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Enduring Idea of Anti-Conservative Vote Swapping
Sun, 2010-01-31 06:53
#1
Enduring Idea of Anti-Conservative Vote Swapping
Sun, 2010-01-31 07:01
#2
Obviously its going to be an enduring idea. What is interesting is that the idea that it is likely enough to be successful endures despite quantitative evidence to the contrary.
No statistical evidence about what might happen to actual vote results given some realignment can be absolutely definitive. But the evidence offered that it is highly unlikely to work has been pretty strong.
Proponents of the idea/hope that obviously understand it isn't a simple matter of adding up all the votesthe opposition parties got in the last election, still keep bringing the idea back with arguments for its possibility.
So I thought I'd stack some of those arguments made together. And people can bring in others.
Sun, 2010-01-31 07:20
#3
I'm not sure about vote-swapping. It's probably true that it doesn't work on a wide scale because it's hard to know how to calculate the outcome in hundreds of ridings across the country, but I think it's pretty clear that strategic voting can work on a small scale in certain ridings.
For example, it's clear that the ABC campaign run by Danny Williams in Newfoundland in 2008 was very effective. The campaign was to get Newfoundlanders to concentrate their votes against the Conservatives, and they succeeded in taking away all 3 Conservative seats - 2 for the Liberals and one for the NDP.
I think it also worked to some extent in Edmonton-Strathcona where NDP and Liberal voters realized that they had to concentrate behind the candidate who was best-positioned to beat the Conservative, and that enabled Linda Duncan to win it for the NDP.
Sun, 2010-01-31 07:35
#4
Here is the initial post by Malcolm from 2 weeks ago:
Using the last election as a basis, I have crunched the numbers. There are only 64 constituencies where the combined Liberal - NDP - Green vote exceeds the votes of the winner - 55 Conservative seats and 10 Bloc.
* 45 Conservative seats where the Liberals were second
* 8 Conservative seats where the New Democrats were second
* 2 Conservative seats where the Greens were second
* 8 Bloc seats where the Liberals were second
* 2 Bloc seats where the NDP were second
I then calculated the net proportion of the other "coalition" parties vote the leading "coalition" would need to retain in order to take the seat. That is NET retention. If the leading "coalition" party lost by 500 votes, they need 501 NET votes to win. If 100 votes shift to the Conservatives, the leading "coalition" party now needs 601 votes to win.
In the example of Simcoe North, for example, the Liberals trailed the Conservatives by 22%. The combined Liberal, NDP and Green vote was 22.7% The Liberals would need to gain a NET 96.92% of the NDP and Green vote in order to win. If even 3.09% of NDP and Green voters stay home, and every single other NDP - Green voter votes Liberal, the Conservatives still win. If 1.55% of NDP and Green voters vote Conservative, the Liberals cannot win.
Repeated Canadian Election studies suggest that the proportion of voters likely to stay home if their candidate is not on the ballot FAR exceeds 3.09%, and that the proportion of NDP or Green voters likely to choose the Conservatives over the Liberals is significantly more than 1.55%. (As discussed, Liberals are actually MORE likely to choose the Conservatives over the NDP or Greens.)
I then calculated the electoral result using a 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100% NET retention. It isn't until we reach 70% NET retention that the "coalition" forms a majority government.
This does NOT take into consideration how the electoral deal plays out in other constituencies. Given (as oft noted) that Liberals would be MORE likely to vote Conservative than NDP, we can presume as practically a given that the NDP would lose at least nine seats (London - Fanshawe, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay - Superior North, Welland, Edmonton - Strathcona, Western Arctic, Burnaby - Douglas, New Westminster - Coquitlam*, Vancouver Kingsway). [Data used general election results - in the recent byelection, the NDP broke 50% in NW-C.]
More can be found at: http://accidentaldeliberations.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-retention.html
That was post #73 in Topp's Coalition Memoirs, part2 . Some discussion follows that might interest some.
Then the following offering and discussion yesterday:
To return to the debate about second choice voter support:
I have argued in other posts that:
1. Should the Greens fade away their support would go largely to the other opposition parties
2. Should the opposition parties combine, either by running joint candidates or through a run-off voting system, the anti-Conservative vote would be be consolidated.
Others have argued that there it is just as likely that the Conservatives would benefit or that cooperation among the opposition parties would have little effect on the outcome.
I have found a notebook in which I jotted down a few poll findings during the last Federal election campaign. I believe they support my position.
1. The final EKOS poll of the campaign: second choices: Con 8.3%; Lib 17, NDP 19.5, Green 4.6, Bloq 17.6 (presumably just in Quebec)
2. An EKOS poll for British Columbia . Sept 23. Second choices. Con 9, Lib 22, NDP 20; G 18
3. A Harris Decima poll. Sept 30. Second choices: C 14; L 26; NDP 30; G 24, B 3.
This was further broken down by parties:
Among Con voters the second choices were: L 38, N 29, G 25
NDP voters: C 20; L 44; G 30, B 5
Green voters: C 18, L 37, N 38, B 3
Bloq voters: C 5; L 21; N 43; G 28
I did not write down the Liberal second preference numbers but a reasonable extrapolation , given the other numbers, might seem to be: Cons mid-teens, NDP mid-20s; Greens about 20
4. An unattributed poll of second choices among Greens: L 24, C 14, N 26, B 6.
5. A Strategic Council poll Oct 7-9 on second preferences in Ontario;
Overall: C 13, L 21; N 25; G 18
Con voters: L 27; N 24; G 13
Lib voters: C 23; N 39; G 21
NDP voters: C 15; L 40; G 31.
