Naomi Klein told a standing room only audience last week that the left needs to form a coalition to defeat the Conservatives.

Afterwards, people remained in the hall to discuss strategic voting in the federal election. Klein recommended a national coalition called VotePair, which has set up a vote-coordinating web site.

She did state incorrectly, however that the site is set up as a means to defeat Conservatives. That is in fact untrue. Pair Vote is a service to *any* voter who wants to make their vote count in this election. There are orphan voters on all sides of the political spectrum.

From the article Naomi Klein: “It’s time to grow the hell up” [Briarpatch Magazine]

Personal. Passionate. Motivated to action. Thanks for sharing, Bob.

Dear [first name field],

This letter is blatantly political, but it is also personal. And urgent. I’ve been watching the federal election campaign with something bordering on despair. In all my 63 years, I have never known a government less in tune with my values than this one – and that is going some. By the polls, most of us feel kinda the same way. But we are divided among four parties, and that may allow Harper and his cronies to waltz back into power.

Skip to the next paragraph if you like, but I gotta get this 100-word rant off my chest: “In two years under Harper, Canada has become one of the worst heel-draggers on global warming. Our military has shifted from peace keeping to war making. Where we once welcomed war resistors, we now turn them away. In April, the Conservatives de-regulated and privatized food inspection, and we know what happened in August. They plan to do the same for the airline industry. Prisons, they say ‘are for punishment.’ And for 14 year olds. They don’t much like the arts and they don’t get the internet. I could go on. If Harper wins his majority, I shudder to think how, well, American, Canada will become.” End of rant.

What – as William Bendix used to say – a revolting development this is!

And yet, something is afoot. I don’t know about you, but I have been receiving dozens of messages from friends and strangers talking about what amounts to do-it-yourself proportional representation. I can’t say I’ve become optimistic, but I do believe there are two effective things we can do.

The first is to make our votes count. We may not have rep by prop (we are one of the world’s most backwards democracies in this regard) but we can fake it. If I lived in Central Nova, I would vote for Elizabeth May in a heartbeat. But here in Nanaimo-Cowichan, to vote Green (or for that matter to vote Liberal), is, de facto, to vote Conservative. Lucky for me, our local MP, Jean Crowder, is good people, and anti-Harper through and through. I don’t have to hold my nose when I vote. (I just have to roll my eyes at Jack’s car-salesman style.) But if the best way to stop the Conservatives was to vote Liberal, this time I would. With glowing heart. (Registered trademark, 2010 Olympics, all rights reserved.)

Fortunately, voting strategically has just gotten a whole lot easier. There is now an amazing website, www.voteforenvironment.com, that is tracking every riding in the country and making up-to-the-minute suggestions on how best to fight Harper. It is the coolest example of Canadian grassroots democracy since the Free Trade comic book.

So that is the first thing to do: check out www.voteforenvironment.com.

And there is another thing just as important. This happens to be a time when our ability to communicate with one another has never been greater. To contact you with this message, I just had to overcome my reticence about doing it. (I’m Canadian, after all.) The rest, nowadays, is easy. If you do it too, if you contact your friends and colleagues, acquaintances and list-mates, and let them know what you are thinking, we could actually affect the results in some key ridings and, who knows, we might even affect more than that. It’s worth a try.

bb

Bob Bossin
Old folksinger

Got this email today from a pair voter working hard for change in Victoria, BC. Nice work, Silvia!

Here is a copy of a letter to the editor I sent to Monday Magazine (a weekly) in Victoria, BC, in response to an article they ran on strategic voting.

I have also emailed everyone on my email suggesting they visit [www.votepair.ca] and see if they think it is a fit for them.

Subject: Letter to the editor re: Stratego

Dear Editor;

Thank you to Sid Tafler for drawing our attention to the concept of strategic voting (”Stratego” September 25-October1). Readers may be interested in a non-partisan website, www.votepair.ca, which matches voters with others who wish to swap voting locations with them. For many, this is the only chance to have their vote count in our first-past-the-post-system.

For example, if I wish to vote Green but feel it would be a throwaway vote in my riding, and the website can find me a match in a riding where a Green vote might realistically contribute to a win, but where, for example, the Liberal candidate has no chance, whereas in my riding the Liberal candidate does, then that other Liberal voter and I would agree to “swap” votes. S/he would agree to vote Green and I would agree to vote Liberal. Both of us would benefit.

Lest others wonder, this practice has been deemed legal by Elections Canada. Also, the website is open to voters of all stripes. I never vote without getting a shiver down my spine – and this is a way to make our precious democracy even more so.

