Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Strategic Voting Did NOT Help Stephen Harper In BC

AllTheSmartCitizensThatFit
BuildingABigTentWhenThePoliticalPartiesWon'tVille

Look.

The Spinners and the proMedia Pundits who are their wilfully ignorant Tops are quickly turning this 'strategic voting is bad for progressives' business into conventional wisdom.

I have crunched the numbers and, for British Columbia at least, this is pure codswallop.

In fact it is quite the opposite.

I'll be back with a full, evidence-based and numbers-filled report soon (sorry, I'm doing in the lunch hour rush of a busy science-geek day with the gradual students). However, I did do a quick narrative analysis in the comments to a David Beer's post over at The Tyee here.

OK?


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Hey! .....Speaking of science-geeks and smart kids, check this out!

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14 comments:

Rod Smelser said...

Yesterday, I wondered out loud what all the strategic voting afficianados would be saying today.

I have to admit, I wasn't expecting them to have much on offer, but to see this kind of detailed run down of just how clever those voters were who did, or at least appeared to do what the strategic voting gurus told them to do is really quite amazing.

I have to say I find the endless hand wringing and wailing over the fate of one ambitious politico, Ujjal Dosanjh, to be nothing short of hair-raising. Does this man place some kind of spell over some people?

Anonymous said...

Surrey North, Esquimalt Juan de Fuca and Sanich Gulf Islands were won by strategic voting. Anyone that says otherwise is just delusional just like the media pundits that don't know the ABC of voting patterns. The biggest margin of any strategic voting campaign was in Guelph. NDP and Green candidates were told by the voters while door knocking that strategic voting was their number one consideration in that riding.

As for Dosanjh he lost because of strategic voting against him and he probably deserved it.

RossK said...

I don't get your logic Rod.

Honestly.

Have you looked at the rolling polls of Lib support in Vancouver Esquimalt prior to that Oracle poll that was commissioned by Project Democracy was released last Friday? Clearly, once voters (ie. people, not parties) saw that the NDP surge was for real they completely laid off the Lib candidate and put Garrison over the top.

Anon-Above -- I completely agree with you on the three you picked. In addition, I think you could argue that Dosanjh lost because of the LACK of a significant Strat Vote by NDP supporters in South Van with long memories.

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Tony Martinson said...

I'm just not convinced that Lib voters made the specific choice to line up behind the NDP candidate to stop the Cons. Iggy did not inspire; Jack did. The Lib vote simply collapsed.

Esquimalt is a poor example of the strat vote. It typically gets a strong provincial NDP vote. The previous votes were not Lib votes, but Keith Martin votes, so his absence was the game changer more than the strat vote.

This doesn't mean I can't be convinced I'm wrong. I just have not been convinced yet.

macadavy said...

Vancouver Centre: the Cons & New Dems were neck-and-neck, with the dipper actually up two whole votes over the Con! What effect did greenie spoiler Carr's siphoning off 15.4% of the vote have?

Green Party Adriane Carr 9,090 15.4%
Conservative Jennifer Clarke 15,323 26.0%
Liberal Hedy Fry 18,267 31.0%
New Democratic Party Karen Shillington 15,325 26.0%

RossK said...

macadavy--

I agree with you on this one....As I said during the play-by-play, this is the one riding I felt I mis-called...Thing is, if I remember correctly it was the Greeniac Carr we were arguing about before the fact...I don't know anyone who saw that strength for the Dipper ahead of time (unless I misread what you were saying - if so, apologies).

Tony-- Interesting point about Esq....Thing is that Fed Riding is way, way more than just Esq...If what you said is really the case, how did it stay Dr. K for so long....And, why was the polling so strong for the Liberal candidate early in the 2011 campaign...

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paul said...

Tony:
You can never know for sure, but the evidence for the impact of strategic voting is pretty convincing in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca (my riding). The Liberal vote was roughly half what it was in the two elections before Keith Martin switched to the party, and was winning as a Reform/Alliance candidate. That's a pretty dramatic shift.
And the Liberal candidate attracted about 13,000 fewer votes than Martin did in 2008, while the New Democrat candidate picked up about the same number of votes. You would expect, I think, Martin supporters who didn't consider themselves Liberals to migrate to NDP and Conservatives; most went NDP this time.
There were also about 6,000 more votes cast.
Cheers
Paul

macadavy said...

Hey Ross, no apology required! Van Ctr's special to me because I happen to live here - I do not view it with objectivity as you do. I'm also (full disclosure) a card-carrying Dipper who has a hate on for Hedy. Especially after my appeal to my MP for help w/my medicinal cannabis appy (then 7mths & pending) was completely ignored - not even the insult of a form letter fluff-off. I will wreak my revenge - hell hath no fury like a faggot scorned! ;-)

RossK said...

Fair enough macadavy.

And yours are the best of retail reasons for deciding who you are going to vote for.

Again, in any other election I wouldn't have been so strident about this stuff....It's just that unlike most of the pundits, I saw the Con wave coming....Heck over at Eric Grenier's 308.com I even suggested that there might be a soft Lib backlash in Ontario that would go Con to counterbalance Quebec voter's desire to move, collectively, to the Dippers.....Boy, did people go crazy over there when I suggested that, accusing me of everything you can imagine - including some kind of bizarre, reverse lingual-raciscim or some darned thing...And, well....now we know how it all turned out, even in central (ie. previously Rob Ford-impervious) Toronto....

Here's the real thing....If Ontario hadn't gone so far Con, if you look hard at the numbers and then squint a little, I think you will see that the folks that voted strategically, hard, in Lotusland might have actually stopped the Cons at the last minute (unless, of course, it had come down to 154 + Van South where the hard core Dipper voters threw out Ujji- that would have been ironic in the extreme).


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Just did a thought experiment with myself....What if I lived in VanSouth instead of Kingsway.....Would I/could I vote Ujji?....Hmmmm....I'm really getting your point now macadavy. Thanks.

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Rod Smelser said...

Alice Funke has covered these subjects authoritatively and honestly.


For that very reason, her analysis is of no use to those who are fully pre-occupied by intensely emotional personal agendas.


http://www.punditsguide.ca/2011/05/splits-decisions-a-closer-look-at-vote-shifts-in-greater-toronto/


http://www.punditsguide.ca/2011/04/why-the-conservatives-love-the-strategic-voting-sites/

RossK said...

Thanks for the links Rod.

As for the dig...well...

macadavy said...

Hey Rod: "For that very reason, her analysis is of no use to those who are fully pre-occupied by intensely emotional personal agendas."

Thanks for the wake-up call - there are so many more important things involved with this than my personal agenda!

Rod Smelser said...

"Thanks for the wake-up call - there are so many more important things involved with this than my personal agenda!"


For four elections in a row the public has been read the same script by Liberals, based on the personal career ambitions of their "star candidates".

Someone might think this election ended that, but I doubt it.

RossK said...

Rod--

Please understand that macadavy did NOT vote for HFry in Van Ctre.

Specifically, he is someone who argued very rationally against strategic Con-Stop voting in that riding.

And he did this before the election.

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