Green voters: C 19; L 27; N 35
Nicky, second choice has to be read together with firmness of intention, as someone pointed out to me recently. I might have a second choice, but stand no chance of switching to it. Someone else might have no second choice, but is grouchy and doesn't want to vote for their own party, and thus stays home. It's been put to me that second choice is not consistent across firmness of intention, and not correlated.
Thus, if you know what the second choice is of all (for eg) Liberals, but a quarter of them don't vote Liberal, you still don't necessarily know what that quarter of them did (whether they switched or stayed home).
There are two other ways to infer what you want: (i) look at what they did last time (although your baseline this time would be the people who *didn't* do it last time, so that's another problem), and (ii) look at what the switchers told the Canadian Election Study.
Nicky,
Thanks for the notes. They seem to confirm my thought that while Liberal-Conservative switching may be a historical expectation, the Harper Conservatives are far more polarizing and, thus, far less palatable.
I'm pretty sure I saw some number crunching on this in Pundits Guide, probably following Michael Byers reletively recent super simplistic re-warming of the idea.
And maybe there have been other offerings in Babble that folks may want to cut and paste in.
Sun, 2010-01-31 07:58
#5
I am reposting something i sent in on the Topp discussion. I think it is good to have a serious focused discussion of this issue:
Until the last few years I would have agreed that the Conservatives were the second preference of most Liberal voters. That view seems prevalent in this discussion but I don't think it is valid anymore.
Certainly it was the case in the CCF years. Witness the Lib/Con provincial coalition in British Columbia and how it took seats from the CCF.
But in the last few years there has been a greater difference betweens the Cons and the Libs and a lesser (arguably perceived) difference between the Libs and the NDP. After the cooption of the Conservatives by Reform and certainly during the Harper government, the Cons have lurched to the hard right. No one but the Cons call the NDP socialist anymore. And the Liberals have appealed in the dying days of the last several elections, often successfully, to NDP voters to defect to them as the best progressive alternative to the Cons.
In other words the perceived differences between the Cons and the Libs have grown and those between the Libs and the NDP have shrunk.
Indeed, in the last election, I remember polls showing the NDP as the most common second choice of all other parties. Other polls have shown that up to 30% of Candians feel the NDP best represents their values, athough only 2/3rds of them end up voting NDP. Perhaps someone on Babble has access to those polls.
I don't doubt that a significant number of Liberals would vote for the Cons over the NDP in a straight fight but I strongly suspect, subject to some regional variations, that the NDP would get the lion's share. A bigger portion of the NDP vote would be trransferred to the Liberals where they are the alternative to the Cons.
As for the Australian model mentioned by Stockhom, it would certainly cost the Cons quite a few seats. One drawback might be that in Lib/NDP contests the Con vote would largely drift to the Liberals.
Unionist also provided details of another Harris Decima poll with similar findings:
Nicky's memory is correct, if you read his/her post as meaning second choice for all voters counted together (which is how I read it). This article is also ambiguously written, but clearly shows the Liberals (at one point in the last campaign anyway) as being the second choice of 28% of all voters, and the NDP and Greens tied at 25% - which mathematically would put the Cons behind all three.
It also notes that the NDP was leading the Greens at the start of the campaign (26% vs. 22%), but slipped.
I think it can be said quite definitively that if the Greens were to disappear their vote would very largely go to the NDP and Liberals with the Conservatives gaining very little of it.
Sun, 2010-01-31 08:09
#6
I wanted to add a couple more comments to my previous post which was sent prematurely.
According to the polls cited the Conservatives might expect a significant amount of the Liberal second preference vote but the polls also indicate the NDP would get more. A larger % of the NDP vote would flow to the Liberals.
There are other factors which these polls from the last election do not measure. What would be the effect of the greater polarization between the hard right Cons and the opposition? Of the fact that the opposition was running as a coalition? Of the greater concentration of resources behind a joint oppposition candidate? Of a more palatable Liberal leader than Dion?
I think it is obvious that these factors would magnify the consolidation of the opposition vote.It is one thing for the Libs and NDP to run in competition to each other. It would be quite another if the Liberals in a riding like Oshawa actually threw their weight behind the NDP candidate.
Sun, 2010-01-31 10:41
#7
Lets see. We have the Conservative Party, and the Liberal Party that does more conservative things than the Conservative Party, and we have the Greens who are, as they say, Conservatives with Composters.
Just who is out there to trade with?
