{"id":12427,"date":"2015-10-28T16:58:45","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T20:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=12427"},"modified":"2015-11-05T00:03:53","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T05:03:53","slug":"politics-as-usual-strategic-voting-pfft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-strategic-voting-pfft\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: Strategic Voting? Pfft."},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

The election is over and we have a new party and new PM in place.
\nNot entirely unexpected.
\nThe idea we would have a Harper majority again was highly unlikely. The best I would have thought would be a slim minority for either the Liberals or the Conservatives. What was unexpected \u2013 to me, at least \u2013 was the fact that it turned out to be a Liberal majority, or a \u201cred surge\u201d, \u201cred wave\u201d or whatever \u201cred\u201d fast moving water metaphor the media folks can come up with.
\nPollsters were calling for a tight three way tie. I guess they got that wrong too.
\nBut let\u2019s have a look at that majority: the Liberals won 184 seats. The Conservatives 99, NDP 44, Bloc 10 and Green 1, but to \u201cwin\u201d those seats the Liberals garnered just 39.5% of the popular vote while the Conservatives collected 31.9 % of the popular vote.
\nSo, with a paltry 7.6% more in votes, the Liberals \u201cwon\u201d almost double the seats of the Conservatives. It doesn\u2019t sound like a tidal wave of support in my humble opinion.
\nI am not picking on the Liberals. The same comments apply to the Tory majority in 2011.
\nLet\u2019s compare the two elections.
\nIn 2011, the Conservatives formed a majority despite the fact that fully 60 percent of votes cast did not go to them. In 2015? The Liberals will form a majority government despite the fact that fully 60 per cent of votes cast did not go to them.
\nIn other words: same results, just the colour of the flags have changed. It\u2019s hardly a ringing endorsement of either governing party.
\nLast week I made mention of the advocacy group, \u201cJust the facts Canada\u201d and their extraordinary push for Canadians to vote strategically \u2013 to get rid of Harper. They opined that \u201c…70 percent of Canadians do not want to be governed by Conservatives.\u201d
\nWell, actually it was 60 percent but, heck, let\u2019s not quibble over facts shall we?
\nSo, based on their reasoning, in 2015 60.5% of Canadians do not want to be governed by the Liberals. In other words, we are pretty much in the same boat as we were before the election; the same amount of people do not want to be governed by the party that has \u201cwon\u201d the majority but we now have a different captain, so I guess that\u2019s all that matters.
\nI did a quick sampling of the list of ridings that the Just the Facts Canada folks were saying were crucial in preventing a Harper win.
\nYep, the new riding of Aurora-Oak Ridges -Richmond Hill went to the Liberals, the same with Vaughan-Woodbridge, and King-Vaughan. The margins of victory were not landslide-like, but they weren\u2019t tight either.
\nDoes this mean that strategic voting worked? No, I don\u2019t think so. The outcome was a result of a number of factors. What this does mean is that we have an electoral system that results in repeated governments that are not truly representative?
\nI have advocated for this before, and I will do so again: we need electoral reform. The first-past-the-post elections are not fair or representative. Mr. Trudeau has promised change. Let\u2019s hope this is one campaign promise fulfilled.
\nUntil next week, stay informed, stay involved because this is \u2013 after all \u2013 Our Town. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas The election is over and we have a new party and new PM in place. Not entirely unexpected. The idea we would have a Harper majority again was highly unlikely. The best I would have thought would be a slim minority for either the Liberals or the Conservatives. What was unexpected \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}