Dear Canadian friends:
Have people seen the Anti-Harper Vote Swap facebook group and how do you feel about? (I tried including a link but it only works if you’re logged into facebook – so just search for it.) While I appreciate the motive behind it, and agree with what they are trying to do (stop the Conservatives from getting a majority, thereby saving the world), the idea of vote swapping makes me very uncomfortable.
In other news, I got my mail-in ballot yesterday. Weirdly, there are no boxes to check – you just write in the name of the candidate you’re voting for. And it was kind of exciting to get my Elections Canada envelope. I still sort of get naively excited about the concept of voting, despite the period of despair that inevitably follows the election, due to a depressing outcome that is a result our completely undemocratic way of counting votes. But I still have a few weeks left to hope in vain.
Arrg,
Xandra A.
I can appreciate the motivation behind organized vote swapping. It’s the closest we can get under our first-past-the-post system to proportional representation. I joined the group, largely out of curiosity, after I read about it in the paper.
Every part of my being tells me Harper is a scary motherfucker and needs to be blocked from a majority government (I no longer hold any illusions that he won’t win a minority at the very least). However, I find myself largely disappointed with the rest of the parties and their leaders (although I feel comfortable throwing my support behind at least two reps in my riding) and so I still have no idea who to vote for. I feel that a large part of Canada feels the same way.
I’m also terrified that the Conservative supporters have infiltrated the vote swap group saying they want to throw their support behind someone other than the Cons, but that when it comes down to voting day, they’ll vote Conservative instead of the party their swapping partner chooses. Maybe I have trust issues.
I can appreciate the motivation behind it, too, but I think the potential for abuse is just so, so high. I think we have the same trust issues. I just am so utterly disgusted with the fact that our system is so fucked up that people even have to consider something like vote-swapping. And maybe I’m too pessimistic, but I just don’t feel like this will work. There’s no way to mobilize the number of people that would be necessary for it to have a real effect – and trying to do it on facebook excludes a huge demographic from the conversation (I am thinking of people who are older, or people who are of lower socio-economic classes who don’t have the same access to online information).
I voted already, and I ultimately based my decision on who my local candidates were. It was hard though – I was really torn between Green and NDP for a while, and even still, I know my little lefty vote probably won’t count for much, but I really felt like I needed to be honest and vote for what I wanted, instead of voting strategically, and hopefully a show of support for a party I believe in will at least count for something. I also wonder if all of the weird strategic voting and vote-swapping somehow undermines the votes of people who don’t vote strategically. I don’t know. The only real solution is obviously much-needed electoral reform, but who knows if that will ever happen.
I hate to take a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” approach, but the first-past-the-post system undermines the votes of everyone who doesn’t vote for the party that wins. Strategic voting is inconsistent with the values of a democracy; but it’s somehow the only viable, yet warped, choice we have to make our vote count for something. I’m just too afraid of Harper’s next reign of terror.