Sun, 2010-01-31 12:20
#8
I think the idea of vote swapping is based on wishful thinking backed up by fanciful assumptions. Voters are not that simple and each has their own reason for making the choice. The only assumption that is reasonable about second chocies is that anyone who votes for those is not getting their first choice. Even within a party leadership you can't get all the supporters to walk with the loser to the loser's second choice never mind rank and file voters with looser connections and more varied motivations and knowledge.
Sun, 2010-01-31 18:02
#9
Technically you're all talking about vote-switching or strategic voting or something else. Vote swapping is what people tried to do on Facebook last year ... I live in Riding X and want to vote for party A, but you live in Riding Y and want to vote for Party B. I promise to vote for Party B in my riding, where it will apparently make a difference according to what some website told me, if you promise to vote for Party A. Elections Canada studied it and said it's legal, but warned people not to rely on the undertakings of others.
Vote-swapping is one technique of strategic voting. Just thought it would help to clarify definitions.
Otherwise, I agree with everything Sean said. People who want to believe that folks will switch the way a political scientist thinks they ought to switch have simply not spent any time knocking on doors outside core urban ridings in Canada over the last 20 years.
Sun, 2010-01-31 19:17
#10
Nicky's memory is correct, if you read his/her post as meaning second choice for all voters counted together (which is how I read it). This article is also ambiguously written, but clearly shows the Liberals (at one point in the last campaign anyway) as being the second choice of 28% of all voters, and the NDP and Greens tied at 25% - which mathematically would put the Cons behind all three.
Thats actually unionist giving support- as far as it goes- to what nivky had said.
If you are going to go reposting then you'd think the criticisms should be in there as well. I'm not going to bother, because the data you posted is just too thin.
The reason I reposted above your other post, is because its as good as it gets as an answer to Malcolm's analysis that throws cold water on whether this can ever work.
This here, quoted in this post, is really just ad hoc wishful thinking. I just don't think people's notions that they think it should be able to work count for much. I respect that it counts for some of you. But its not persuasive.
Sun, 2010-01-31 19:39
#11
Found the Pundits Guide blogpost I was looking for.
Its a reprint of blog owner Alice Funke's article that had previously run in the Hill Times.
Byers' formula fails in his own province
Michael Byers recently urged the Liberals and NDP to strike a one-time deal where each party would stand down from running candidates in ridings in which the other party placed higher. But his vote switching theory doesn't fly.
By ALICE FUNKE
OTTAWA-University of British Columbia professor Michael Byers has studied climate change, the war in Afghanistan, and Canada's North. But after a provocative op-ed in last Monday's Toronto Star, I think he should go back and study the actual numbers-at least the fields of voter behaviour and vote switching.
Byers recently urged the two main English Canadian opposition parties, the Liberals and NDP, to strike a one-time deal where each party would stand down from running candidates in ridings in which the other party placed higher, with the objective of unseating the Conservative government and installing a form of proportional representation.
The proposal has been roundly criticized by columnists and bloggers in the NDP, Liberal and even small-c Conservative ranks, who deemed it unwise, undemocratic, and/or politically unfeasible.
But would it even work? A look at switches in party voting in Byers' own province of British Columbia, from 1988 to 2008, suggests not.
In a multi-party system, dissatisfied voters have the choice of staying with their previous party, switching to another party, or staying home. New seats can be won in one of two ways: either by increasing your own share of the electorate, or by decreasing your most serious opponents' share, whether by causing them to switch to a third party, or just stay home.
Using riding-level data from the PunditsGuide.ca database...
Sun, 2010-01-31 21:06
#12
I have been accused of "wishful thinking" based on "thin evidence" and "fanciful assumptions." Yet it is my accusers who have not been able to quote a single poll or statistic and who engage in sweeping unsubstantiated assertions.
I have cited five polls, and Unionist a sixth, all barely a year old that strongly indicate that the Conservatives generally are the LAST choice for voters who support EACH of the opposition parties. This is highly suggestive that a coalition would pay electoral dividends and further that the absence of Greens from the ballot would hurt the Conservatives. There may be mythological limitations to these polls but I have not seen any convincing reason to dispute my reading of them.
Surely it is time for KenS and Sean in Ottawa to share with us these secret numbers that allegedly support their position. I haven't seen them yet.
Malcolm's analysis is cited but all it says is that 70% of the opposition vote would have to be consolidated before the coalition would reach a majority. Malcolm certainly does not show that the Conservatives would not have lost numerous seats in the last election or indeed actually lose power in a closer election if there was an opposition electoral pact.
The "refutation" of Byer's argument is anything but. When you read it all it reveals is a bare assertion that he is wrong without any kind of statistical analysis whatsoever.
The assertion that the Liberal vote would flow to the Conservatives similarly is not supported by a single poll or statistic. I can think of two recent cases, Central Nova in 2008 and Etobicoke Lakeshore in 1988, where there were no Liberal candidates and their vote flowed largely to the Greens and the NDP respectively. It is repeatedly stated that the success of the provincial NDP vote in Manitoba has largely been because they have successfully squeezed the Liberal vote.
How do Ken and S in O explain results like Strathcona? 2006: C 42, N 32, L 18, G 8. 2008 C 42, N 43, L9 , G 6. Do they seriously maintain that most of the Liberal losses went to the Conservatives?
