Orphaned Voter

Dear Mr. Mulcair,

Congratulations on your election to Leader of the NDP!  I was impressed during your campaign by your commitment to progressive ideals, electoral reform, and the environment.  I really hope you can engage young voters – who historically don’t come out to vote in large numbers – and also reach out to the millions who have given up voting entirely.

I’m writing to you to ask that you don’t discount the powerful idea of cross-party cooperation called for my various organizations such as LeadNow, Avaaz, and fellow NDP member Nathan Cullen during his campaign.  Nathan’s strong showing in the race, and increased discussion of the idea inspired many polls that clearly show that the idea of cooperation among parties to oust Harper is popular – especially in certain ridings – and I feel it would be a tremendous shame to dismiss this fact going forwards.

The election of Elizabeth May last year, and the NDP’s surge in Quebec, was small consolation for the false majority government we ended up with.  What good is gains like that when progressives effectively have 0% of power?  And I’m intimately familiar with how vote-splitting in a relatively few number of ridings caused the CPC majority to happen.

I know there’s time before the next election, and lots can happen.  Maybe the Liberals will fade completely, making the notion of cooperation unnecessary.  Maybe support for the Conservatives will collapse over some other scandal – although their supporters seem remarkably indifferent to the myriad of scandals and lies that have been exposed already.  But maybe, despite the NDP’s best efforts, the Liberals gain enough traction to again set the stage for disastrous vote-splitting again in the next election, resulting in another false majority for Harper.

Should that happen… I would hope the NDP, Liberals, and Greens recognize the grave danger such a scenario presents to Canada, and work together for not just mutual gain, but for Canada.  And then when you get power, please fix our voting system so we don’t have to endure this kind of false majority ever again!

Thank you.

It’s hard for me to explain without getting emotional why Nathan Cullen is my first choice for leader of the NDP.

Backstory

I’m originally from Bermuda, and although it’s a wonderful place to visit, I found it small and stifling after living there all my life.  In addition, I was struggling to come to terms with my sexuality – although homosexuality wasn’t illegal there, there was certainly a general undertone of homophobia.

I had many choices on where to move. I’m British, and have right-of-abode in the UK or elsewhere in Europe. I strongly considered and started the application process for Australia too. But ultimately, I chose Canada. I had friends from University, and Canada was well-respected on the world stage as an advocate of peace, was advancing gay rights, had public health care, and seemed to me a country moving in the right direction environmentally and in social values.

I got my Permanent Residency and moved to Canada in 2000.

I couldn’t vote until I became a citizen in November 2004 (although I volunteered for the local Green candidate in the 2004 Federal election). Since then, there have been three Federal elections (2006, 2008, 2011), and two Ontario elections (2007, 2011).

• In 2006, I voted Green. No Green MPs were elected.
• In 2007 (Ontario), I voted Green. No Green MPs were elected.
• In 2008, I voted Green. No Green MPs were elected (our local MP had a good chance in a by-election, before Harper cancelled that with a general election).
• In 2011, I wanted to vote Green. But I was terrified of a Conservative majority. I tried a “vote swap”, and voted for our Liberal candidate, who won. But the Conservatives won a false majority regardless.
• In 2011 (Ontario) election, I voted for the NDP (my candidate didn’t win).

To say I’ve been disillusioned with our voting system is an understatement. I’ve known for years how awful the First Past the Post system is, how badly it skews voter intention. That’s why I made this site.

I followed the referendum for MMP in Ontario, and watched how badly that effort unfolded. The Liberals didn’t really back it, Elections Ontario wasn’t funded properly to educate people, and the question itself was confusing.

I’m frustrated. I’ve always voted. But I’ve never felt that it really counted.

And in the meantime, I’ve watched Canada, this country I fell in love with and decided to move to, fall to a virulent, win-at-all-costs, Republican/neo-conservative ideology under Harper.

A party that claims to be “conservative”, but is anything but (yet former Progressive-Conservative supporters still vote for them because… well, who knows why?  I honestly don’t think they really know what they’re voting for half the time, they just vote that way out of tradition and misinformation).  A party that seems to care more about Big Oil, corporate subsidies, and tax breaks and loopholes for the wealthy, and wilfully ignores the environment, despises public services like the CBC and health care, and has been ignoring education. A party that centralizes power in the PMO, lies to Canadians, scoffs at election laws, builds expensive prisons and buys overpriced jets, joins wars, tacitly endorses torture, and has made our country among the very worst offenders on climate change talks.

