Should progressive voters vote strategically? Lloyd Rang, political speech writer, consultant and president of LRC Communications, argues yes, while Jennifer Hollett argues no.

In the last Ontario election, just after Kathleen Wynne told voters she’d be stepping down as leader after the campaign, I asked a Liberal strategist why she didn’t simplify things for voters and resign on the spot. He said: “Our job is to litigate for a minority.”

To this day, that’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard in politics.

The belief that anyone — strategists, voters, party leaders — can “will” a minority is Atwood-level Canadian political fiction. It ignores a reality of our first-past-the-post Westminster system — which is that because we elect our local member, the system tends toward stable majorities. That’s why we’ve only had 13 minority parliaments federally, and why they’re even more rare provincially. Alberta, for instance, has never had a minority government.

So, historically, there’s a 75 per cent chance this election will result in a majority for somebody.

What do you do if the polls are close, you’re a progressive voter, and you don’t want to see a Conservative majority?

Let’s break it down.

For strategists, elections start with a base of safe seats where pluralities are measured in thousands of votes. In my home riding of Durham, for example, you could paint a fire hydrant blue and it would sit as a member of the Conservative caucus — and there are lots of seats like it in rural Ontario and Alberta.

For Liberals the safe seats are in Montreal and urban Ontario. The NDP have fewer safe federal seats to start, which is why they never form government. But barring a Kim Campbell-sized campaign cratering, if you live in a safe-seat riding, you don’t factor into an election strategy.

Next, there are swing ridings where the winner is decided by less than 5 per cent of the vote. Usually, swing ridings — like Peterborough in Ontario and South Surrey-White Rock in B.C. — alternate between Liberals and Conservatives. For progressive voters who want to stop a Conservative majority, voting for Liberals in a swing riding is a no-brainer, because there are only two viable local choices. Older, conservative voters generally have better turnout — so even if you find this election about as exciting as going to a Coldplay concert on Nyquil, you need to get to the polls.

Battleground ridings are places where vote splits between two parties allow a third to come up the middle. These are seats with a solid pool of progressive voters split between the Liberals and NDP. In seats like Edmonton Mill Woods or Kitchener-Conestoga, splits between the NDP and Liberals could end in a default win for the Conservative candidates. And with anywhere between 30 and 60 of these ridings up in play in this election, this is where your vote matters most.

So, what’s a centre-to-left voter to do? Well, if you live in a deep blue Tory riding like mine, you do what many of us do — vote your conscience every four years and work during the intervening years on good, local, progressive causes. But if you live in a battleground or swing riding, you have a serious choice to make.

I believe Canada under the Liberal government has made progress. On environmental, income equality and economic issues, they’ve done a lot of good. All of that progress would be rolled back by electing Conservatives — and it would stop plans to do even more. We know this. We’re seeing it now in Doug Ford’s Ontario.

The Big Debate:

Even if you’re a progressive who believes the NDP spin that Liberals only make “incremental” progress — surely making some progress is preferable to going backwards? Ontario proves that when people vote out of spite, you get spiteful governments. So, you have to ask yourself — are you a progressive, or a partisan?

If you believe in making progress — whether that’s on the environment, human rights or wealth inequality — it’s irresponsible to make choices that would take us backwards. I believe “voting my conscience” means voting to make progress, regardless of party.

If I lived in one of those very rare seats where the choice was between an NDP candidate and a Conservative, I’d vote for my local NDP candidate without hesitation. But the reality — on the ground and in our system — is that only Liberals and Conservatives have a chance of forming government, that government will most likely be a majority, and swing and battleground seats will come down to how many progressives vote Liberal.

Because — no matter what the pundits and strategists say — you can’t litigate for a minority.

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Lloyd Rang is a political speech writer, consultant and president of LRC Communications.

This federal election campaign we are spending far too much time talking about what will happen on election day, rather than what could, or should happen.

I’ve overheard many conversations, from Justin Trudeau’s SNC-Lavalin corruption and blackface, to Jagmeet Singh’s viral commitment to clean water in Grassy Narrows and stellar debate performances, only to lead back to a shrug and a plan to vote for the Liberals.

The justification is often “strategic voting.” This thinking is influenced by an ongoing media frame that paints our multi-party system as a two-way race between the Liberals and Conservatives, driven by an unhealthy obsession with public polling. This is a trap.

I ran in the last federal election for the NDP, in a competitive race against now Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland. In that election, the NDP, Liberals, and Greens all actively campaigned on electoral reform. Back then Freeland repeated in debate after debate, “This will be the last first past the post election.” Trudeau and Liberal candidates across Canada said the same thing. And voters believed them.

Yet here we are in 2019, again in a first-past-the-post system. That promise was a lie. Beyond consultation, the Liberal government hardly tried. Yet it is electoral reform that would have benefited the Liberals this campaign with their progressive branding in damage control.

I view strategy as how we turn what we have, into what we need, to get what we want. This definition is from a political mentor of mine, Harvard professor Marshall Ganz. He was responsible for the grassroots organizing model behind the election of U.S. President Barack Obama, back when most Americans thought electing a Black man in 2008 was impossible.

Canadians will tell you they don’t like having to vote for a candidate they don’t particularly believe in, to keep another candidate or party out of power in municipal, provincial, and federal elections. But they will out of fear, often citing “a lesser of two evils.”

Imagine that as Canada’s new slogan — “Lesser Evil.” In previous elections, desperate voters have turned to “vote pairing” or “vote swapping,” where people trade or swap their votes with strangers in another part of the country. Usually the trade is with someone in a riding where the local candidate has a greater chance of winning.

While creative and technically legal, this highlights that our system is broken. Our current first-past-the-post system doesn’t reflect that election night pie chart with overall proportion of the vote. The good news is it doesn’t have to be this way.

THE BIG DEBATE: For more opposing view columns from Toronto Star contributors, click here.

Mixed-member proportional representation is a system used in countries like New Zealand, Germany, and most recently, Thailand. It gives voters two votes: one for who will represent them locally, and one for the political party. This system, which is in the NDP platform, has led to greater diversity in parliament and increased voter turnout because people feel their vote matters.

I saw a tweet recently that read: “A vote for Green or NDP is a vote for the Conservatives.” Our system is failing us if we don’t believe voting for a party or candidate actually counts in Canada. And if that’s the case, why continue to support the parties that uphold this electoral system to remain in power? If you are “strategic voting,” know it is a game and you are being played. You are not changing the game.

I remember feeling the peer pressure to “vote strategically” in my early 20s, during the Mike Harris years in Ontario. It didn’t work and left me feeling cynical about politics at large. One of the reasons I later stepped into politics, is the sincere hope that things could be different, and better.

As a woman in politics, I often reflect on the women who fought for my right to vote, and the injustice of white women gaining that vote ahead of Indigenous and Asian women.

Voting matters. Ask any expert on social change and they will loop back to voting to make a difference. The idea of voting for someone or something you don’t believe in goes against the whole purpose and power of a vote. Don’t feel trapped. You don’t have to play their game.

Jennifer Hollett is a digital strategist and political commentator. She studied public policy at Harvard University, obtaining her MPA.

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