My thoughts on strategic voting

There is a lot of talk about putting your vote to work for a better Canada in this election. From the ABC (anyone but conservative) campaign of Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams to voteforenvironment.ca to Stop Harper Vote Swapping on Facebook. The idea is that you should vote for the party most likely to beat the Conservative in your riding.

Now, you can’t make a broad generalization about something like this and assumes it means “in general vote Liberal,” like some might have you believe. It’s really a riding-by-riding issue.

For example, here in Edmonton-Strathcona, and many other ridings across the country, the best choice is the NDP.

So where do I see problems?

I personally cannot support the Liberals.

They are a party of the centre, not the left, and they feel entitled to power.

They will not bring in voter reform – mainly because it threatens their power. They are still showing signs of the corruption that Chretien left with. And they kept Harper around for more than 2 years because they didn’t have the finances to run an election.

Honestly, I want to see the Liberals die off as a party, and have to rebuild under entirely new leadership. Even then, I likely wouldn’t vote for them.

In short: I see a vote for the Liberal Party as a vote for “keep fucking Canada over.”

But, if you are more adamant about keeping Harper and his theocon cronies (please check this article out on how Harper is more akin to Bush/Palin than we like to admit) out of power, then vote for who can best bring down the big guys. But here’s a tip: use the DemocraticSpace predictions and play smart about it.

Update: I wanted to add one more piece of advice: if you are a partisan who is being forced to vote against your ideals to defeat Harper, and you don’t trust vote swapping, consider donating $5 (or more) to your party, and then vote the other way. This way you give a vote to try to beat the Conservatives and you offset the $1.75 you give to a party you’d rather not by giving more to one you would rather give it too. Also, make sure you donate before the election, as parties tend to need more money in a campaign than after the election.