Vote-swapping: An emerging modern election tactic
Tight ridings have plenty to offer with the right strategy
Claire Nielsen is offering a trade: She’ll (*gasp*) vote Liberal for you, if you’ll vote Green or NDP for her.
Nielsen, a 21-year-old graphic- design student from the British Columbia riding of South Surrey–White Rock is looking for someone to vote-swap with.
“If you live in a riding that could go NDP or Green and you want to #voteswap hmu. Willing to vote NDP, Green, or (shudder) Liberal. #cdnpoli,” she recently tweeted. Nielsen would like to vote Green, or if not Green, then NDP, but she doesn’t think either of those options are likely to count for much in South Surrey–White Rock.
“We’ve typically gone Conservative before, and that’s what I’m trying to avoid,” she said. So in comes the political calculus.
A recent vote projection for her riding by threehundredeight.com, suggests the Liberals are most likely to unseat the incumbent Tories. So, if Nielsen can find a suitable swapping partner — that is, a Liberal supporter in a riding where the NDP or Greens are in a close race with the Conservatives — she would pledge to vote Liberal in her riding on her behalf of her swapping partner, in exchange for her partner’s promise to vote NDP.
But Nielsen hasn’t yet found a match. She’s worried her riding isn’t close enough. In the vote-swapping marketplace, where a voter’s value is measured by their ability to affect outcomes, those in safe ridings have little to offer. And given that this is largely an anti-Harper movement, voters in safe Conservative ridings are the least valuable of all.
Those who find themselves in Nielsen’s shoes might have better luck checking out some of the vote-swapping websites that have cropped up during this campaign.
Jim Harris, a former leader of the Green Party, runs one of them: voteswapping.ca. The site, which is expressly devoted to defeating the Conservatives, shows users who enter their postal code a rundown of some recent polling and predictions for their riding. NDP supporters living in swing ridings where the Conservatives are in a tight race with the Liberals, and Liberals supporters living in swing ridings where the Conservatives are in a tight race with the NDP are invited to swap.
Green supporters are invited to swap votes with NDP and Liberal supporters in the one riding where the Greens might win: Elizabeth May’s riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands. (Some have credited vote-swapping for May’s victory in 2011.)
Harris thinks it won’t take too many vote-swappers to make a big difference. “In 2011, Harper won his majority with 14 seats,” he said, “and when you look at the difference between the Conservative winner and the second place in the 14 closest ridings, it’s 6,201 votes.
“So about 6,000 votes out of about 11.8 million gave Harper his majority.”
http://m.metronews.ca/#/article/new...ng-in-the-2015-canadian-federal-election.html
Tight ridings have plenty to offer with the right strategy
Claire Nielsen is offering a trade: She’ll (*gasp*) vote Liberal for you, if you’ll vote Green or NDP for her.
Nielsen, a 21-year-old graphic- design student from the British Columbia riding of South Surrey–White Rock is looking for someone to vote-swap with.
“If you live in a riding that could go NDP or Green and you want to #voteswap hmu. Willing to vote NDP, Green, or (shudder) Liberal. #cdnpoli,” she recently tweeted. Nielsen would like to vote Green, or if not Green, then NDP, but she doesn’t think either of those options are likely to count for much in South Surrey–White Rock.
“We’ve typically gone Conservative before, and that’s what I’m trying to avoid,” she said. So in comes the political calculus.
A recent vote projection for her riding by threehundredeight.com, suggests the Liberals are most likely to unseat the incumbent Tories. So, if Nielsen can find a suitable swapping partner — that is, a Liberal supporter in a riding where the NDP or Greens are in a close race with the Conservatives — she would pledge to vote Liberal in her riding on her behalf of her swapping partner, in exchange for her partner’s promise to vote NDP.
But Nielsen hasn’t yet found a match. She’s worried her riding isn’t close enough. In the vote-swapping marketplace, where a voter’s value is measured by their ability to affect outcomes, those in safe ridings have little to offer. And given that this is largely an anti-Harper movement, voters in safe Conservative ridings are the least valuable of all.
Those who find themselves in Nielsen’s shoes might have better luck checking out some of the vote-swapping websites that have cropped up during this campaign.
Jim Harris, a former leader of the Green Party, runs one of them: voteswapping.ca. The site, which is expressly devoted to defeating the Conservatives, shows users who enter their postal code a rundown of some recent polling and predictions for their riding. NDP supporters living in swing ridings where the Conservatives are in a tight race with the Liberals, and Liberals supporters living in swing ridings where the Conservatives are in a tight race with the NDP are invited to swap.
Green supporters are invited to swap votes with NDP and Liberal supporters in the one riding where the Greens might win: Elizabeth May’s riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands. (Some have credited vote-swapping for May’s victory in 2011.)
Harris thinks it won’t take too many vote-swappers to make a big difference. “In 2011, Harper won his majority with 14 seats,” he said, “and when you look at the difference between the Conservative winner and the second place in the 14 closest ridings, it’s 6,201 votes.
“So about 6,000 votes out of about 11.8 million gave Harper his majority.”
http://m.metronews.ca/#/article/new...ng-in-the-2015-canadian-federal-election.html
