I’ve written about so-called “strategic” voting before, here, here, and here. It’s obviously something that I don’t advocate.
Firstly, I object to the misuse of the word “strategic”. Using that word implies that your actions are being taken to advance a long term plan. In times of war or in athletic competitions, there may even be a strategic advantage in losing the battle or the game in order to better position yourself for success in the overall contest.
“Tactical” on the other hand means actions meant to provide a temporary advantage, which is the case when we are asked to hold our nose and vote for something we dislike in order to avoid something we hate. By these definitions, “strategic” would mean looking at and comparing party policies and philosophies (for forming new policy) and then voting FOR those that most align with your values.
Having said that, someone recently asked me, “Glenn, what would it take to convince you to vote strategically [tactically] assuming you lived in one of those targetted close ridings?”
After some thought, I did manage to come up with a scenario where this might be possible. Here it is:
The largest opposition party, ie the one asking for my vote and the one most likely to win the FPTP game and form a government at some point, would have to give me confidence (ie iron clad, irrevocable confidence) that they would proceed to change our electoral system to one of proportional representation. By confidence I mean no hiding behind a fixed referendum, such as happened in Ontario in 2007, but actual electoral reform. No excuses. If I was convinced of that promise they might convince me to vote for them just one more time.
Are Ignatieff and Layton promising this? Not even close. And why is this? Because when they are trailing at 30% in the polls they ask us to vote strategically [tactically], but when they win an election with 36% they suddenly “have a mandate from the people” and we start hearing about the need for strategic [tactical] voting from the other guys. It’s been that way my whole life, and it’s BS.
[To be fair, as Thor points out in a comment below, electoral reform is in the NDP platform. But they have never seemed to advance this when they have had many opportunities to do so, so it’s hard to take them seriously.]
So I won’t vote tactically this election. I will vote strategically. And that means voting for the only party that is committed to changing the electoral system so that we never again have to consider this issue. The fact that this is the same party whose policies best align with my values? Bonus.