If there were no Green candidates in Kitchener Centre (C majority 0.8%, Green vote 8.5%), Kitchener Waterloo (Con majority 0.1%, Green vote 12.1) Vancouver Island North (Con majority 4.8%, Green vote 8%), do they argue that the Conservatives would necessarily have held those seats? There are another dozen ridings with similar statistics.
So guys, the time has come to put some numbers behind your arguments lest someone has the gall to label them "fanciful assumptions" or wishful thinking."
Sun, 2010-01-31 21:47
#13
Nicky, you're right it's not fair that people don't redo all their analyses and post them here to refute your interpretation of the polls you dug up. And I'm not going to be any help tonight on that score, either. But I will try to assemble something on this issue when I can.
However, the example of Central Nova in 2008 both makes your point and doesn't (and is a special case because it wasn't just any Green candidate, but the Leader). There were 10,349 Liberal votes and 13,861 NDP votes in 2006. The NDP lost about 6200 of theirs in 2008. Elizabeth May's vote increased by 12,000 votes. Peter MacKay's vote increased by about another 1,100. Your guess about who went where is as good as mine based on the publicly available data, but given that there were 16,550 votes up for grabs (10,350 + 6200), May didn't get all of them and ... (here's the key point) ... EVEN IF SHE HAD, SHE STILL WOULD NOT HAVE WON !! (Note that the number of electors also declined by just under 750 votes.)
This is what Malcolm means by the "retention rate", if I understand him correctly. 12,000/16,550 = 72.5% retention rate.
There were 4 accidental or deliberate tests of one party or another not having a candidate (or not having an effective candidate) in 2008:
* Central Nova where Elizabeth May did not win
* Portneuf-Jacques Cartier in Quebec where the Conservatives decided not to run a candidate against Independent André Arthur to help him and instead nearly cost him the seat to the Bloc
* Durham where the NDP candidate stopped campaigning after he got quit after his intemperate Facebook comments (the drop in NDP vote went to the Greens, while the Liberal drop went to the Conservatives, unless you think the drop in NDP vote went to the Conservatives and the Libs went to the Greens)
* Kildonan-St. Paul where the Liberal candidate got quit after Stéphane Dion couldn't live with her comments on 9/11 "truth" (the Liberal vote declined by 10,600 votes, the Greens went up by 585 or so, the NDP by around 3,900, and the Conservatives by 2,250; meaning that another 3865 stayed home)
* Saanich-Gulf Islands where the NDP candidate resigned after the deadline for taking his name off the ballot ... and even though nearly all the previous NDP voters turned to the Liberals, Lunn's vote also increased.
We're not saying that EVERY Liberal vote goes to the Conservatives, but we are saying that not enough Liberal votes go elsewhere, meaning that the Conservatives' totals increase. And they know it too ... they would love for us to play right into their hands, which by all appearances some here can't wait to do.
Sun, 2010-01-31 23:35
#14
Maybe it's the circles I walk in, but most people I know are Liberal-NDP voters, like myself. We are people who historically have voted for those 2 parties, and not the Conservatives.
Obviously voters from any party are not a homogenous block and contain people of different persuasions who are going to vote different ways as their 2nd alternative. I didn't realize that so many Liberal voters vote Conservative as their alternative to the Liberals.
You make a good point about Saanich-Gulf Islands. Although the removal of the NDP candidate helped the Liberals by raising Briony Penn's total, it also helped Lunn. It's also interesting what happened in Central Nova - the absence of a Liberal candidate did help Elizabeth May raise the Green vote total, but it also helped Peter MacKay raise his margin of victory. Therefore, it appears to have been an error in judgement for May (and Dion) to remove the Liberal candidate there.
Mon, 2010-02-01 07:39
#15
I don't think the riding examples in the last couple posts affect my essential points, that the Conservatives stand to lose most from an electoral pact or from the disappearance of the Greens.
Central Nova. Libs drop 25%, NDP drops 13%. Cons gain 6% of this, Greens gain 30%. Five times as much of the floating vote went Green as went Con. Sure May lost but if this trend was duplicated in other closer ridngs, the Conservatives would lose numerous seats.
Similarly in Saanich GI. Con + 6%, L +13% N -20%,, G =.The Liberals gained twice as much as the Cons.
British Columbia was a special case in 2008. The Cons gained 7% across the province which I believe was their best improvement across the country. So that complicates the numbers. In Saanich the Con gain was actually a little less than their overall provincial gain. The Liberals were also trounced in BC, dropping 8% overall. Saanich swam against the tide, largely because of the elimination of the NDP candidate which allowed the Liberals to almost win the seat. Instaed of a 15% Lib to Con swing, as indicated in the provincial result, Saanich showed a 7% Con to Lib swing.
The strong BC swing to the Cons also complicates the conclusions of Alice Funke, cited above. She does not deal with the fact that there was a strong Conservative tide in BC in the last election.
