Strategic voting could play big role in election

REGINA – As the debate heats up in the federal election, some people are considering casting their ballots strategically to keep certain parties from forming government.

“If my party is definitely going to lose, it’s nice to see people you definitely don’t want in not to win. So yes I will be a victim of that,” explained voter Bryce Gamache.

Others just can’t bring themselves to vote for someone they don’t whole-heartedly believe in.

“I’m going to vote for who I think is the best candidate for the position. That’s who I’m going to vote for,” said Jim Rines.

Strategic votes could be especially valuable this election.

“It’s really important because we’ve got the three parties, and even though the NDP have slipped a little bit, they’re all still really, really close,” said Jim Farney, a political scientist at the University of Regina.

Locally, the riding that could be most impacted by strategic voting is newly drawn up Regina-Lewvan.

“Nationally, and in a lot of ridings, we’re going to see riding decided by under 1,000 votes,” Farney said. “The government will be decided based on those close races, Regina Lewvan is one of them.”

The biggest driver of tactical voting is a desire for change.

“How can we coordinate this so the ‘Anybody But Harper’ candidate wins? Everybody is voting for a Liberal or an NDP candidate.”

There are a number of websites floating around designed to educate voters on the best tactical vote. One of them, strategicvoting.ca was made by Hisham Abdel-Rahman, an IT manager from Calgary, Alberta.

“It is absolutely amazing, the response I am getting,” he said.

His website points voters towards the candidates most likely to knock off the Conservatives, using 2011 election results and recent riding polls. It has over 500,000 users and over a million page views.

“I’m keeping the website as transparent as I can, so people can see for themselves why I’m choosing this candidate and not this candidate and judge for themselves,” Abdel-Rahman explained.

He said he has no party biases and has voted for all three major parties in the past.

In ridings where the Conservatives are unlikely to lose, he’s encouraging strategic voters to support the Green Party.

This year though, votes don’t count for money. Stephen Harper eliminated that ahead of this year’s election.

“Votes don’t equal money, if you want to give people money you have to write a cheque,” said Farney.

If you’re struggling to vote strategically, there are always other options.

“Maybe you’re better off registering a protest vote and you genuinely want to vote for that person that you know isn’t going to win, but really articulates something important to you,” he added.