Is it worth voting strategically where I live?

by Maurice Y. Michaud (he/him)

Unfortunately, the first-past-the-post electoral system often forces us to vote for our second choice because we simply cannot stand the thought of a particular party winning. However, depending on where one lives, switching to that second choice might achieve the opposite effect. If one were to move from their first choice (Party A) to their second choice (Party B), they might only redistribute the proportion of votes between A and B and allow their dreaded Party C to win the plurality of votes. In 15 ridings during the 2011 federal election, those who wanted to at least deny a majority for the Conservatives (their Party C) but weren’t quite ready yet to return to the Liberals (their Party A) ended up giving the Conservatives their much-coveted majority. Oopsie daisy!

Strategic voting depends entirely on the riding where one will be voting.

For instance, in 2015, it was clear that the electorate in the riding of Halifax did not want the Conservatives to continue forming government. It was their Party C. But Halifax has never been a bellwether riding — an indicator of the party that will form government. In fact, for the last 100 years to that point, it was more a contrarian riding. And since 1988, it had not been Conservative; it had been Liberal from 1988 to 1997, and NDP since 1997. So if the goal of the Halifax electorate was to block the Conservatives, it could have stuck to the NDP if it wasn’t weary of them, because the Conservatives had been finishing a distant third since 2000 and nothing indicated that they would suddenly surge to the front. But if their goal was to be on the side of the government, none of the polls at the start of the campaign suggested that the Liberals would be forming it. In fact, at some points in the campaign, the NDP seemed poised to form government, albeit a minority. So in Halifax, the best “strategy” to block the Conservatives in 2015 could have been to stay the course. But instead, Haligonians chose the Liberal.

On the other hand, since the creation of the New Brunswick riding of Royal/Fundy Royal in 1917, its electorate has voted 31 times Conservative in the 33 times they were called to the polls up to 2015. The exceptions were in 1993, when the Liberals won 18.15% more votes than the Conservatives, and in 2015, when they won only 3.79% more. In both cases, the governing Conservatives had become deeply unpopular. The narrowest Conservative wins against the Liberals were in 1921, with an edge of only 0.85%, and in 1935, with an edge of 0.93% — but both those years were utter disasters for the Conservatives nationally. So if someone lives in Fundy Royal and is not a Conservative, they can vote for whomever else they want, as there is practically no strategy that will make any difference in that riding. The same can be said of Québec’s Mount Royal riding which has been Liberal since 1940, when the electorate there booted out their last Conservative MP from the seat.

In his poll aggregator, Philippe Fournier rates each riding based on the probability of the leading party winning.

This strategic voting recommendation tool works from his data and comes with no guarantee. The effectiveness of strategic voting can be considered high in a riding rated as a toss up, moderate in one rated leaning, low in one rated likely, and nil in one rated safe.

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