A better example might be the BC results in the 2006 Federal election.Then there was no great tide. The Libs fell just 1% , the NDP gained 2%. Yet both won new seats. BC was the only province in which the Cons LOST seats, 5 of them, notwithstanding that their overall vote went up from 36.3% to 37.3%. Why was this? Is it only a coincidence that BC was the only province in which the Green vote dropped substantially in that election?
A few years ago I sent a post on this topic which I cannot now find. I looked at the five Conservative losses and showed that in each there was a significant drop in the Green vote that seemed to gravitate to the manin challenger, I believe three New Democrats and two Liberals, and which allowed them to win the seat.
Mon, 2010-02-01 07:48
#16
Yet it is my accusers who have not been able to quote a single poll or statistic and who engage in sweeping unsubstantiated assertions.
Nicky, you're right it's not fair that people don't redo all their analyses and post them here to refute your interpretation of the polls you dug up.
'Not fair'?
Its not a matter of "quoting polls," because the only poll that could be definitive is a rather large one with a pretty extensive bank of survey questions, designed specifically to address this question.
Obviously there is no such poll. In the absence of that, people marshall what evidence they can to support their positions.
Nicky, you cannot say that the claims made by Malcolm and by Alice Funke in that linked article are unsubstantiated. The most you can say is that they are not absolutely definitive. But you have not addressed them at all. You seem to be just ignoring them. Your offerings have not been ignored.
If you are expecting to see irrefutable evidence that the strategy is very unlikely to result in substantial net gains in seast for opposition parties, I rather doubt that is possible. It comes down to who makes a better case. And in my opinion, the substantiation you have provided is very thin.
It doesn't matter how many polls you look at. Its what you do with them that gives evidence you have done sufficient capturing of the dynamic effects that we all know go into voter behaviour if one or some of the party choices are removed.
I don't know about you, but I could not initiate the mathematical analysis required. Actually I could, but I'm so rusty that the 'refreshing' would be more work than I have time for. But I do have sufficient understanding of whats involved to comment on what others have done.
A number of specific comments have been made on the methodology you have used. You say that the claims of critics that this strategy is very unlikely to work are unsubstantiated. But the analyses done by Malcolm and Alice Funke are the substantiating evidence. You have not commented at all on them or their methodology.
Mon, 2010-02-01 07:56
#17
And by the way- the Greens are not going to just dissappear.
A.] It isn't going to happen. So practically speaking it ought to be eliminated from attempts to predict what might happen. They arent going to leave.
B.] Its profoundly against the spirit of pluralistic democracy to suggest that they should.
And any strategic pact that you have suggested would be totally suicidal for the Greens. It would be very damaging to the short and long term health of the NDP, but thats harder for people to understand. For the GPC, theres no argument, it would be suicidal. So even if one avoids explicitly suggesting they go away.... proposing a pact that is suicidal for them is a utopian exercise.
Mon, 2010-02-01 08:19
#18
British Columbia was a special case in 2008. The Cons gained 7% across the province which I believe was their best improvement across the country. So that complicates the numbers. In Saanich the Con gain was actually a little less than their overall provincial gain. The Liberals were also trounced in BC, dropping 8% overall. Saanich swam against the tide, largely because of the elimination of the NDP candidate which allowed the Liberals to almost win the seat. Instaed of a 15% Lib to Con swing, as indicated in the provincial result, Saanich showed a 7% Con to Lib swing.
The strong BC swing to the Cons also complicates the conclusions of Alice Funke, cited above. She does not deal with the fact that there was a strong Conservative tide in BC in the last election.
A better example might be the BC results in the 2006 Federal election.Then there was no great tide. The Libs fell just 1% , the NDP gained 2%. Yet both won new seats. BC was the only province in which the Cons LOST seats, 5 of them, notwithstanding that their overall vote went up from 36.3% to 37.3%. Why was this? Is it only a coincidence that BC was the only province in which the Green vote dropped substantially in that election?
Correction, you have addressed the question now.
But this is all ad hoc. As such, there are easy answers to your sketpicism. Notably, but not excusively: where did that Conservative gain come from? Who did those people vote for before? You look at the shifts in raw numbers and it looks like its the drastic shrinkage of the Liberal vote... with the biggest chunk of those going to the Conservatives.
One can always find ground for ad hoc skepticism. You haven't commented on Alice Funke's methodology.
And Malcolm's analyis, you just brush off. [Which you initially did even more with Alice Funke's analysis.]
Malcolm's analysis is cited but all it says is that 70% of the opposition vote would have to be consolidated before the coalition would reach a majority. Malcolm certainly does not show that the Conservatives would not have lost numerous seats in the last election or indeed actually lose power in a closer election if there was an opposition electoral pact.
I'm not sure the second sentense makes sense: "does not show that the Conservatives would not have lost numerous seats." What he showed is that it would take the proposed "coalition" parties retatining 70% of their lost first choice votes, to do that.
And thats looking optimistically. Because as he noted he didn't even calulate for previously close seats the Conservatives could gain because of the dynamics of actual voter second choice/non-voting behaviour. And not to mention, that the Greens cannot afford to join such a pact, which takes their chunk out for starters.
You didn't comment on whether at least 70% retention was achievable, and/or quibble with Malcom's methodology, you appear to be just saying that Malcom didn't prove anything.