The election of Elizabeth May in 2011, and the NDP’s surge in Quebec, was small consolation for the false majority government we ended up with.  What good is gains like that when they effectively have 0% of power?  And I’m intimately familiar with how vote-splitting in a relatively few number of ridings caused the CPC majority to happen.

Nathan Cullen came to my attention in January.

His proposal – joint nomination meetings in Conservative-held seats – spoke to me.  It makes sense.  From a purely logical point of view, if we want to remove Harper, the only safe way to do so is for the opposition parties to work together strategically for mutual gain.

I know some in the NDP might consider being “forced” to vote for a Liberal in their riding anathema, but here’s the thing: there’s time to grow the NDP numbers. If you can swing your riding to be more NDP than Liberal, great – win that nomination meeting and get an NDP candidate to vote for! If not, the safe, smart thing to do is to remove the element of vote-splitting, and support a candidate that isn’t Conservative.  Our voting system has been twisting voter choice for too long. Winning a progressive majority so we can fix our voting system once and for all is key.

Cullen was – and still is – the only candidate in the leadership race proposing a cooperative approach to politics to defeat Harper.  But as I read more about him, I learned he was so much more.

He was the NDP’s environment and natural resources critic. He opposes Big Oil, standing up to powerful interests with the Enbridge Pipeline, fighting for the communities that stand to be affected by it. He’s pro-business, and has fantastic ideas to keep Canada competitive while also transition us to a much-needed Green economy.

I watched him in debates, then saw him in-person when he visited Kitchener.  He is smart, tremendously charismatic, funny, and sincere.  He is young and his fresh ideas and optimism surely will draw in at least some of the disillusioned who gave up voting long ago, and attract new members to the NDP.  Quebec likes him and his plan for cooperation. He can build working, cooperative relationships with the Liberals and Greens that can give Canada the progressive government we deserve. I dare say he could swing many “small c” conservatives too.

And I think he’d absolutely wipe the floor with Harper in a debate.

He gives me hope – something I’ve had so little of lately.

Please vote for him. And if you can, donate and/or volunteer for his campaign.

Through my support for Nathan Cullen, I’ve contacted the Citizens for Cross Party Cooperation in Kitchener/Waterloo. I’m hoping to see Nathan in-person when he visits Kitchener on Thursday; it was requested that I try to come up with ideas for materials for that group to show and distribute at the rally.

This is an idea I quickly came up with – just wanted something simple to show how together, the NDP, Liberals, and Greens can win over Conservatives in their ridings (the numbers in this image are from Kitchener Centre).

Don’t have much time before then, but I’d appreciate input on the slogan(s), general look, etc.  One person expressed uncertainty over the “Progress. Together.” line, thinking it reminded her of McGuinty and wasn’t sure how NDP supporters might take that (even though she liked the simplicity and meaning of the two words)…

Some other slogans I considered:

It’s been a while since I posted something here. I wanted to post analyses of the various Provincial elections that took place throughout Canada last year, after the Federal election… as usual, the results were fertile ground for showing just how awful our voting system is and how it skews voter intention in the seat allocations. Frankly, it’s depressing, and given various other stresses I’ve been under, I just couldn’t get my head into it.

The unfortunate passing of Jack Layton last year has led to the NDP now having a race for a new leader.  And out of the many candidates, one stands out to me: Nathan Cullen.

Before the last election I wrote an open letter to Jack Layton, Michael Ignatieff, and Elizabeth May – which I doubt any actually read, but I posted it anyway – which described how I felt that working together strategically in various ridings was the best way to give Canadians a progressive, working government, and a path towards electoral reform.  My thinking was – and still is – that:

• sharing power between the NDP, Liberals, and Greens is still better than them having no power at all if the Conservatives won a false majority.
• working together would engage traditional non-voters who have grown accustomed to their voice not counting under FPTP, and result in higher turnouts.
• we could see politics in Canada become one where reasoned argument and compromise would be the basis of legislation, rather than the dogma of one party.
• voters wouldn’t feel like they had to vote for the lesser of two evils, be threatened that they needed to vote a certain way, even if it wasn’t their first choice, or – as many tried – entertain notions of vote-swapping in a loosely-organized effort. Instead, the parties worked strategically so voters didn’t have to.

