14 October 2008
29 Sep
Back by popular demand! The first edition of the DemocraticSPACE Strategic Voting Guides are now available. See the links in the upper right of every page. These are non-partisan guides.
SUMMARY See Strategic Voting Guide Homepage
The vast majority of ridings in Canada are NOT appropriate for strategic voting whatsoever (in that it will not impact the outcome). There are only 13 ridings where it is appropriate for Conservative supporters, 17 ridings for Liberal supporters, 30 ridings for NDP supporters and 39 ridings for Green supporters.
The guides work like this: Conservative strategic voting is to ensure a Liberal does not win; Liberal, NDP, and Green strategic voting is to ensure a Conservative does not win. Obviously there are many different permutations, but these are, by far, the two most common forms of strategic voting.
So unless your riding is listed in the guide, DO NOT VOTE STRATEGICALLY.
RIDING-BY-RIDING STRATEGIC VOTING GUIDES
Select the party you support to check if your riding is appropriate for strategic voting.
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| CONSERVATIVE | LIBERAL | NDP | GREEN |
Important Note:
DemocraticSPACE does not endorse strategic voting (i.e. where voters cast their ballot for their second choice party to prevent a less favourable party from winning). We believe that Canada should explore options of adding an element of proportionality into our electoral system to ensure fair and accurate representation in parliament. However, strategic voting happens in Canada. DemocraticSPACE believes that it is better to make informed choices than misinformed choices. Therefore, this guide is meant to help voters who are thinking of voting strategically.
In order for a riding to qualify for strategic voting, we feel 3 conditions must be met:
1. It must be a close 2-way race (i.e. the two other parties must be within 5%)
2. The chances of third/fourth/fifth party winning riding are remote (i.e. support < ~20%)
3. Small number of votes of third/fourth/fifth party can make a difference (i.e. < 1 in 3 voters).

Conservative Party
Liberal Party
New Democratic Party
Bloc Québécois
Green Party
Christian Heritage
Progressive Canadian
Marijuana Party
Marxist-Leninist Party
Canadian Action Party
Communist Party
Libertarian Party
First Peoples Party
Western Block Party
Animal Alliance Party
neorhino.ca
12 Responses for "DemocraticSPACE Publishes Strategic Voting Guides"
Ooh, pretty data.
Are you going to be publishing those graphs of increases and decreases in riding-by-riding support like you had last time? Those were lots of fun.
Not this time, Jennie. It was too time intensive and last time was an extra-long campaign where the polls shifted quite a bit — the polls have been fairly steady this time, so there graphs are very interesting.
What is the strategy behind your strategic voting recommendations? I notice they work against the voteforenvironment strategic voting which has a very clear objective – to provide input for voters who put the environment as their major concern. What motivation are you assuming and are you assuming everyone with the same first choice has the same motivation? If so, why is this a reasonable assumption?
@chuckg — the logic is this: Conservatives will vote strategically to prevent the Liberals from winning; Liberals, NDP and Greens will vote strategically to prevent the Conservatives from winning. Obviously there are other permutations (i.e. Conservatives voting Liberal to block the NDP, NDPers voting Conservative to block the Liberals, and so on), but the above two, by far, the most common type of strategic voting.
Note: In 2006, we had a more complicated guide that showed different permutations, but people found it too confusing, so we’ve simplified it this time.
I don’t know if I understand this correctly because some of the advice seems to be off. For example, the guide says a Liberal supporter in Central Nova should vote Liberal, but clearly there isn’t a Liberal candidate running there. It says an NDP supporter in Perry Sound Muskoka should vote NDP, but doesn’t it make more sense to vote Liberal?
Thanks, that explains it. I didn’t see earlier versions. Sounds very party oriented, rather than issue oriented. I really don’t like the anti-environment recommendations, so I’ll stick to the environmental voting sites myself.
DanH — thanks for reminding me of Central Nova. I’ve fixed that, in the few cases where there are no candidates for the Liberals and Greens. If you look at the above criteria, you will notice that the race in a given riding has to be close (5% or less margin of victory) for it to quality. Parry Sound-Muskoka was close in 2006, but since then the Libs have dropped over 8 points in Ontario, and the Cons have gone up 2. And the Liberal incumbent is not re-running and the Tony Clement now has the incumbency advantage. Thus, our projections do not put the race at within 5% at this time.
You forgot to put up the Bloc guide!
We did not forget a Bloc guide.
Note: there are no Conservative/Liberal or Conservative/NDP races in Québec. Therefore, there are no ridings that are appropriate for strategic voting for Bloc Québécois supporters.
Hmm… You say re Parry Sound-Muskoka: “Tony Clement now has the incumbency advantage. Thus, our projections do not put the race at within 5% at this time.
”
But you accept his opponent McGarvey’s advertising dollars…
Lincoln – I don’t see your point. Yes, McGarvey’s campaign took out an ad on DS. But that has no impact on our projections, which are based on the polls. Do you think we should cook our projections to favour people who take out ads?
[...] riding by riding predictions which you can download. On Monday Sept 29 they published their strategic vote recommendations (en Francais) by riding for supporters of each party. addthis_url = [...]
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