Mon, 2010-02-01 08:50
#19
The proposed strategic pact requires that the parties not run candidates in quite a number of ridings. This would have a number of consequences regardless of whether the pact got the desired results.
1.] Voter Cynicism. This is already very profound, effects us all, and is getting only worse. And the effects are not even equal. Republicans in the US and now the Conservatives in Canada, can turn disengagement and anti government sentiments to their strategic advantage. We can't. Removing party choices and "doing deals" will just further stoke this kind of cynicism.
2.] Disillussionment and disengagement of party activists. If you have ever been involved for any sustained period- more than one election- in a riding association , you would know how bitterly such a pact would be felt by most of those told to stand down. Look at the Central Nova Liberals. And Liberals are at least used to diktat from the centre. There would be mayhem in NDP riding associations... and at Council for New Democrats incensed that was done to other riding activists even if it did not effect them. And even the minority who thought it was all for the greater good, they'll fade into the woodwork as much as the really pissed riding activists. You don't just flick the switch next election and re-start a riding association. It isn't that easy in the best of times.
3.] Profoundly pissed party supporters. These are the people who simply will not vote for one of the other parties in the pact. And its not just losing their numbers to the strategic pact goals.... you are dissilussioning your core. Bad enough we have general voter apathy, but to even alienate your core when parties have ever less they can rely on? Great idea.
4.] Just the opposite for the Conservative Party. Oh boy, big gains for numbers and support of the Conservative core and supporters. And more reason for the Conservative voters to actually show up on election day... which is one of the biggest determining factors in any election.
These are all consequences to a strategic pact whether or not it succeeds. So to even be considered, there better be a very compelling case that it will most likely succeed.
These consequences should make 'maybe it will work' or 'we won't know unless we try' into non-starters.
Mon, 2010-02-01 13:04
#20
With regard to Edmonton-Strathcona, it is important to remember that the main reason the Conservatives lost that riding is because of Rahim Jaffer. He did not run a good campaign and voters were not pleased and they demonstrated that at the ballot box, as was their right to do so. Next election there will be a new Conservative candidate, Ryan Hastman who already has a lot of experience working in Ottawa, including in the PMO. He is also bilingual and will be a formidable candidate.
Stephen Harper was reportedly furious at Rahim Jaffer for losing an Alberta seat and preventing the Conservatives from having a clean sweep of the province. I think the Conservatives intend to rectify what happened by re-taking the seat in the next election.
Mon, 2010-02-01 13:22
#21
Of course its their intention.
Bets?
Mon, 2010-02-01 19:55
#22
I've looked at Malcolm's origianl analysis on the other forum and I do not see that his figures contradict my position. He does say that there would have had to be a 70% net retention rate based on the last election for the NDP and the Liberals to achieve a majority between them. I agree that would be difficult to achieve. But look at his other numbers.
If there were only a 20% net retention rate, the Cons wd lose 11 seats, reducing them to 132 seats, the Liberals would get 88 and the NDP 41, putting them at rough parity with the Conservtives.
If the rate was 50%, the seat tallies would be C 119, L 99, N 44 and Bloq 44.
Either of these retention rates seem achievable based on the polls I earler cited. Imagine how much better the coalition prospects would have been with seat totals like these.
Let's look at just one of the polls quoted above in post #3, the Strategic Council poll.
Liberal second choices: C 23, N 39, G 13
NDP second choices: C 15, L 40, G 21
Green second choices: C 19, L 27, N 35
In other words the Lib preference for the other opposition parties over the Cons is 52 to 23, the NDP's is 61 to 15 and the Greens is 62 to 19.
In Australia there is a preferential voting system. It is very important whether an also ran party "directs" its preferences to one of the major parties. For many years the Democratic Labour Party was able to deliver uowards of 90% of its second preferences to the conservative Coailtion. In recent years the Greens have been able to deliver the vast majority of its seond preferences to Labour.
If there were some sort of electoral path here where a Liberal voter knew that voting NDP would put the Liberals into power I would expect that an even higher Liberal second preference would go to the NDP than what the polls indicate.
By the way, the Canadian Electoral Study has been cied several time s as indicating that Liberal voters would prefer the Conservatives to other parties. Can any of you who rely on the CES to support your positions actually tell us what the numbers are?
Mon, 2010-02-01 20:33
#23
remind
Really who cares if Stephen harper was furious or not augustus?!
And just because a sychophant CON, has worked in the PMO does not mean they are formidable.
Mon, 2010-02-01 20:39
#24
Edmonton-Strathcona is interesting because it is a riding in which the collapse of the Liberal vote really helped the NDP instead of the Conservatives. As was pointed out above by OO, in other ridings the collapse of the Liberals helped the Conservatives, but in E-S almost all the Liberal vote went NDP and put Linda Duncan over the top. Jaffer was not able to pick up any disaffected Liberals.