Silvia Schriever

Everything you could possibly want to know about the pair voting process, the current stats on voters and what you can do to make a difference (in addition to pair voting) is here.

With just under a week left in pair vote registration, the NDP and Greens are in a tight race for the most voters in swing ridings. Winner gets to go first in the pair voting matching process (read how the process works).

In terms of total number of registered voters, the NDP are also slightly ahead of the Greens:

Ottawa South is the top ranked NDP riding while Vancouver Centre and Central Nova are tied for top spot for the Greens.

Conservative party supporters and political pundits, decide what ridings the Conservative party has the best chance of winning. Refer to this list of 68 ridings with the closest contests.

Just a reminder that the pair vote process will use the riding rankings here to allocate seats, so be careful what you wish for.

Deadline to vote: Friday, October 3

Add information about potential ridings in the comments below, to help people vote.

Vote and /or add a new riding (This requires an account at Squidoo, just register and continue, sorry for that but I’m just one guy trying to use whatever free and simple tools I can find to make this process work!)

You can also embed this list in your own site and have people vote there.

Are you a neglected and abused citizen who yearns to be represented in Parliament, only to be turned away because your vote elects no one?

OrphanVoter.ca is a campaign launched by Fair Vote Canada to reach out to these neglected voters. This is a fun and informative site that has all kinds of stats on how many people elected no one last time around, nationally, provincially and in each riding. They also have a contest this election for people to guess how many votes won’t count, both nationally and in each province.

More from Orphan Voter Facebook group:

The throngs of orphans include Liberals in the West, Conservatives in urban centres, and New Democrats and Greens everywhere. In fact, the MAJORITY of Canadians who cast ballots in federal elections usually elect no one. Last election, most Canadians casting ballots – 7,584,409 in fact – were abandoned by our political system.

Why are so many voters deserted & ignored by our uncaring electoral system? Most of us live in ridings where the winner is a foregone conclusion, and it’s only in a few dozen “swing” ridings where the election will be decided and which get most of the attention. Moreover, in each riding only the voters supporting the most popular party can elect an MP: the other voters send no one to Ottawa. And because politicians can win seats even when the majority vote against them, the overall election results are skewed. In fact a party often wins a majority of seats
without even winning a majority of votes.

Join other orphan voters across the country to demand a fairer system from our politicians. After all, there’s more of us than there is of them.

Bloc party supporters and political pundits, decide what ridings the Bloc party has the best chance of winning. Refer to this list of 68 ridings with the closest contests.

Just a reminder that the pair vote process will use the riding rankings here to allocate seats, so be careful what you wish for.

Deadline to vote: Friday, October 3

Add information about potential ridings in the comments below, to help people vote.

Vote and /or add a new riding (This requires an account at Squidoo, just register and continue, sorry for that but I’m just one guy trying to use whatever free and simple tools I can find to make this process work!)

You can also embed this list in your own site and have people vote there.

Liberal party supporters and political pundits, decide what ridings the Liberal party has the best chance of winning. I plan to add to this list soon, but figured I’d get it up sooner than later so people could start adding and voting for their picks. Refer to this list of 68 ridings with the closest contests.

Just a reminder that the pair vote process will use the riding rankings here to allocate seats, so be careful what you wish for.

Deadline to vote: Friday, October 3

Add information about potential ridings in the comments below, to help people vote.

Vote and /or add a new riding (This requires an account at Squidoo, just register and continue, sorry for that but I’m just one guy trying to use whatever free and simple tools I can find to make this process work!)

You can also embed this list in your own site and have people vote there.

Holy cow. In Elizabeth May’s words:

“I’d rather have no Green seats and Stephen Harper lose, than a full caucus that stares across the floor at Stephen Harper as prime minister, because his policies are too dangerous,” she said.

So determined is May to keep Harper from power she also told the Star she wants Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton to join her in a pact to beat Conservatives candidates.

The Green, Liberal and New Democratic parties should prevent vote-splitting that would favour Conservatives, and carve up electoral ridings according to who has the best chance of winning, May said. “We sit down and say, `Who has the best chance of winning in all these ridings?’ What I’ve been calling for is proportional representation by other means.”

Pair voting is one method of strategic voting that lets people still get a vote for their preferred party. I doubt any party will come out and endorse pair voting because it is new and less understood in Canada, so that means those of us inspired by the idea need to reach out to fellow party supporters and invite them to participate.

Read the rest of the Toronto Star article.