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Strategic voters helped the Liberals more than any other party, according to an Angus Reid poll published Friday. The research confirms suspicions that many Canadians begrudgingly voted Liberal in order to prevent an alternative party from winning.

“This wasn’t an election where people were feeling particularly inspired to vote for something,” says Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute. “They were voting defensively.”

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After polling potential voters throughout the election, Angus Reid went back and interviewed participants who had been undecided three weeks before election day. Between Oct. 21 and 22, the pollsters conducted an online survey of more than 1,500 late-deciding voters.

Policy platforms were less important to these voters than was strategy, which benefited the Liberals most, the survey found. Just one-third of Liberal voters and 42 per cent of Conservative voters in the survey were primarily motivated by the party’s policies, while 45 per cent of Liberal voters and one-quarter of Tory voters were primarily motivated by a desire to vote strategically.