It appears that in that riding anti-Conservative voters knew that they had to concentrate behind Linda Duncan in order to beat the Cons, and that's what happened. Whether that is because the Liberal voters in E-S are more left-leaning than in other ridings or because Jaffer was such a lousy campaigner that he couldn't attract any of them, I don't know. But the collapse of the Liberal vote in that riding was certainly fatal for him. I certainly enjoyed seeing the NDP spoil the Conservatives from getting a sweep of Alberta.
As one article said, Linda Duncan threw a splash of orange in the form of a Halloween pumpkin into a sea of blue.
Mon, 2010-02-01 20:51
#25
remind
Damning with faint praise debator?
Mon, 2010-02-01 20:58
#26
No, I'm just explaining what happened in the riding and that it was a good outcome. It was meant as a positive. 
Mon, 2010-02-01 22:25
#27
remind
Really I find likening Linda Duncan to a pumpkin to be more than a bit sexist...and indeed disparaging.
Do not care whether or not is is a comment from someone else, you are reguritating it.
Mon, 2010-02-01 22:56
#28
RevolutionPlease
Yes remind.
And no to this joke of an idea.
Mon, 2010-02-01 23:11
#29
Same ole, same ole, Liberal sleaze.
Canadians got a good view how Liberals operate behind the scenes, when they think the public can't see them, from Topp's Coalition Memoirs. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice.......well you know the drill.
AOBL - Any Opposition But Liberal.
Mon, 2010-02-01 23:30
#30
Really I find likening Linda Duncan to a pumpkin to be more than a bit sexist...and indeed disparaging.
Do not care whether or not is is a comment from someone else, you are reguritating it.
Are you kidding? It has nothing to do with sexism or gender. The last election was in October 2008 - 2 weeks prior to Halloween. Orange refers to the NDP. The pumpkin refers to Halloween. The Edmonton Journal was commenting how the NDP coloured the Alberta map with an orange pumpkin in a sea of Conservative blue.
Does that make sense now?
"The NDP's Linda Duncan tossed a Halloween pumpkin at Alberta's blue Tory map Tuesday by evicting Conservative incumbent Rahim Jaffer from his long-time seat in Edmonton-Strathcona."
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/decisioncanada/story.html?id=...
Tue, 2010-02-02 00:31
#31
I have been accused of "wishful thinking" based on "thin evidence" and "fanciful assumptions." Yet it is my accusers who have not been able to quote a single poll or statistic and who engage in sweeping unsubstantiated assertions.
...
Surely it is time for KenS and Sean in Ottawa to share with us these secret numbers that allegedly support their position. I haven't seen them yet.
...
How do Ken and S in O explain results like Strathcona? 2006: C 42, N 32, L 18, G 8. 2008 C 42, N 43, L9 , G 6. Do they seriously maintain that most of the Liberal losses went to the Conservatives?
You can start by stopping misquoting people. Show me where I said I had secret numbers -- you are getting close to a lie here.
Show me where I said that most of the Liberal losses in a specific riding I never analyzed.
Stop lying when using my anme and my arguments and then I can respond to you.
I did say you were basing your argument on thin evidence, fanciful assumptions and wishful thinking to assume that ALL the vote would go to the opposition parties if any one of them was removed. You have no evidence to say that-- I can accept a majority of those who oppose the government would go to another opposition party but not all.
Then let's discuss coalition: several polls indicated that the coalition was less popular than the sum of its parts and that in part this was regarding the inclusion of the BQ. Many NDP and Liberal supporters would not trust a party in a coalition that was not loyal to the existance of the nation and many thought the BQ was in the coalition. I do not agree with either point but that is secondary. I said all along that you cannot add up the opposition parties and move the vote around predictably because there are many motivations in how people vote and who they vote against.
Now if you want to debate me stop making up positions I do not hold and claiming I made statements I never did. Overall perhaps you should refrain from quoting names of people unless you do it accurately.
There is a lot of polling date to support that not all supporters of any of he parties approved the coalition although a majority of them did at times.
While the current government is the conseratives and that makes all the opposition parties have something in common those opposition parties have a lot of differences as well and I have on principle promoted electoral reform but never voting for anyone who is nt your first choice-- we can debate that if you like. And I have said you cannot assume people will all have the same second choice. We can debate that as well but I am not going to be defending what you are pretending I am saying just so you can score a meaningless point against a straw man.
Tue, 2010-02-02 05:53
#32
This debate has become less than rationale now. I have accused no-one of lying and I have not attempted to misrepresent anyone's position.
To the contrary I have just been accused of saying that ALL the opposition votes would combine when I never came close to saying such a thing. The polls I have provided all show that a minority of the opposition parties' vote would gp Conservative as a second preference, certianly not ALL as Sean misreresents.
I have attempted to make responsible arguments backed up by statistics when I can. I have repeatedly asked for statistics on the othr side of the argument and precious little has been provided.
Instead I seem to be reliving the Jane Curtin role in the old Saturday night skit where Dan Ackroyd counters all her arguments with "Jane , you ignorant slut."
