives starting to break the three-way logjam with the New Democrats and Liberals that has marked this campaign for months and edging ever closer to a majority.

In hopes of derailing Harper, loose groups of progressive voters, such as Leadnow.ca, are urging voters to end vote splitting between the Liberals, NDP and Green party that allows the Tories to win ridings with fewer than 50 per cent of the votes cast.

Instead, they want strategic voters to choose either the Liberal or NDP candidate who has the best chance of defeating the Tory in their riding.

Proponents insist strategic voting will be huge and that more and more voters are seeking information to assist them in deciding which candidate to back.

In Calgary, signs reading “Stop vote splitting” are popping up near party election signs, urging voters to back candidates who can beat an incumbent Conservative candidate.

In Quebec, the province’s biggest union, the Quebec Federation of Labour, is urging its 600,000 members to work to defeat the Harper Conservatives.

In Ontario, the country’s largest private-sector union, Unifor, is supporting all incumbent NDP candidates, but is encouraging strategic voting in ridings without NDP incumbents.

Also, the operator of the website strategicvoting.ca, says he has seen an “explosion” of people coming to his site for information. Hisham Abdel-Rahman, a Calgary information technology manager, said in an interview that 60,000 unique users accessed the website on Oct. 1 and 30,000 visited it a day earlier.

Abdel-Rahman, who created the website earlier this year, says the outcome in some 100 ridings could be affected if progressive supporters stopped splitting their votes and combined them against Conservative candidates.

In past elections, strategic voting proponents have claimed some success, knocking off Conservatives in a handful of races. But more often than not, strategic voting fails.

One of the best examples was the 1999 provincial election in Ontario, where the champions of strategic voting set their sights on premier Mike Harris. But his Progressive Conservative party swept to a re-election majority despite a first term marked by public demonstrations and major battles on issues from schools to welfare cuts. Why doesn’t strategic voting generally work? First, strategic voting groups are fairly unorganized and underfunded, which results in their inability to get information out to large groups of voters, such as which of the 338 ridings are in play.

Second, there is little serious research into which candidate is best in which riding. Ultimately, that means casual voters must guess on which candidate to support. Too many emotions are at play, with NDP voters believing their candidate is best to defeat the Tory while Liberal voters stick with their candidate as the best choice. That’s especially true for people who want to vote with their heart.

Third, neither the Liberals nor the New Democrats really like the notion of strategic voting. They see the idea as being a rejection of their own candidate, their own leader and their own policies.

Indeed, there is more bad blood between the Liberals and NDP than at any time in recent memory. Lately, they’ve spent more time fighting with each other on everything from what Canada’s role should be in fighting Islamist extremists to the rules around Quebec separation than they do uniting to fight together against the Conservatives.

Fourth, polling experts suggest it requires up to 60 per cent of NDP or Liberal voters to switch to the other party’s candidate in order for that candidate to garner enough votes to defeat the Tory opponent. The odds of that many voters loyal to another party switch their allegiance in the privacy of a polling booth must be astronomical.

Ultimately, strategic voting seems like a great idea for those who want to see Harper defeated. In reality, it may work in a few ridings, but really isn’t too effective on a national scale.

No wonder Harper must be smiling. Bob Hepburn’s column appears Sunday. bhepburn@thestar.ca