Obviously, this failed to transpire, and we can see the results today in a Parliament comprised of a majority of Conservatives who received 39% of the vote, and record-low turnout at the polls.  My letter was written before the decline of the Bloc in Quebec, and the rise of the NDP in that province, but I think the principle still stands on its own merits – after all, the NDP gains outside of Quebec were quite modest… vote-splitting in Ontario was a major factor in giving the Conservatives a majority.

Nathan Cullen

Charismatic, fluent in English and French, world-wise, experienced campaigner against Conservative candidates, a champion for the environment, and a sincere backer of Proportional Representation, I think Nathan Cullen would be an ideal leader.

But there’s more – he has a plan to win that doesn’t rely on blind hope and fighting against the Greens, Liberals, and Conservatives – the old-fashioned politics that have led us to this state where the unified right profits from a fractured left under our broken First-Past-the-Post electoral system. He wants to cooperate strategically; pretty much the same thing I was hoping for last year.

In a nutshell, he proposes that in Conservative-held ridings, the riding associations decide in conjunction with the Liberals and Greens whether they want to field a single candidate between them, and vote on which.  With clear communication to their supporters in that riding as to why they’re doing this, the goal is that their candidate will win over the Conservatives where before vote-splitting cost them, and led to Harper’s majority.

Brian Topp, Thomas Mulcair, Peggy Nash, and the other candidates dismiss this strategy, outright or without seeming to grasp the elegance of the plan.  They think that Liberal supporters, denied a Liberal candidate in their riding, would instead vote Conservative in great numbers (some say as much as 50%!) – or NDP supporters, denied an NDP candidate, would do the same.

I think they’re wrong, and not giving these voters enough credit. The voters in these ridings aren’t stupid. These are voters who absolutely know how vote-splitting has given the Conservatives a majority of seats, and I think many of them are not happy with this situation.  Given a solution that might give their party a voice in government – even if it means they have to vote for “the other guy” – I think most would jump at the chance.  And I think apathetic non-voters in those ridings might vote as well.

Another argument is that denying an NDP supporter the chance to vote for an NDP candidate is unthinkable. To this, I’d simply say – our voting system is what has denies the NDP a voice in government. By not working strategically, by letting them vote NDP when doing so has a high probability of splitting the vote – that is what has cost the NDP and Liberals a voice. If you explain to those voters why you’re doing this (and as I said above, I think most would understand), they’ll accept it.  Particularly if the joint candidate runs with a combined party label (eg. “Bob Smith – (Liberal/NDP/Green Joint Nomination)”).

EKOS polling data just before the last election included information about voter’s second preferences – with that data, I previously simulated how an election using the Alternative Vote might have turned out.  But it was clear from the raw data that the majority of Green, Liberal, and NDP supporters had either another of those parties as a second choice – only about 15% of each would have chosen the Conservatives second.  This is quite different than the “50%” number – these people are progressive-leaning, and want a progressive government.

I would strongly recommend reading Stuart Parker’s study of Nathan Cullen’s proposal – The Logistics of Cooperation – for an in-depth explanation and analysis of the idea.  But in summary, he concluded that at best, 35 seats could be switched from Conservative to a cooperating party – at worst, they’d stay Conservative-held, which is exactly the same outcome as if no cooperation were attempted anyway. In my mind, why not try it?

(Of course, the NDP shouldn’t rely on this strategy alone, and Cullen doesn’t propose that. They’d still need to push for more of the rural vote across the prairies and the maritimes, for example – traditional Conservative strongholds. But fighting the Liberals and Greens tooth-and-nail should not be relied on; this just benefits the Conservatives)

Tomorrow I hope to post an analysis I did of my own, based on the election results and the “second choice” selections of voters, to illustrate how Cullen’s proposal might work.

This is the result of many hours of work. I wanted to come up with a way of viewing Canada’s 308 ridings based not on their geographical area, but as the groups of voters that they are. Luke Andrews did a great example of this kind of map, and that inspired me to make my own, but using hexagons instead of squares. I took great care to try to keep the ridings positioned next to their neighbours as best as I could.

I coupled the resultant cartogram with the output of some of my analyses of the election results, to generate the following interactive tool. I hope you like.

I have moved the tool to its own page. Click the image above to go to it!