Tue, 2010-02-02 08:26
#33
Ok -- by all the vote I mean those who say they have a second choice you assume that all the vote would transfer if the party no longer existed -- OO upthread said why that makes no sense. The lying part was when you said that I was claiming some kind of secret numbers. I Never have. Nor did I get in the debate about one riding, Strathcona. Clearly you are not reading very well. My post does not say you accused me of lying-- I accused you of getting close to lying. Basic reading comprehension is not working in this thread. Read your posts and mine again before replying and you can see why I would be upset-- you are calling me out on things I never said and then now misrepresenting the reply-- I think here at least you are typing faster than you are thinking and I'll say again-- please be more careful when you start naming people that you get it right.
Also you zero in on the conservative vote going NDP-- I said you were acting as if all the vote would go to opposition parties if any one were removed-- you come back claiming I said something about the Conservative vote-- the Cons are not an opposition party and therefore I was not speaking about them.
Just slow down a little and then you will find you can debate this better.
The argument being made is that if you start removing opposition parties some of their vote might go to the government and you cannot assume that it would all go to other opposition parties-- since this was in the context of coalition I made the point that this could be substantial when you add issues like the BQ being involved. I think it is a pity as I would like to see Quebec fully participate in the national government but many Canadians are horrified by a separatist party being in any way involved in a coalition and therefore went to the government when this was proposed (this was the most accepted interpretation of the increase in Con support after the coalition was announced.)
Given the last error (you said I said you were accusing me of lying when in fact I suggested that it was you who was coming close to lying) it is now looking like you were reading sloppily rather than intentionally getting it wrong-- For that I apologize as I should not have suggested you were doing it on purpose but the fact that you are misrepresenting remains even if it is just from carelessness and not intentional. You can expect people to get upset when you start naming them and getting what they are saying very wrong.
Tue, 2010-02-02 18:26
#34
Apology accepted.
"Certainly not all in my previous point" was in fact very sloppy. I meant to say that certainly not all of the opposition vote would combine behind a single opposition candidate. I fully recognize that some would abstain and some go Conservative. I do maintain that the polls indicate that the lion's share would shift to the other opposition candidates in prefere3nce to the Conservatives.
As for "secret numbers" i was being a little ironic. I was not suggesting you were like Joe McCqrthy saying there were 312 Communistists i the State Department. I'm sorry if you took it that way. What I was really referring to was the repeated reference to the CES, perhaps not by yourself but others, that supposedly shows most Liberals would prefer the Conservatives to the other parties. This seems in conflict with the polls I cited. I don't believe anyone has actually provided the CES numbers on this issue. I would certainly like to see them. This would be a better basis for advancing this debate rather than merely asserting that they say this or that.
Wed, 2010-02-03 00:33
#35
Nicky, check your PMs.
Fri, 2010-02-05 15:39
#36
Really who cares if Stephen harper was furious or not augustus?!
And just because a sychophant CON, has worked in the PMO does not mean they are formidable.
It is significant when the leader of a party, who is also the Prime Minister, is personally angry with a candidate. It means that said candidate is unlikely to ever run for the party again. This means that conservatives in Edmonton Strathcona will be free of the weight of Rahim Jaffer next time. Even before his recent legal troubles, it was made clear that he would not be allowed to run again after his inept performance. Voters will have the opportunity to choose a fresh MP next time.
Mon, 2010-02-08 14:03
#37
Malcolm
One of the problems with any national projection based on these imaginary deals is that voter behaviour isn't constant. Doubtless there are parts of the country where Liberal voters, absent a Liberal candidate, are more likely to go NDP than Conservative. The projection I ran would not have captured that. But there will be other parts of the country where Liberal voters would vote Conservative in higher than average numbers. In much of Saskatchewan, the BC Interior and parts of rural Manitoba and Nova Scotia, the proportion of New Democrats who would vote Conservative is probably much higher than in Rosedale.
My problem with the "arguments" for this "strategy" is the usual refusal to admit that maybe, just maybe, simple arithmetic isn't going to provide the answer.
Finally, regarding second choices. It is almost inevitable that second choice standings will be nearly the reverse of first choice standings. The fewer first choice votes you have, the larger your pool of potential second choice votes. If the poll shows the Conservatives as the second choice of 10% and the NDP as the second choice of 20%, it means that the Conservatives were the second choice for 10 of the 62 (16%) who didn't vote for them whereas the NDP were the second choice for 20 of the 82 (24%) who didn't vote for them.
Thu, 2010-02-11 12:28
#38
Toay's EKOS poll asked about second choice support among voters for the various federal parties. The figures seem similar to the poll results taken during the last campaign and which I previously posted.
Second choices:
Overall. C 9.3%, L 16.6%, NDP 18.5, G 13.3, B 2.8, none 37.4
C voters. L 21.1, N 12.5, G 10.6, B 2.1, none 51.6
L voters: C 17.8, N 37.4, G 17.2, B 2.9, none 26.1
NDP voters: C 14.5, L 37.4, G 19.0, B 3,0, none 22.7
Green voters: C 9.7, L 26.1, N 25.7, B 6.4, none 30.0
Bloq: C 9.8, L 15.6, N 23.1, G 20.0, none 30.0
Comments, Sean and Ken?
Thu, 2010-02-11 17:21
#39
i fear that vote swapping will have the same result that strategic voting had in ontario in 1999.